By Jason Islas
Lookout Staff

December 21, 2011 -- Though Santa Monica is a relatively safe city to live when it comes to crime, walking and cycling its streets may not be all that safe, according to an analysis by a local bike activist.

The analysis found that the intersections of Main Street and Ocean Park Boulevard and 4th Street and Santa Monica Boulevard were the most dangerous intersections in the beachside city.

The analysis was spearheaded by Mihai Peteu, an avid cyclist and print lab manager for UCLA's Design Media Arts department, who decided to collaborate with Bikeside LA to put public data that can often seem intimidating in a more accessible format.

“The real challenge is breaking down the data to make it more palatable,” Peteu said.

The project has resulted in an interactive online map anyone can use to calibrate the data by time of an accident, its severity and whether it involved bikes or pedestrians. The accidents are displayed as icons on a map.

Peteu said he wanted to see what patterns, if any, emerged when the data was organized visually.

“Cycling incidents increase in the summer months,” he said. “They spike around July.”

Peteu also discovered that pedestrians incidents do not seem to fluctuate seasonally.

The data used by Peteu and his colleagues comes from Santa Monica Police Department and was acquired with the help of Planning Commissioner Richard McKinnon.

The data span from March 2006 to February 2011 and includes all incidents involving cars and either pedestrians or bicyclists. The incidents range in severity from non-injury accidents to fatal accidents.

McKinnon liked the idea of an interactive map.

“I don't think there's anything else like this,” he said. “I thought it was such valuable tool;”

McKinnon said he was surprised to see a larger number of incidents along Broadway than he expected, while there were far fewer along San Vincente Boulevard.

He was also surprised to see that there was no centralized location for incidents.

“There's no road where you are absolutely safe,” he said.

Based on the data set, however, Pateu and his partners compiled a list of the most dangerous intersections in Santa Monica. Each intersection was ranked by a system that included the number of incidents that took place there, as well as the severity of the incident.

Fatal accidents were given 20 points while non-injury accidents were only given one point. The higher the points, the more dangerous the intersection.

According to Pateu's system, Main Street and Ocean Park Boulevard has been the most dangerous intersection in Santa Monica from March 2006 to February 2011, with Fourth Street and Santa Monica Boulevard coming in a close second.

Surprisingly, the intersection of Lincoln and Santa Monica Boulevard ranks 25th on a list of the 25 most dangerous intersections.

According to Pateu, the map is currently in a beta phase. He hopes that by summer of 2012, the final version of the map – complete with updated data – will be ready.

In the future, Pateu hopes users will be able to report incidents directly to the website and, after they're reviewed by Pateu or others, the reports would be added to the map to augment official police data.

Over time, though, he hopes that though bicycling will likely increase over the years, new infrastructure will minimize the danger to cyclists.

He thinks many of the changes the city is making will increase rider and pedestrian safety, especially those changes that come as a result of the new Bike Action Plan which was adopted by the City Council in November.

“It's great to see these upgrades,” Pateu said, referring to the new share rows, bike lanes and the new bike center in Downtown Santa Monica.

He hopes the improvements will go a long way to increase tha safety of everyone on the road.

To see the map, visit http://solid.it.cx/bikemap/work/.