Bike Lanes Make Roads Safer For Everyone, Study Finds

BOSTON (CBS) - Bike lanes are popping up all over the place and a new study out of the University of Colorado Denver and the University of New Mexico finds they are actually making roads safer for everyone.

More and more people are biking to work, which you might think makes roads more dangerous, but it's not true in cities which have dedicated bike lanes.

Researchers looked at 13 years of data from 12 large U.S. cities and found that the infrastructure put in place to accommodate cyclists, like separated and protected bike lanes, resulted in fewer deaths and better road-safety outcomes for everyone.

For example in Portland, Oregon the road fatality rate dropped by 75-percent.

The researchers say bike lanes have a calming effect on traffic, slowing cars and reducing fatalities.