Are Two-way Bike Lanes Really More Dangerous?

Abstract

Two-way bike lanes are often considered more dangerous than one-way ones, but few studies have compared the injury rates of both types of infrastructure in the same city. Relying on municipal open data on cyclist counts and traffic injuries, this article compares cyclist injury rates between one-way and two-way bike lanes for the years 2020-23 in Barcelona. I find that one-way bike lanes in fact have slightly statistically higher injury rates than two-way lanes, but this effect is small and likely attributable to the preponderance of one-way lanes in the central Eixample district.