Bicyclist's perceived level of comfort in dense urban environments: How do ambient traffic, engineering treatments, and bicyclist characteristics relate?

In dense urban environments, truck loading zones introduce multimodal conflicts that could decrease the bicyclist's perceived level of comfort (PLOC), potentially reducing bicycle mode share. This study investigated the PLOC of bicyclists near urban loading zones, according to different levels of ambient traffic (low traffic volume, high traffic volume, and truck traffic), bicycle lane pavement markings (white lane markings, solid green, and dashed green), and traffic signs (no sign or warning sign). An online survey was designed and randomly distributed to 10,000 potential participants. A total of 342 participants successfully completed the survey. Repeated-measures ANOVA results indicated that when bicycling on a conventionally striped bike lane, truck traffic had the most significant effect on bicyclist PLOC, decreasing it by more than 42%. Pavement markings were more effective than traffic signs at improving bicyclist PLOC, but no difference was observed between solid and dashed green lane markings. Finally, the results of cluster analysis indicated that the effect of gender and experience on bicyclist PLOC varied with different levels of traffic and engineering treatments. Women were more affected than men by the presence of a truck in the adjacent lane but they were also more prone to a considerable increase in PLOC values due to the implementation of engineering treatments. Findings of this study could inform future policies regarding transportation infrastructure design to support safer and more comfortable bicycling in dense urban environments.