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Permalink Reply by Charlie Short 2.9 on September 17, 2012 at 8:09am

Ridership has gone up 150% in Chicago since 2001. Looking at data from 2005 on (IDOT crash data changed around this time,) ridership increased by about 84% and crashes increased about 27%. That's based only on cyclists who identify themselves as commuters. The crash data comes from IDOT, CDOT and CPD. Ridership data comes from Census information.

The good news is that ridership is probably much better than what census data tells us and crash reporting is much more accurate for bike-car crashes than even 7 years ago. Ultimately, crashes are down per rider in the City of Chicago, so your statement would seem to be true here.

Another important point: Philly has more riders per capita than Chicago, along with Seattle. Of large cities, these are the top three by a wide margin, and biking is relatively safe in all three (relatively being the operative word.)

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