CACHE COUNTY – With summer weather right around the corner, hordes of Utah cycling enthusiasts will be hitting the state’s roads and trails hot and heavy in the weeks to come.
That will be a wonder, given that a recent national survey indicated that Utah is the second most unfriendly state in the nation for those cyclists.
That study by the personal injury law firm of Andrew Pickett Law in Florida found that only Arizona provides a more hostile environment for pedal-powered cycling fanatics than Utah.
The Pickett study – which analyzed data from the World Population Review and BikeLeague.org – ranked all 50 states based on a composite score derived from five key metrics spanning the realms of safety, infrastructure, state policy and environmental health.
“While some states have made incredible strides in protecting cyclists,” according to attorney Andrew Pickett, “there is still a significant safety divide across the United States.”
Lack of adequate infrastructure is a major hurtle for Utah cyclists, the Pickett study found. The Beehive State has only 2.1 miles of rail trail per 1,000 square miles of area, leaving cyclists with few dedicated off-road options compared to leading states like New Hampshire (62.8 miles) and Massachusetts (52.6 miles).
Financial investment is also lacking. The study found that Utah obligates only $0.82 in federal funds per person to biking and walking projects, compared to nearly $5 being allocated by Massachusetts and New Hampshire.
Safety is also a major concern for summer cyclists in Utah, with the state reporting 2.6 fatalities annually per 1 million people, compared to fatality statistics of about half that in Massachusetts and New Hampshire.
Finally, even the air is hostile for cyclists in Utah, with an Air Quality Index Score of 51.2, the worst of any state in the nation.
“As more American choose cycling for health and transportation,” Pickett observes, “it is critical that we prioritize dedicated infrastructure and policies changes to bring fatality rates down to the levels we see in top-tier states.”
In addition to Arizona and Utah, other states ranked in the top ten most unfriendly for cyclists included Texas, North Carolina, South Carolina, Nevada, Colorado, California, Oklahoma and Tennessee.
Additional information about the Pickett Law study can be fond by going online to
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1VINyNjU3PVRUb1ySCJ0HKZJP7J3m5wC0xg7ua6lhpgo/edit?gid=0#gid=0