KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WATE) — The Knoxville Regional Transportation Planning Organization has released new information regarding bicyclist and pedestrian related crashes through June 2019.

TPO collects data and analyzes it to better understand behavioral patterns that contribute to crashes and their locations in order to prevent collisions involving pedestrians, bicyclists and vulnerable road users.

Since the Cumberland streetscape project was completed in 2017, there has been a significant drop in collisions involving pedestrians and cyclists. Between 17th and 22nd street, the street turned into a two-lane road with a median in the middle with turning openings at intersections.

The average number of annual traffic crashes dropped 78% when involving pedestrians and bicyclists and traffic crashes of all types fell 44% according to an additional study by the Knoxville Police Department.

The report also addressed crash patterns for the whole Knoxville region, which found that while Knoxville sees the crashes involving pedestrians and bicyclists, Sevierville has the highest number of crashes per capita. With the study basing the population on the 2019 census, Sevierville had roughly 8.5 crashes per 10,000 people where Knoxville is about 7.3 crashes per 10,000 people.

More information regarding this study can be found at https://knoxtpo.org/data-and-monitoring/bicycle-pedestrian-crash-analysis/