When Will AASHTO Revise Its Policy Against Separated Bike Lanes?

It's my hunch that this study was done just as much to make a policy point about America's current traffic engineering guidelines as it was to gather statistical data. Here's a key excerpt from the study:

"Contrary to AASHTO's [American Association of State Highway Transportation Officials] safety cautions about road-parallel paths and its exclusion of cycle tracks, our results suggest that two-way cycle tracks on one side of the road have either lower or similar injury rates compared with bicycling in the street without bicycle provisions. This lowered risk is also in spite of the less-than-ideal design of the Montreal cycle tracks, such as lacking parking setbacks at intersections, a recommended practice."

Will this study end the debate here in the states about whether or not separated facilities are the best way forward? Maybe not. But it's likely to add fuel to the fire of "Cities for Cycling" a collaboration of planners and engineers from major U.S. cities working to establish their own guidelines so they are able to construct a wider range of facilities — including ones that physically separate bicycles from motor vehicle traffic.