Last night at the SFU/City of Surrey Transportation Lecture Program, I had the chance to listen to Paul de Leur, PhD from ICBC talk about road safety and design. I asked him what the safest kind of intersection and most dangerous was, and also the safest kind of road and most dangerous was.
Roundabouts are by far the safest type of intersection because they reduce the amount of conflict points in an intersection. T-bone collisions are replaced with side swipe collisions which are significantly less lethal. Signalized intersections that meet at non-90 degree angles are the most dangerous as there are a large amount of conflict points.
As far as road design goes freeways reduce the amount of minor collisions, but increase the amount of collisions that end in someone being dead as compared to any other type of road.
In Surrey, according to Jaime Boan, 7% of the total transpiration capital budget over the next 10 years is dedicated exclusively to cycling and walking. Of the City's road building budget, 25% gets spent on sidewalks and bike lanes. That's a pretty big change when you think about the fact that Surrey didn't even build sidewalks until the 1990's!
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