Research Highlight

New Research Brief: Impact of the Community Pedestrian and Bicycle Safety Training

May 2, 2023
Submitted by Lisa Peterson

In April, 2023 the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) released the latest traffic safety data, noting that 42,939 people were killed in motor vehicle crashes in 2021, a 10 percent increase from 2020. Key findings from the report also reveal increasingly dangerous and unsafe roadways for vulnerable road users. Traffic fatalities in 2021 vs 2020 increased 14% for older adults (65+), 13% for pedestrians, and 1.9% for pedalcyclists. These deaths are unacceptable and...

Community Pedestrian and Bicycle Safety Program (CPBSP) releases first annual report for 2023

June 28, 2024
Submitted by Karen Nguyen Vo

The Community Pedestrian and Bicycle Safety Program (CPBSP), created in collaboration with UC Berkeley SafeTREC and California Walks, has released its first annual report for the 2023 calendar year. CPBSP works with communities at disproportionate risk for road traffic injuries to address the safety needs of people...

2025 Follow-up survey highlights the impact of the Community Pedestrian and Bicycle Safety Training

August 6, 2025
Submitted by Kris Leckie
Preliminary Statewide Integrated Traffic Records System (SWITRS) data for 2024 indicates that traffic crashes caused 3,376 preventable deaths statewide, of which 950 were pedestrians and 148 bicyclists. Additionally, in 2024, there were 16,142 people seriously injured in traffic crashes in California, including 2,531 pedestrians and 1,255 bicyclists. These deaths are unacceptable and preventable. Ensuring that our communities are safe for walking, biking and rolling is critical...

Community Pedestrian and Bicycle Safety Training (CPBST) Program Workshop Follow-Up Survey Highlights

Chen, Katherine L.
Kuroda, Kaori
2020

The Community Pedestrian and Bicycle Safety Training Program (CPBST) is a joint effort of the University of California Berkeley’s Safe Transportation Research and Education Center (UCB SafeTREC) and California Walks (Cal Walks). Founded in 2009, the Community Pedestrian Safety Training program was expanded in 2016 to include bicycle safety improvements. The purpose of the CPBST is to:

Educate local residents and safety advocates on how to improve pedestrian and bicycle safety; Empower community partners to advocate for safety improvements in their neighborhoods; and Strengthen...

Media Narratives of Pedestrian & Bicyclist-Involved Crashes

Polovin, Marta
2020
Pedestrian & bicyclist-involved crashes have been increasing throughout the United States. Previous research has shown that media and popular discourse disproportionately blames pedestrians and cyclists for their own injuries and/or deaths, while obscuring the role of motorists in these crashes and ignoring the broader road safety context (like infrastructure and speed limits). Recent research highlights how media framing of these crashes can affect perceptions of cause, influencing public opinion about responsibility and consequences, and demonstrates the need for comprehensive and...

Commercial vehicles, fatigue, parking and safety

Gosselin, Katherine
2020
For commercial drivers, operator fatigue and parking in undesignated areas can result in dangerous collisions. Exacerbating this issue is a lack of freight truck parking, making it difficult for truck operators to find a safe spot when in need of rest. For bicyclists and pedestrians, loading and unloading commercial vehicles in downtowns also present hazards. Increasing the availability of legal truck parking could improve safety for all road users.

Selected Research on Road Diets

Elijah Wade
Tsai, Bor-Wen
2021
Pedestrian and bicyclist injury and mortality is a common occurrence in California. Data from the Transportation Injury Mapping System found that serious injuries among bicyclists and pedestrians increased between 2017-2019, with 3,174 recorded in 2017 and a peak of 3,495 serious injuries in 2019. Along with serious injuries, there has also been an increase in mortality among these active transportation options reported by the National Highway Traffic Safety Association, which recorded 940 fatalities in 2017, and an increase to 972 by the end of 2019.

One of the strategies that has...

Community Pedestrian and Bicycle Safety Training (CPBST) Program Workshop Follow-Up Survey Highlights

Kristen Leckie
Elijah Wade
Katherine L. Chen
Jill F. Cooper
2021
The Community Pedestrian and Bicycle Safety Training Program (CPBST) is a joint project of the University of California Berkeley’s Safe Transportation Research and Education Center (SafeTREC) and California Walks (Cal Walks). Founded in 2009, the purpose of the CPBST is to: Educate local residents and safety advocates on how to improve pedestrian and bicycle safety; Empower community partners to advocate for safety improvements in their neighborhoods; and Strengthen collaborations with local officials and agency staff to make California neighborhoods safer and more pleansant for walking and...

Impact of the Community Pedestrian and Bicycle Safety Training Program: Insights from the 2022 Follow-Up Survey

Aqshems Nichols
Chen, Katherine L.
Jill F. Cooper
2022

The Community Pedestrian Bicycle Safety Training (CPBST) program is a collaborative project between UC Berkeley Safe Transportation Research and Education Center (SafeTREC) and California Walks (Cal Walks) that seeks to assist communities with three goals:

Identifying and better understanding their local transportation safety needs; Developing and strengthening local partnerships between various stakeholders in their community; and Generating a community-specific action plan for improving the safety of active transportation in their area.

These objectives are pursued through...

Community Engagement at the Intersection of Public Health and Transportation: Highlighting Community Based Organizations’ Use of the Promotores Model for Engaging Community Members in the Field of Transportation

Ana Lopez
2023

Under federal statutes, transportation planners have an obligation to actively engage community members and to conduct equity-based analyses on transportation plans to ensure that people of color, low-income people, and other historically disenfranchised groups are neither disproportionately burdened nor denied the benefits of transportation investments. Planning professionals have an ethical and moral responsibility to involve and engage the communities they serve—to intentionally center community members in planning decision-making processes regarding their communities and ensure equity...