School communities feel significantly safer after road safety upgrades in Bishkek

In 2022, with the support of the Safer Roads Foundation and the FIA Foundation, Public Association

‘Road Safety’ and EASST upgraded pedestrian infrastructure at two intersections in Bishkek: Kyrgyzstan: Maldybaev – Akhunbaev and Moskovskaya – Beishenaliev.

The two intersections are located on key routes to school, in the vicinity of schools no. 8, 48, and 61, and together accounted for almost 20 road casualties between 2019 – 2021.

With technical support from Make Roads Safe Hellas, we have now conducted a series of surveys to evaluate the extent to which these interventions have improved road safety around the three schools based on perceptions of those stakeholders who are most exposed to the road environment every day as they travel to or from school. This includes: students, teachers, and parents.

The surveys revealed that safety was definitely a concern for students, teachers and parents at all three schools before the upgrades. Speeding, unsafe driver behaviour, poor pedestrian infrastructure, the absence of traffic signals, and poor streetlighting were all considered serious problems.

After the infrastructure upgrades had been implemented many students, teachers, and parents reported feeling safer on the roads around the school. At school No. 8, 72% of teachers and 59% of parents agreed that the upgrades around the intersection have improved the safety of students traveling to and from school. While 80% of students surveyed across all schools reported that it is now easier to cross the road safely.

Full results from the surveys have been published in the report ‘Public Perceptions Regarding the Road Safety Impact of Pedestrian Infrastructure Upgrades around School Zones in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan’ which is available to download here.

Importantly, the results from this evaluation demonstrate a link between improved pedestrian infrastructure and improved pedestrian and driver behaviour, in particular the management of speed.

It shows that infrastructure can have an important impact on guiding pedestrian and driver behaviour and that this must be an important consideration when developing a road safety strategy.