As big cities across the country grapple with population growth and all projections indicate they?ll continue to burst at the seams, it would be natural to think that transportation planners are focused on expanding roads and maximizing traffic flow. Instead, they?re recalibrating the options, examining everything from adding autonomous shuttles to public-transit fleets to increasing the miles of bike lanes and bike paths. In turn, more Americans are using bicycles to get to work and move around urban areas. The number of biking commuters has grown 51 percent between 2000 and 2016. But that pedal power has come at a high cost in deaths and injuries.
Bicyclist deaths reached 840 in 2016, the highest number recorded in the United States since 1991, according to the latest data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), which shows rising deaths across most groups of road users. The total number of bicyclists injured in U.S. crashes each year was 50,000 in 2014 and 45,000 in 2015, according to the Governors Highway Safety Association (GHSA)’s annual bike-safety report. The organization analyzed bicycle crash data from 1975 to 2015 and found that a long-term decline in deaths reversed in 2016 and started a gradual climb. Another long-term shift finds that adults are far more likely than children to be the victims in a fatal crash now. Today, adults account for 88 percent of bicyclist fatalities, with the average age being 45. Male riders are almos...