Here's what you can do to make Houston's streets safer

Richard Tomlinson installed a total of 13 ghost bikes this past weekend to memorialize the locations where Houston-area cyclists lost their lives. Richard Tomlinson installed a total of 13 ghost bikes this past weekend to memorialize the locations where Houston-area cyclists lost their lives. Photo: (Richard Tomlinson), Chuy Benitez Photo: (Richard Tomlinson), Chuy Benitez Image 1 of / 9 Caption Close Here's what you can do to make Houston's streets safer 1 / 9 Back to Gallery

According to the Houston-Galveston Area Council's Pedestrian-Bicyclist Subcommittee, crashes involving bicyclists are up by 7.1 percent as compared with last year. And fatalities among pedestrians as a result of involvement in crashes are up by 47.2 percent. There are many factors contributing to why these numbers are up — but we know that we need safer streets.

In an ongoing research project, the Kinder Institute wants to document these near-miss incidents in hopes that we may be able to draw out patterns or highlight hotspots of conflict between various road users. We need Houstonians to help us do it. We need participants to report their daily trips for one week between March 4 and 10.

RELATED: Woman hit by car on Westheimer Road; driver flees scene

In collaboration with partners such as BikeHouston, we're enlisting volunteers who bike, walk or use transit on a daily or weekly basis to participate in a multipronged study to document daily travels across the city and record near-miss incidents.

To learn more about the study and how the Kinder Institute is working to make Houston safer, read the full story on our subscriber site, HoustonChronicle.com.