PI: Corey Harper

Co-PI(s): Jeremy Michalek and Lee Branstetter

University: Carnegie Mellon University

Industry partner: POGOH

Cycling is an environmentally friendly transportation mode and has been promoted by governments as many cities aim to reduce their transportation sector emissions. As a result, constructing effective bike lanes has become a crucial task to promote cycling, and in addition, well-planned bike lanes can increase job accessibility. However, there are limited tools available to help infrastructure owners and operators understand and quantify the benefits of bike lane deployment during the planning phase. The goals of this PITA proposal are to build a replicable, open, deployable model that:

  1. uses descriptive statistics to investigate changes in air quality, ridership, and employment before and after bike lane deployment
  2. incorporates air quality, bike share trip, bike lane, and other relevant data into a statistical tool to infer the causal effect of bike lanes on ridership, air quality, and employment
  3. conducts a proof-of-concept analysis

This model will be developed in collaboration with POGOH to assist them in better understanding how bike lane infrastructure upgrades affect ridership so that they can make more informed siting decisions, which will lead to improved economic viability through higher system usage in Pittsburgh, PA.