How Bike Share Programs Might Make Cycling Safer

Credit: Indego

Could bike share programs lead to greater cycling safety?

In April 2015, Philadelphia introduced a bike share program. By 2019, there were more than 1,300 bikes and 400 pedal-assisted electric bicycles available. People used them for about 50,000 trips a month.

Before the introduction of the bike share program, the rate of bicycle-car accidents had been gradually increasing. By May 2015, the month after the introduction of the program, the rate was twice that of January 2010.

But the researchers, writing in the American Journal of Public Health, found that from that time through the end of 2018, the rate decreased by an average of 13 percent a year, despite the increases over those years in the number of bicycles on city streets, and even though Philadelphia made no major infrastructure changes, like adding many protected bike lanes.

Read more at The New York Times