City Scholarship Practice Exam

Safety improvements from a new bike lane are best reflected by a reduction in crashes and injuries involving cyclists, along with evidence of safer interactions between cyclists and motor vehicles. This directly measures whether the lane is actually making riding safer, not just changing how people travel. Travel-time shifts for motorists don’t capture safety outcomes, and rider numbers alone show usage rather than risk. If crash data don’t show a change, that doesn’t necessarily mean safety hasn’t improved—it could indicate the need for more time to collect data or that the data don’t fully capture risk reductions (for example, if near-misses or minor incidents aren’t recorded). A robust assessment often blends crash data with exposure context (how many cyclists and how much riding occurs) and looks at injury severity to gauge true safety impact.