METHODS: The paper has two substudies. Study 1 was a secondary analysis of longitudinal hospital injury data from the Graves et al. (2014) study. It compared cycling safety in cities that introduced bike share programs with cities that did not. Study 2 combined ridership data with crash data of selected North American and European cities to compare bike share users to other cyclists.
RESULTS: Study 1 indicated that the introduction of a bike share system was associated with a reduction in cycling injury risk. Study 2 found that bike share users were less likely than other cyclists to sustain fatal or severe injuries.
CONCLUSIONS: On a per kilometer basis, bike share is associated with decreased risk of both fatal and non-fatal bicycle crashes when compared to private bike riding.
CONCLUSIONS: The results of this study suggest that concerns of decreased levels of cycling safety are unjustified and should not prevent decision makers from introducing public bike share schemes, especially if combined with other safety measures like traffic calming.