Active Transportation Policies: Do Media Narratives Matter?

Abstract

The intersection of media, public opinion, politics, and their relationship with public policy is well documented. Taking the issue of active transportation, we examine if media narratives on bicycle and pedestrian crashes appear important in shaping policy. We define positive and negative narratives portraying bicyclists and pedestrians as victims and villains respectively. Our research objective is to understand if media narratives have an effect on the policy tools used by decision-makers to improve pedestrian and bicycle safety. We examine if there is a relationship between the victim versus villain narrative and policy change at the state level. Using a mixed-methods research design, we analyze publication reports on crashes collected from 12 states for the period 2003–2015. We find that the victim narrative remains more prevalent in crash reporting, and the probability of policy change has a positive relationship with crash reporting rate. Greater salience of the issue in media reporting may influence increased policy change.

Keywords

media narratives policy making active transportation agenda setting bicyclists and pedestrians

Introduction

“A boy was riding his bike when he was hit by a car around 6:35 p.m. The 22-year-old driver's vision obstructed by trees and shrubs.” “A woman was crossing the street when she was struck by a vehicle that passed stopped vehicles that were waiting to make turns. The driver saw the woman at the last second.” “Hit and run - the driver of the car was backing out of a parking space and hit the woman and fled the scene.” These are some examples of news reports of crashes between bicyclists and vehicles and pedestrians and vehicles. These news reports can be considered tools that can induce change in policies surrounding bicyclist and pedestrian safety.

The number of Americans that walk to work increased from 3.3 million in 2005 to 4.2 million in 2015 (Hu & Cicchino, 2018). As cities seek to encourage active transportation that complement other modes of travel, the search for policies to keep everyone safe is crucial (Chaurand & Delhomme, 2012). In 2016, 18% of traffic fatalities involved a pedestrian or bicyclist, where pedestrian and bicyclist fatalities accounted for 16% and 2% respectively (NHTSA, 2016a; 2016b; Goddard et al., 2019). During the period 2010 to 2018, per-capita fatality rates for pedestrians and bicyclists increased by 19% and 11% respectively; and the per-km fatality rates increased by 17% for pedestrians and 33% for cyclists in the US (Buehler & Pucher, 2021). As more people take to the streets on bicycles and feet (Buehler et al., 2020) because of initiatives by several states and cities promoting active modes of travel (McKenzie, 2014), these numbers could increase further. Thus, this research on understanding the influence of media reporting of bicyclist/pedestrian crashes with motor vehicles on policy change is important for urban governance and policy implementation.

The media plays a large role in disseminating information about pedestrian and bicycle crashes and in influencing public opinion and eventually policy makers’ actions (Goddard et al., 2019; Ralph et al., 2019; Scheffels et al., 2019). The media can impact policy decisions because this primary information source could impact community attitudes (Rimano et al., 2015). This has been identified in Transportation Research Board meetings as an important research area (TRB Pedestrian Committee Meeting Minutes, 2016). Public issues are constantly competing for policy makers’ attention in the media, and for change action, an issue must remain salient and elicit emotion and concern (Baumgartner & Jones, 1993).

Tremendous amounts of money are invested for researching ways to improve safety for pedestrians and bicyclists. But when it comes to policies to promote safety, there are non-rational forces that can impact policy decisions at the state and local levels (Dill et al., 2017), and policy narratives can be useful to bring light to these non-rational forces (Honeck, 2018). Value laden stories, metaphors, and images like the ones shared at the beginning are called policy narratives. These narratives can have a strong influence on people’s attitudes and beliefs about political issues, and have the power to engage readers (Shen et al., 2014). Narratives can strongly impact policy decision-making and may help to explain why expertise and scientific knowledge does not always have the final word regarding what happens on the streets in local communities.

Shanahan et al. (2008) examined media’s role and found differences between the national and local media narratives and found that the media acts as a contributor in the policy change process. Policy change research found the influence of media coverage on policy decisions related to climate change (Brulle, 2018) and government budgeting (Jacoby, 2000), however, there is a gap in the literature regarding specific language used in the media to disseminate news about fatality crashes (Scheffels et al., 2019). How news media narratives influence attitudes regarding political issues is also an understudied topic in the literature (Jones & McBeth, 2010; Shen et al., 2014). The existing literature on bicycle and pedestrian policymaking covers infrastructure and the health outcomes of active transportation (Aziz et al., 2017; Mansfield & Gibson, 2016; Stjernborg, 2019), with little attention given to the association between media narratives and policy creation (Loyola et al., 2021). Scholars (Ameel, 2020; Farrington, 2007; Holden et al., 2020; Loyola et al., 2021; Stone, 1997) have argued about the importance of narratives in policy settings and emphasized the need for more research in this area. This research contributes to the literature by examining the relationship between media narratives and policy changes.

Research Questions

This research explores if news media narratives influence state-level policy decisions related to active transportation. We examine media narratives to understand how bicycle and pedestrian crashes are framed by media, and how these could influence public policies for safe transportation. We assess if there is a relationship between media narratives that label pedestrians and bicyclists as “innocent victims” versus “guilty victims” and the policy tools designed to increase street safety. This research seeks to answer the following:

(1) Does the media narrative have an effect on the policy tools used by decision makers to improve:

(a) Pedestrian safety on the roads?

(b) Bicycle safety on the roads?

(2) Is there a relationship between the victim versus villain narrative and the design of pedestrian and bicycle safety policies at the state level?

To answer these questions, the paper applies the agenda-setting theory and reviews the existing relevant literature to develop hypotheses. We collect news articles from the years 2003–2015 from 12 randomly selected states of the USA and analyze the data using mixed methods to examine the association between media narratives and the policy changes implemented.

Theoretical Framework

This research utilizes the agenda-setting theory to understand the influence of narratives on transportation policy changes regarding pedestrians and bicyclists. Agenda setting (McCombs & Shaw, 1972) posits that the media has the ability to set the agenda for issue discussions by the process of omission, selection or framing of news events. This theory suggests that news disseminated via mass media can sometimes be the primary source of information on issues for people, and thereby connect people to the political discussions surrounding those issues (McCombs & Shaw, 1972). The press "may not be successful much of the time in telling people what to think, but it is stunningly successful in telling its readers what to think about" (Cohen, 1963, p.13). In their study of a local election, McCombs & Shaw (1972) found a high correlation between public agenda and the media agenda. Their research supports the notion that the media not only tells the public what they need to think about but how they should think about it. While McCombs and Shaw (1972) argued about media influence in the context of elections and voting decisions, the agenda setting theory can be applied to other fields as well, such as transportation issues and corresponding policies.

There are two levels in the agenda-setting process –first, news media impacts what one thinks about, and second, news media impacts what one thinks but frames the issues in such a manner to sculpt the audiences’ perspectives and views. The first level of agenda-setting focuses on the perceived importance of the issue, while the second level focuses on the perceived importance of the characteristics of the issue (Ghanem, 1997; Liu et al., 2016; McCombs, 2005; Weaver, 2007). Media frame denotes “the central organizing idea for news content that supplies a context and suggests what the issue is through the use of selection, emphasis, exclusion, and elaboration.” (Tankard et al., 1991, p. 3). Others suggest that framing gives meaning to the events that are reported using exemplars, catchphrases, metaphors, visual images, and depictions to propose the issue (Gamson & Modigliani, 1987; Shen et al., 2014). Therefore, framing is the selection of characteristics of perceived importance and then increasing salience to the audience in order to promote 1) a particular definition or issue; 2) a causal understanding; 3) a certain moral assessment; 4) a suggested solution (Entman, 1993).

Iyengar (1991) suggests that framing can be either episodic or thematic and this framing is especially helpful for political agendas (Springer & Harwood, 2015). Episodic framing is event-oriented and “depicts public issues in terms of concrete instances” (Iyengar, 1991, p.14) such as bicycle crashes. It seeks to place more emphasis on the individual instead of shifting the focus to a societal issue (Scheffels et al., 2019). Thematic frames place issues “in some general or abstract context and takes the form of a ‘takeout’ or a ‘backgrounder’ report directed at general outcomes or conditions” (Iyengar, 1991, p.14). Episodic framing is more consistent with visual media. Springer and Harwood (2015) suggest that episodic framing has a human aspect and puts a face on the problem at hand. This is useful in understanding how agenda-setting and appropriate framing can be influential in the policymaking process by creating emotions regarding the accident victims. Also, public opinion and political decision-making can be influenced by both types of framing: episodic or thematic.

Another core tenet of agenda-setting is salience (Funk & McCombs, 2017). The more a topic is discussed in the media, the more salient the issue becomes, and therefore, the more attention it receives from policy-makers (Liu et al., 2016). Agenda-setting theory states that once an issue appears on the media agenda, the cumulative news coverage increases its salience, and the more people hear about the issue through the frames developed by the news media, the more it keeps the topic fresh and at the forefront of one’s thoughts thereby promoting a specific problem definition (Chyi & McCombs, 2004). In this paper, we apply the agenda-setting framework to argue that news media narratives regarding bicyclists and pedestrians' crashes influence transportation policy decisions. How the media reports such crashes can have an impact on its salience in generating public opinion for certain policy outcomes such as designated bike lanes or pedestrian right of way. The next section discusses the literature regarding media narratives and framing for policy outcomes.

Literature Review and Hypothesis Development

Policy Narratives and Problem Definition

Media reports provoke opinions, values, and especially emotions regarding the best policy intervention. All information, from the details, accusations, opinions, and reports form the policy narrative which describes the event. Policy narratives are constructed stories about an event or issue- they have a beginning, middle, and end; a flow of positions and events; characters, a plot, and causal relationships (Honeck, 2018; Roe, 1994; Shanahan et al., 2008). Narratives can dictate how a problem is framed (problem definition), aid in the prioritizing of alternatives for action, and select the preferred policy tools (Shanahan et al., 2011; Stone, 2001). Narratives are a form of guidance for action and have an impact on the political realm (Honeck, 2018). Issues are given meaning by the media and connected to the political stage (Springer & Harwood, 2015).

The characters portrayed in a narrative are cast in either a positive (deserving) or negative (undeserving) light. The characters in the policy narratives are villains, heroes, and victims (McBeth et al., 2010; Stone, 2001). The fixer of the problem becomes the hero and the character responsible for the policy problem is the villain. Victims are the characters harmed by the policy problem or who caused the problem to happen, and so they can be cast as innocent or guilty. When the narrative frames the victim as guilty, behaviors that made them guilty must be penalized or restricted. The language used by news reporters portray how they view the victim or villain. For example, an accident might refer to an event that places no fault on either party involved, compared to one that specifies that there was an instigator to the crash and someone is to blame (Scheffels et al., 2019). Passive sentences dehumanize the character in a way to detract readers from humanizing the villain - this is considered object-based language and shifts the blame from the object to the subject (Goddard et al., 2019). Crashes between pedestrians/vehicles and bicyclists/vehicles provide the opinions and emotions that build the policy narratives. Narratives that place the blame on pedestrians and bicyclists for inappropriate behavior or causing crashes because they did not take safety precautions, are actually defining the problem and placing the fault on them instead of the transportation infrastructure and motorist behavior.

The role of the first responder and law enforcement in crashes involving pedestrian and bicyclists is also important to the narrative formation. Police officers who respond to 911 calls when crashes occur report the incident from which news reporters draw their narratives. Often, news reporters interview police officers to write up their stories. Police, also called street-level bureaucrats (Lipsky, 2010), are vital in shaping the narrative as well as maintaining road safety by enforcing laws in bicycle and pedestrian urban street networks (Rantatalo, 2016). Specifically, when called to a scene of a traffic crash, the law enforcement officer follows a particular script to generate information from those that are involved. These police reports are “institutional texts that function to inform media and influence representations of bicyclists” (Scheffels, 2019, p. 636). This highlights the policy implementation at the street levels. Maynard-Moody and Musheno (2012, p. 522) claim that street-level bureaucrats are “conservers of institutional norms.” With a majority of traffic crashes involving pedestrians and bicyclists occurring at urban low-income communities, social equity issues from racial profiling often arise. While investigatory stops of pedestrians by police officers are considered a crime fighting tool (Maynard-Moody & Musheno, 2012), this may lead to potentially fatal encounters with people of color (Bellis et al., 2021). Street level bureaucrats may make policy decisions based on rules, regulations, and “normative reasoning and pragmatic improvisation,” which may lead them to categorize the people involved in the traffic crashes based on “stereotypes or perceptions of worth and deservingness” (Maynard-Moody & Musheno, 2003; Moller, 2021, p. 472). Thus, the blame narrative can begin from the initial incident report and make its way to the news media.

Media and Problem Definition

There has been much debate regarding the policy process and the media influence. Researchers (Baumgartner & Jones, 1993; Iyengar, 1991; Kingdon, 2003; Stone, 2001) debate that multiple policy preferences are transmitted through media reports on issues thereby serving as channels for policy actors. However, others (Sabatier & Jenkins-Smith, 1993) argue that the contribution to the policy process happens when media reporting on issues suggest their preferences through their narratives. Regardless, Shen et al. (2014) suggest that information provided by the media can remain accessible throughout the policymaking process which keeps the narrative strong among the audience. Shanahan et al. (2011) found that media crash reports on pedestrians/vehicles and bicyclists/vehicles can reinforce or influence the public’s beliefs surrounding these issues. Policy actors can use these narratives to encourage debates and influence outcomes governing bicyclists, motorist, and pedestrians (Jones & McBeth, 2010).

Policy Narratives and Policy Tools

Policy tools are the instruments, actions, or means that governments utilize to handle a problem. Depending on the problem definition, the policy tool will differ. The effect of narratives on transportation policy tools is not well known. The next section discusses bicycle and pedestrian crashes separately to glean the differences in news media narratives:

Bicycle Crashes

Before 2015, most bicyclist-motor vehicle (BMV) crashes occurred at intersections prompting research on potential mitigation strategies (Garder et al., 1994; Wang & Nihan, 2004), which recommended improving visibility at intersections and developing infrastructure. During this period, bicyclists received the primary blame for the crashes. However, data from 2015 showed that a majority (71%) of BMV fatalities occurred in urban areas, 4% were in bicycle lanes and 30% at non-intersections (NHTSA, 2016a; 2016b). The change in crash location and attitudes towards active modes of transportation during this period reflect changes in both research interests and policies implemented in some jurisdictions. To reduce crashes, scholars (Billot-Grasset et al., 2016; Fahlstedt et al., 2016) suggest that bicyclist use protective wear such as helmets and reflective clothing, have better awareness of intersection risks, and observe safety measures.

Stories from bicycling advocacy groups suggest the blame-the-victim policy narrative. As part of victim blaming, pedestrians and bicyclists are depicted as guilty victims (Schmitt, 2019). This victim blaming happens immediately in the media when a crash is reported. For example, questions such as “were they wearing reflective clothing?” or “were they wearing a helmet?” almost instantly direct the blame towards the pedestrian or bicyclist rather than the infrastructure or the actions of the motorist (Ralph et al., 2019; Giddings, 2015). According to Rimano et al. (2015), cycling as an activity can be considered a positive practice, however, the cyclists themselves are viewed in a negative light. News describe the fault as being that of the pedestrians or bicyclists, and their inability to follow the rules, which then shape the problem as one of reckless behavior of the bicyclists. Further, the media isolates incidences making them seem as if they are isolated events, rather than an overall problem (Ralph et al., 2019). Such narratives shift the solutions to those that can improve the bicyclists’ behavior rather than a more complete view of the motorist’s behavior, road conditions, or other problems that might be factors.

Pedestrian Crashes

Between 2009 and 2016, pedestrian deaths in the US increased by 46% and accounted for 16% of total U.S. traffic fatalities (Hu & Cicchino, 2018). Studies showed that older adults, people of color, and people walking in low-income communities were disproportionately represented in fatal crashes involving pedestrians even after controlling for differences in population size and walking rates, which highlight the disparities in risks (Bellis et al., 2021). Some factors identified are ineffective road design and operations, and speed and size of vehicles. Further, the policy focus is on traffic enforcement and management but not much on road design. Additionally, victim blaming is also common (Bellis et al., 2021). Other research (Dill et al., 2017) also found ineffective road safety standards for pedestrians across the country. States supported facilities such as sidewalks for pedestrians but were not very supportive of policies related to road design and reallocating road space except in some urban areas.

Ralph et al. (2019) found that news reports tend to blame pedestrians and not the drivers of the vehicles involved in the crash. Such crashes involving pedestrians are treated as isolated incidents and very little input is taken from safety experts such as public administrators, planners, and traffic engineers for the article. They also highlight the importance of local public administrators in explaining such crashes by contextualizing them using local statistics and providing some action steps to prevent further incidents. For context, news media covered bicyclist and pedestrian fatalities in Florida more prominently during the early 2000s, which contributed to public awareness of street safety in Tampa Bay as well as captured the attention of local public administrators and planners for devising street safety policies (Bond et al., 2018; Morales & Valentine, 2010).

Policy tools are related to the norms that guide policy enactment (Marsden & Reardon, 2017) and can create safe transportation environments for pedestrians, bicyclists and motorists. In policymaking, narratives and their underlying values are entangled with facts that influence problem definition (Liu et al., 2016), which emphasize certain types of tools. Therefore, the tools selected from the toolkit may seek to address the behavior of one segment of the population by classifying them as the cause of the crashes (Schneider & Ingram, 1993, 2005). Depending on whether the pedestrians and bicyclists are cast as innocent victims or guilty victims, the policy tools selected may vary. Target populations that are constructed in a negative light influence policy choice that may undersubscribe benefits of that population, or be representative in nature, and place restrictive burdens on the population to change their behavior (Schneider & Ingram, 1993, 2005). Policy tools that are selected may affect the bicyclists and pedestrians' behavior but yield no action. When pedestrians and bicyclists are considered innocent victims, the policy tools may seek to change motorist’s behavior and consider the features of pedestrian and bicycling infrastructure. This includes protected bike lanes, traffic lights, wider sidewalks, and infrastructural changes that allow for pedestrians and bicyclists to use the road safely.

Based on the literature review, the following hypotheses are developed:

Hypothesis 1: Bicyclist Safety Policy Tools: When compared to narratives that consider bicyclists as innocent victims, blame-the-victim narratives will most likely not influence any changes in policy that seek to modify or curb the bicyclist's behavior.

• H1a: Blame-the-victim narratives will not influence policy changes related to bicyclists’ safety.

• H1b: Blame-the-victim narratives will lead to informational campaigns targeted to improve bicyclist’s behavior.

Hypothesis 2: Pedestrian Safety Policy Tools: When compared to narratives that consider pedestrians as innocent victims, blame-the-victim narratives will most likely not influence any policy changes that seek to modify or curb the pedestrian’s behavior.

• H2a: Blame-the-victim narratives will not influence policy changes related to pedestrian’s safety.

• H2b: Blame-the-victim narratives will lead to informational campaigns targeted to improve pedestrian’s behavior.

Methodology

This research adopts a mixed-methods approach that applies quantitative techniques to analyze coded qualitative data from newspaper articles relating to pedestrian and bicycle crashes. The media, including traditional print sources, television, and social media, act as a conduit or a contributor of policy narratives (Shahanan et al., 2008). Our unit of analysis is the news articles on bicycle and pedestrian crashes from 12 randomly selected states. We initially planned to investigate the media reports associated with bicyclist and pedestrian fatality crashes occurring in 50 cities from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) dataset over a twelve-year period. The FARS dataset, which provides annual data regarding fatal injuries suffered in motor vehicle traffic crashes, can be accessed from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) Web site. The twelve-year period is selected as it coincides with the crash data collected by the FARS dataset. However, we could identify very few news articles related to crashes in those cities likely due to the low proportion of fatal bicyclist (2%) and pedestrian (14%) crashes receiving media attention. As an alternative methodology, we sampled states from different regions of the country. The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) identifies four regions in the United States: northeast, southeast, middle and west. From each of these four regions, three states were randomly chosen using the Excel “randbetween” and “vlookup” functions. We kept the twelve-year period for analyzing the news articles because it allows for a longitudinal analysis. Although the 12 states (See Table 1) were selected randomly, we assessed the safety rankings for bicyclists and pedestrians to account for the sample strength. It is found that the selected states were very representative as evident from the median values as well as the inclusion of the states with the highest and the lowest rankings.

Table 1.

List of States Selected

Region Based on FHWA	States Selected	Bicyclist Safety Ranking	Pedestrian Safety Ranking
Northeast	Maine	20	6
	Pennsylvania	11	19
	Vermont	17	1
Southeast	Georgia	19	43
	North Carolina	22	39
	Tennessee	25	40
Mid-America	Indiana	24	30
	Nebraska	49	17
	Wisconsin	29	15
West	Arizona	23	45
	Idaho	33	14
	Washington	1	16
—	Median value	22.5	18

Sources: Bike Friendly ranking: from https://bikeleague.org/

Safest for Pedestrians Rankings: https://smartgrowthamerica.org/

To address the issues of reliability and credibility, first, we used content analysis to code the data from the news articles and conduct a narrative analysis that assesses the victim/villain frames in the 12 states. In the agenda-setting framework, content analysis is a popular methodology (Craft & Wanta, 2004; Liu et al., 2016; McCombs, 1972) that categorizes and looks for patterns in text (Rimano et al., 2015), and can be useful to extract relevant data that can be coded and analyzed in a quantitative manner (Erlingsson & Brysiewicz, 2017; Patton et al., 2013). Second, we combined the coded qualitative data with the secondary data to produce control variables. Third, we reviewed the 12 states’ websites for information on policies related to pedestrians and bicyclists and assess if there were policy changes during the twelve-year period being studied. Then, we linked the coded data with economic and political culture data obtained from the Census Bureau. Finally, we conducted hypothesis tests and logit modeling to examine the connection between victim or villain narratives with the policy tools applied.

Data Collected From News Articles

After selecting the 12 states, we collected news articles from the Lexis Nexis Academic database for the years January 1, 2003 through December 31, 2015 for both pedestrian and bicyclist crashes. We conducted each search separately to review and capture each article’s nuances and then sorted the irrelevant articles. This process was completed with search terms “bicycle crashes” and “pedestrian crashes” for a total of 24 searches to find as many news articles as possible. Once articles were located for each state and type of crash, they were reviewed. If an article contained enough useful data, it was coded. The coding included the accident year and a sequential number. Information for each state contains the following: Media Source (local, state, national), Crash Date, Type of Crash (bicycle or pedestrian), Results of the Crash (fatal or non-fatal), City, State, Age, Gender, Crash Characteristics (wearing a helmet, using a lamp, etc.), Location Characteristics (direction traveled), Weather, Tone (Victim or Villain), Summary of Accident, Cause of Crash, Crash details, and Address or Intersection. We did not consider articles that were missing data such as gender or age. Each element or attribute of the articles forms a narrative. These components allowed to analyze if the media reports portray the victims in a positive or negative light. We used a codebook to maintain consistency between coders and provide a methodical way to code the narratives (DeCuir-Gunby et al., 2011). Three members of the research team independently reviewed and coded the articles on MS Excel and NVIVO software, which assisted with the triangulation of data. In cases where the researchers could not arrive at a consensus over certain codes, the news articles were reviewed again till consensus was achieved (Campbell et al., 2013). Table 2 shows the methods that were used for coding the news articles.

Table 2.

Data Collected From News Articles.

Data	Obtained	Analysis
Year	—	Direct
Accident Type	Was it a pedestrian or bicycle crash?	Direct
Media Source	Was it a local, regional, state, or national news article?	Direct
Accident Date	—	Direct
Accident Results	Was it a fatal or non-fatal accident?	Direct
City	—	Direct
State	—	Direct
Age	—	Direct
Gender	—	Direct
Tone	Victim or villain	Content
Frame	Was the article framed as thematic or episodic?	Content
Street 1	—	Direct
Street 2	—	Direct

Most of the information, such as the accident type and results, was directly collected from each article. The dates were often included, but when accidents that happened in another year were mentioned, it was noted accordingly. The publication type was used as a guide regarding media source and kind (facts, opinions, etc.). Content analysis determined the tone and frame of the news articles. The database also contains a summary for each narrative and supplementary accident data on those involved besides the basic crash information. To code for tone, entire articles were reviewed and notes taken of specific keywords and phrases used. An article was coded as victim when the news reports used phrases such as “the car hit the bicyclist” or “was struck by a vehicle, ” whereas it was coded as villain if phrased as “the bicyclist hit the car” or the “bicyclist struck the car.”

Revised Statute Data

State statutes are laws that have been revised, arranged in order, and reenacted as a whole. Each state has their own Revised Statutes that are on the state’s websites. We reviewed transportation policies regarding bicyclist and pedestrian safety from each state’s Revised Statutes Web site and noted when policies change during the period identified for this study. A policy change occurs when transportation policy change happens at the state level after news reports of crashes between bicyclists/vehicles or pedestrians/vehicles gain salience, and we recorded such changes seen in the year after the publication of the media reports. In other words, if there were media reports in Pennsylvania during 2010 and Pennsylvania also experienced a change in policy (any change to the Revised Statutes) later in 2010, then there was a policy change marked for that year. It is important to consider the timeline taken for any state level policy change. Researchers (Dill et al., 2017) note the availability of state funding as a factor for the long timelines involved with active transportation policy change and implementation. Others (Fields & Cradock, 2014) note that significant federal funding for such projects in 2010 did not result in an even distribution of transportation projects across states. Such projects depend on state policies that consider the cost efficiency of projects rather than sustainability issues evident in local policies. Active transportation policies are often designated to the local governments for creation and implementation as many policies require some infrastructure change (eg., street signs), which is not practical at the state-level. State legislative action on active transportation issues could take many years (Dill et al., 2017), and taking that into account, our study is a preliminary assessment of the connection between news media reporting and policy change.

Census Data

States typically lean one way or the other politically, and this culture can impact the voting pattern of the legislative body. Political culture is “the collective beliefs and values of citizens and policymakers” determines policy formulation, expectations and feasibility of different options (Heck et al., 2014, p. 9). For each state, we collect data on population, unemployment, revenue base, and poverty rate from the Census Bureau and data on political culture from the Pew Research Center. The economic environment determines how much money states can use towards programs that impacts which policies come to fruition (Heck et al., 2014; Mosley & Gibson, 2017). Table 3 lays out the indicators for how states are coded as either progressive or conservative.

Table 3.

Political Culture Determination.

	Median Income	Education Level	Religious	Nontraditional Households	Party Affiliation	Political Culture
State	Based on 2012-2016 ACS Data, Mean Household Income	Based on 2012-2016 ACS Data, bachelor’s degree or higher	Based on Data from Pew Research Center, the Percentage of Adults in Christian Religions	Based on 2012-2016 ACS Data, Unmarried-Partner Same Sex Relationships	Based on Data from Pew Research Center, 2014	Progressive or Conservative

Progressive states are those that have a high median income, a high percentage of individuals with higher education degrees, a low percentage of adults in Christian religion, a high percentage of non-traditional households, and a preference for a Democratic Party affiliation (De Leon & Naff, 2004). Conservative states are those with a low median income, a low percentage of individuals with higher education degrees, a high percentage of adults in Christian religion, a low percentage of non-traditional households, and a preference for a Republican Party affiliation.

Results

Narrative Analysis of Media Coverage

In total, we code and analyze 776 news articles (Table 4) for this research.

Table 4.

Crash and Article Count by State.

State	Number of Articles	Political Culture
Arizona	3	Progressive
Georgia	60	Conservative
Idaho	22	Conservative
Indiana	62	Conservative
Maine	61	Progressive
Nebraska	17	Conservative
North Carolina	20	Conservative
Pennsylvania	433	Progressive
Tennessee	2	Conservative
Vermont	0	Progressive
Washington	69	Progressive
Wisconsin	27	Conservative
Total	776	—

We find that victim or villain narratives are in the news articles at the local, regional, state and national levels. These levels are determined based on the scope of the news articles. If the news readership is local, then we code this as a local level, and if the readership is at the state level, we code it as state, and so forth. We also reviewed each article to ensure that they are not duplicated in our count. If a pedestrian or bicycle crash story was featured in both local as well as state or national news articles, we coded it for national level. We also find that the news articles are primarily framed as episodic or specific to the issue of pedestrian or bicycle crashes (see Table 5).

Table 5.

Coding of Frames.

Framing Format		Articles Coded	Percentage of Total
Thematic	Characterization is general (e.g., road or visibility conditions or infrastructure for bicyclists or pedestrians)	179	23%
Episodic	Characterization is specific (e.g., bicycle or pedestrian crashes)	583	75%
Neutral	Unclear characterization of the crash	14	2%
Total	—	776	100%

This is consistent with the conclusions of Collins et al. (2006) who argued that the relationship between the blame-the-victim narrative and policy tools is positive and are used to restrict the behaviors of pedestrians and bicyclists or used to educate pedestrian or bicyclists rather than motorists. Table 6 shows the tone of the news articles’ narratives, where 60 percent of the articles had the victim frame, 28 percent had the villain frame, and 12 percent were neutral in their tone.

Table 6.

Narrative Analysis.

Narratives	Articles Coded	Percentage of Total
Victim	464	60%
Villain	220	28%
Neutral	92	12%
Total	776	100%

We examine if the news media narratives have any effect on policy change related to active transportation. Processes for policy-making vary at the different levels of government. At the state-level, several factors impact policy-makers and the issues brought to the policy agenda. Researchers (Boeckelman, 1991; Dill et al., 2017) found that political culture and funding availability are important at state level policy decisions, where cost efficiencies of projects and political economy are critical. Others (Handy & McCann, 2010) claimed that state level policies are important for budgetary decisions at the regional level on active transportation projects. To examine the relationship between thematic and episodic frames or villain and victim characterizations to policy changes in states based on their political culture (conservative or progressive), we conduct tests of association (Table 7).

Table 7.

Tests of Association of Narratives to Policy Changes.

Progressive
Y (categorical)	X (categorical)	p-value	Chi2-stat	Df	N
Policy Change Implementation	Frame	0.408	0.685924281	1	505
Policy Change Implementation	Tone	0.675	0.17571006	1	505
Conservative
Y (categorical)	X (categorical)	p-value	Chi2-stat	Df	N
Policy Change Implementation	Frame	0.0682	3.325381219	1	168
Policy Change Implementation	Tone	0.48	0.656571375	1	168

Policy Analysis

We reviewed active transportation policies from data collected from the Revised Statute Web site and note their beginning or modification. This information is added to the database with the news articles. While transportation policy change implementation at the state level can take several years (Dill et al., 2017; Fields & Cradock, 2014), our analysis focused on policy changes that occurred the year in which the crashes were reported (Table 8).

Table 8.

Summary of Policy Changes.

Policy Changes	Count	Percentage of Count
Change	46	6%
No Change	730	94%
Total	776	100%

In the second phase of the analysis, we reviewed the transportation policies of the 12 states for any changes. We used content analysis (Patton et al., 2013) to find commonalities between states’ policies and determine their efficacy in preventing bicycle and pedestrian crashes. Then, we analyzed the selected states’ revised statutes to check for changes in policies occurring after the media reports, which are noted and categorized in Table 9.

Table 9.

Policies by State Separated by Political Culture.

Policy	Progressive States	Conservative States
Bicycle Policies
Helmet Use	Maine & North Carolina (16 and under)	Tennessee (16 and under)
Helmet Use	Pennsylvania (12 and under)	—
Distance between Bicyclist and Motorist	Maine (3 Feet)	North Carolina (2 Feet)
Distance between Bicyclist and Motorist	Pennsylvania (4 Feet)	Wisconsin & Nebraska (3 Feet)
Single File Riding	—	North Carolina
Sound Device	—	Indiana
The Use of Hand Signals	Maine, Pennsylvania, Washington, Arizona	Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Nebraska, Tennessee, Wisconsin
Headlights/Reflectors	Maine, Pennsylvania, Washington, Arizona	Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Nebraska, Tennessee, Wisconsin
Pedestrian Policies
Pedestrian Right of Way	Maine, Pennsylvania, Washington, Arizona	Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Nebraska, Tennessee, Wisconsin
Pedestrian Control Signals	Maine, Pennsylvania, Washington, Arizona	Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Nebraska, Tennessee, Wisconsin
Don't leave Curb Suddenly	Maine, Pennsylvania, Washington, Arizona	Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Nebraska, Tennessee, Wisconsin

Simple Statistics

The simple statistics, in Table 10, shows the data by state, region, and victim and villain. Analysis of the data concludes that 67.8 % of pedestrians and bicyclists are considered as victims while 32.2 % are identified as villains. Secondly, 10.5 % of victims are bicyclists and 89.5 % are pedestrians, when location data is available. Third, the victim narrative is the most common across all regions and all states, with the exception of Wisconsin, where the villain narrative is more prevalent.

Table 10.

Simple Statistics.

Hypothesis Testing and Logit Modeling

For hypotheses testing, we used the minitab software to conduct z-tests comparisons between the different variables such as “the likelihood of policy change.” Our model estimated the likelihood of policy change by using logistic regression. We collected total crash data for pedestrians and bicyclists from the NHTSA, and generated a crash reporting rate by combining this dataset with the news articles dataset for the period 2007 to 2015. Table 11 gives the variable definitions and the variable types that are used.

Table 11.

Variable Definitions.

Variable	Type of Variable	Meaning	Category
Crash Type	Independent	Bicyclist or Pedestrian	Dummy
Crash Severity	Independent	Local, Regional, State, or National	Dummy
Age	Independent	Fatal or Non-Fatal	Dummy
Gender	Independent	Age (Clustered in 8 Groups)	Dummy
Crash Characterization	Independent	Female or Male	Dummy
Policy Implementation	Independent, Dependent in Policy Change Model	Victim or Villain	Dummy
Political Culture	Independent	Progressive or Conservative	Dummy
Population (1000s)	Independent	Population	Continuous
Median Income (1000$)	Independent	Median Income	Continuous
Crash Reporting Rate	Independent	Crash Reporting Rate	Continuous

Likelihood of Policy Change

This model identifies the factors influencing the likelihood of policy change in each location.

Model: Likelihood of policy change = f (Crash Type, Media Source, Crash Severity, Gender, Age, Crash Characteristics, Political Culture, Population, Median Income, Reporting Rate)

Stepwise regression (Table 12) considers the following as significant variables with α = 0.15: age (21–30), age (76+), the crash reporting rate, media source (state), crash characterization, and political culture. There is no multicollinearity between independent variables when the Variance Inflation Factor (VIF) is less than five for each of the variables. The model demonstrates adequate goodness-of-fit by the adjusted R-square. Four (media source, age (21–30), political culture, and crash reporting rate) of the six variables appeared to be significant with α = 0.05. Age (76+) and crash characterization show a lower significance within the model. While they all have different values, the odds ratio of each individual independent variable is greater than one. Therefore, the likelihood that policy will change increases 4.35 times when an individual of the age 21–30 years old is involved in a crash. This confirms the hypotheses H1a and H2a, that narratives can have an impact on policy change for both pedestrians and bicyclists. This is reflective of how emotions may impact policy change (Hart, 2011) and people are much more likely to want to impact policy change when children are impacted.

Table 12.

Likelihood of Policy Change.

R-Square	32.06%
R-Square (Adjusted)	29.02%
Variables	Age (21–30)	Age (76+)	Crash Reporting Rate	Media Source (State)	Crash Characterization	Political Culture
Type of Variable	Dummy	Dummy	Continuous	Dummy	Dummy	Dummy
Coefficient	1.469	1.441	0.579	1.323	0.859	2.425
Odds Ratio	4.3457	4.2231	1.1711	3.7545	2.3612	11.3047
p-Value	0.03	0.112	0	0.015	0.072	0.005
VIF	1.15	1.09	4.15	1.08	1.11	3.73

State Level Analysis

Table 13 shows the level of significance of the hypothesis testing is α = 0.05 or 95%. The p-value for each test (< 0.05) is reflective of a significant difference between variables under comparison. The first column of Table 13 shows the variables being compared, bicycle and pedestrian crashes. The second column lists the population and subgroups that are being compared, for example, “Overall in Indiana, Victim” refers to all crashes in Indiana where people were considered victims. The p-value in column three was compared with the α = 0.05 to determine if a significant difference existed between tested proportions. If the p-value was less than .05 then it is determined that a significant difference exists and this is marked with an “x” in column 4.

Table 13.

State Level Analysis.

Comparison Variables	Population, Subgroup	p-value	Significant Difference Exists
Bike & Pedestrian	Overall in Georgia, Victim	0.421
Bike & Pedestrian	Overall in Indiana, Victim	0.000	X
Bike & Pedestrian	Overall in Maine, Victim	0.048	X
Bike & Pedestrian	Overall in Nebraska, Victim	0.242
Bike & Pedestrian	Overall in Pennsylvania, Victim	0.000	X
Bike & Pedestrian	Overall in Washington, Victim	0.844
Comparison Variables	Population, Subgroup	p-value	Significant Difference Exists
Bike & Pedestrian	Policy in Washington, No Policy Change	0.377
Bike & Pedestrian	Policy in Maine, No Policy Change	0.000	X
Bike & Pedestrian	Policy in Pennsylvania, No Policy Change	0.000	X
Bike & Pedestrian	Policy in Indiana, No Policy Change	0.885
Bike & Pedestrian	Policy in Georgia, No Policy Change	0.001	X
Bike & Pedestrian	Policy in North Carolina, No Policy Change	0.068	—

Notes: Column 1: Variables being compared - bicycle and pedestrian crashes

Column 2: Population and subgroups being compared - Crashes in Georgia where people were considered victims, State policies and policy change if any.

Colum 3: Significance level of hypothesis testing is α = 0.05 or 95%.

Column 4: If p-value < 0.05 then significant difference exists between comparison variables, and this is marked with an “X”.

At the state level, the results appear less consistent; however, victim characterization rates between pedestrians and bicyclists crashes remain significant in Indiana, Maine, and Pennsylvania. Similarly, policy change appears inconsistent. In Maine, Pennsylvania, and Georgia, bicyclist crashes result in a significantly greater rate of policy change than pedestrian crashes.

Discussion

Narrative Analysis

When reviewing the narrative frames, the most frequent framing of crashes is episodic, suggesting that most news reports focus on a specific pedestrian or bicyclist crash. Episodic framing is a narrative about a case, and considered an individual problem (Springer & Harwood, 2015). It is possible that the prevalence of the episodic framing has an effect on policy decisions. There is no significant relationship between tones or frames and policy changes. However, there is a significant relationship between thematic and episodic frames and policy change in conservative states. This suggests that narratives relating to tone or frame have no effect on policy changes in the selected states. This confirms the hypothesis that victim blaming in the media does not result in policy changes at the state level. This also supports previous studies that thematic framing of an incident has more impact on policy change because issues are framed as having consequences for society (Springer & Harwood, 2015).

Policy Analysis

Our analysis of the Revised Statutes data suggest some commonalities between policy types, including the use of the same verbiage in many cases. We conclude that pedestrian and bicycle policies do not have a significant role at the state level as these are usually made at the local level of government. At the state levels, there is little change in policies and minimal guidance is provided for implementation of policies. Many of the state level policies are placed on the vehicle drivers than on the pedestrian and bicyclists or on infrastructure that can be designed by planners. In several states, pedestrians and bicyclists are restricted to the same policies as drivers, and therefore, can be held accountable in the same manner should they not follow the laws. This may have some impact on the credibility of the framing of villain versus victim in news reporting. In all states, various policy changes occurred over time. While the influence of media reporting on these changes cannot be determined as the timeline examined is short, several states such as Arizona, Indiana, Maine, and North Carolina for example, have put out informational brochures or campaigns or programs to ensure bicyclist and pedestrian safety, thus confirming the hypotheses that states will seek to modify or curb behavior for safe active transportation. Thus, most states have adopted polices for bicyclists and pedestrians’ safety with many offering additional safety awareness programs.

As seen in Table 9, four of the states have policies requiring bicyclists to wear helmets although the minimum age is different. Most states allow for these types of policies to be written at the local level, and, if a state law is not in place, a city has the ability to implement a helmet law if needed. It is unknown if state level helmet policies result in fewer fatality crashes. Also, states established a specified distance between bicyclists and motorists, and we found that the minimum distance requirement is different among states. This policy could certainly have a direct impact on the reduction of fatality crashes. For nighttime riding, states require the use of reflectors or headlights as crashes at night can occur due to the motorists’ inability to see the bicyclists. Other state policies include the use of hand signals by riders, having at least one pump brake, and limitation on the number of people riding.

Most pedestrian policies are directed toward motorists or infrastructure. Every state has pedestrian right of way and pedestrian-controlled traffic signal policies at crosswalks. Georgia requires motorists to stop and remain stopped while there is a pedestrian in the crosswalk in their periphery. Lastly, every state mandates that pedestrians cannot step from the curb suddenly because this prevents a motorist from stopping fast enough to avoid a collision.

Over the twelve-year period studied, few active transportation policy changes have occurred in regards to pedestrians and bicyclists at the state level. Such policy changes are far more common at the local level. Without serious consideration of state level lawmakers, the needed safety policies will fail to stay on the government’s agenda (Liu et al., 2016). With these types of policies seeming to be more locally impacted, state level legislatures place importance on other issues. State level policymakers need more motivation to take action (Mosley & Gibson, 2017). This leaves room for more research that is focused on the impacts of news media on state and local level policy making.

Likelihood of Policy Change

We consider the likelihood of policy change in each location reported in the news articles. For example, the likelihood of policy change increases (4.35 times) when a person involved in a crash is 21–30 years old. The odds ratio of 1.17 regarding crash reporting rate implies that an increase of one percent in the crash reporting rate increases the likelihood of policy change by 17 percent. The presence of the crash reporting rate in the model indicates that a reduction in media attention to pedestrian and bicycle crashes can negatively impact the likelihood that policy will change. What is surprising is that locations with a conservative political culture often incur policy change over 10 times more often than a location with a progressive political culture. This is likely due to the prevalence of citizen-oriented policies that rely on the political culture of the state (Boeckelman, 1991).

Overall, neither bicyclist nor pedestrian crashes regularly appear in media articles, however, the media reporting of pedestrian crashes occurs significantly more often as a proportion of total fatal crashes than bicyclist crashes. The hypothesis tests at the state level for all crashes and policy change are not consistent and more examination is needed. We find that in Indiana, Maine, and Pennsylvania, victim characterization rates between bicycle and pedestrian crashes are significant. In Maine, Georgia, and Pennsylvania, there is a greater chance of policy change in regards to bicycle than pedestrian crashes. Pedestrians are identified as victims at a much higher rate than bicyclist, and bicycle crashes are more often reported in the media. Policy change more often occurs when bicycle crashes are reported in the media than pedestrian crashes. Therefore, our results support our hypothesis that there is an association between media reporting of bicycle crashes and policy change . This provides a preliminary assessment of the connection between policy narratives and policy change. While the timeline of examining policy change adopted here maybe too short for significant legislative action, this offers evidence for future longitudinal studies on the effects of media narratives.

Limitations

The initial goal of this research was to connect news articles to FARS data from a random sample of 50 cities. However, the sample size of news articles related to crashes in the 50 cities sample was small likely due to the low proportion of fatal pedestrian (14%) and bicyclist (2 %) crashes receiving media coverage. Due to time constraints, a sampling approach was feasible. Future research should consider all media articles. The states selected in a random sample generated only a limited number of articles. Vermont had no news articles on pedestrian or bicycle crashes. This lack of data from the news articles limits the overall analysis. The large number of locations included in the methodology limited the research to socioeconomic status, political culture, population, and policy change data at the state level.

Implications

Research Implications

Media accounts are filled with negative connotations and future research should examine the use of negative tone and identify the influential factors that aid in article tone. We found that children are classified as villains more often than adults, regardless of additional policies that are directed towards vehicles such as school zones, safe routes to school, and special bike lanes near schools. Senior and young adults are perceived by the media in the same light. Further investigation is required to understand these biases.

There is a need to understand what attributes and factors are effective at influencing policy outcomes. Effective evidence or factors that drive policy decisions are important in improving policy outcomes (Mosley & Gibson, 2017). A more emotional report could lead to a stronger narrative that might have a significant impact on decision-making, but this concept needs to be explored and tested (Hart, 2011). Shen et al. (2014) explains that emotional connection to characters and positive thoughts have the ability to change attitudes. An attitude change may be necessary to shift the blame-the-victim narrative in a positive direction.

Finally, for a more thorough examination of the influence of media reports on policy changes, a local approach may be more useful. Future studies could include a sample pulled from the current dataset and analyzed at a local level. This might prove to be more conclusive of the effects of media reporting on policy change.

Practical Implications

The use of complementary modes of transportation are becoming more prevalent in changing behaviors and risks (Chaurand & Delhomme, 2012). With the additional modes of active transportation available for use, it is important to understand what policies are effective tools to create safe streets for vehicles, pedestrians, and bicyclists alike. A greater political and public awareness of the issues associated with active transportation such as physical infrastructure, city planning and zoning for safe access to streets by bicyclists and pedestrians will assist with creation of supportive policies and lead to improved governance. Media coverage of crashes involving active transportation are needed to create awareness. Our findings suggest that the news media reports crashes as isolated issues, and tend to ignore the environmental factors, which then fails to gather public opinion. The low rate of policy changes in the states studied may be a result of the low visibility and salience provided by the media. Salience of the active transportation issues, such as crashes due to lack of bike lanes for bicyclists or sidewalks for pedestrians, when reported in the media could fuel more local policy solutions to meet the needs of bicyclists and pedestrians in cities and municipalities. Due to the diversity that exists in the travel culture, preference, and attitudes of people, and in the natural and built environment, local policy approaches could lead to more active transportation solutions.

Crash reports by the media are often based on the reports of the first responders to the crash site. How the first responder, often a law enforcement official, recounts the crash and reports it could be critical in how it is disseminated by the media and for generating public opinion. It is imperative that the street level bureaucrat takes into account not only the specific incident but also the environment surrounding the crash while reporting it, which could have a significant impact on possible policy changes regarding installing a stop sign, or a crosswalk, or just cutting the low hanging leaves that covered the existing stop sign. Thus, awareness among law enforcement is needed for the safety of bicyclists, pedestrians, as well as vehicle drivers.

One last implication is the potential to encourage state level policy change. In recent years, several states have started to get involved and take a stand on local issues. Many states have devised inclusive housing policies that encourage and, in some cases, demand the inclusion of low-income housing in new developments (Cowan, 2006). Transportation policies created at the state-level can be just as powerful in creating safer streets. It stands to reason if a state can create a housing policy that impacts a percentage of homes, they can also create a policy that affects a percentage of the streets. The Complete Streets initiative is a salient issue in the media that is gaining momentum at the state levels and their cities (Smart Growth America, 2018).

Conclusions

The objective of this research is to understand if policy narratives based on news reporting of bicycle and pedestrian crashes have any effect on state-level transportation policy decisions. Through multiple tools of analysis, both quantitative and qualitative, a total of 776 news reports were related to pedestrian and bicycle crashes. While there are many factors associated with crashes such as poor road conditions, low visibility, and texting and driving, the narrative focuses on the crash itself. A consequence of this is that the real issues behind what may have caused the crash are visibly salient enough to become part of the agenda setting process of decision-making. As suggested by agenda setting theory, an issue that does not receive widespread salience and visibility would not be made part of the agenda for policy change. Although there are pedestrian and bicyclist policies at the state level, they are less significant than those that are mandated at the local level. The policies made at the state level could greatly increase the level of bicycle safety equitably across the state. Overall pedestrian policies are mostly generic and vary between states. There has been a great deal of innovation in the technology related to pedestrian traffic to enhance the safety of pedestrians and that may be the best safety policy intervention moving forward.

To conclude, our methodology examining the effect of news article narratives of pedestrians and bicycle crashes on policy changes seems effective. Content analysis of the victim/villain narrative in news articles found that the victim narrative appears more prevalent in crashes which is consistent with previous research (Collins et al., 2006). The episodic frame is the most prevalent narrative, suggesting that the media reports on crashes as isolated issues and ignores environmental factors resulting in lesser salience and failure to gather public opinion. Neither pedestrian nor bicyclist crashes appear regularly in the news, however, media reports fatal bicyclist crashes more often than pedestrian crashes. Salience (due to episodic frame) or low visibility (due to low news reporting rate) may be factors that affect the low rate of prompt policy change within the states. Our results indicate that the probability of policy change has a positive relationship with crash reporting rate, and with greater visibility of the issue, policy change may increase.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the Transportation Research Center for Liveable Communities (TRCLC 16-7).

ORCID iDs

Karabi Bezboruah

Stephen Mattingly

Author Biographies

Karabi Bezboruah is an Associate Professor in the Department of Public Affairs and Planning at the University of Texas at Arlington. Her research is in the intersection of public policy and organizational behavior, and she has published several articles on policy advocacy, policy-making, and the effects of public policies on state, local, and nonprofit organizations.

Jennifer Sloan is an Adjunct Professor at the University of Texas at Arlington in the College of Architecture, Planning and Public Affairs. She has taught and assisted with various classes over the years. Her research revolves around policy as it relates to public space and social capital and public finance.

Stephen Mattingly is a Professor in Civil Engineering at the University of Texas at Arlington. His research addresses a variety of interdisciplinary topics including transportation equity, transportation public health, performance measures, data fusion of bicycle count data, scenario planning, transportation safety, and decision and risk analysis.

Saeed Nargesi is a full-time lecturer at University of Texas at Arlington. He has had the experience of teaching wide variety of Civil Engineering courses in all levels, collaborating in multiple interdisciplinary research projects and working as a modeler/data analyst in transportation industry.

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