Study: More Bike Infrastructure Could Prevent 15,000 Deaths Annually | Planetizen News
In addition to reducing air pollution and congestion, improving bike infrastructure could save thousands of lives each year, according to new research.
A new study that models the “comprehensive global public health impacts of the mode shift to cycling” found that replacing car trips with bike trips can prevent over 15,000 deaths per year in the U.S. alone, reports Kea Wilson for Streetsblog.
The study analyzed rates of premature deaths due to car crashes and pollution-related disease, as well as how many car trips could be replaced with robust investment in bike infrastructure and other incentives.
Even if just 8 percent of those new bike trips replaced journeys in a car — an extraordinarily conservative estimate, considering that in this hypothetical world, every urban area in the world would be outfitted with Amsterdam-levels of bike lanes — researchers say that 18,589 lives could be saved across the globe, 1,227 of which would be in the U.S. alone.
