Bike Sharing: Saves Lives, Cuts Carbon Emissions

Researchers compared a car's occupants tootling around Barcelona's beautiful paseos with a cyclist traversing the bike lanes on the highly successful Bicing bike share. (Bicing has increased cycle trips in Barcelona by 30%, where the average increase is about 3%.) The results were given statistically: bike share users did have an increased mortality rate of 0.03 from crashes and of 0.13 from increased exposure to air pollution. The increase in physical activity from biking with the Bici bikes, however, resulted in 12.46 fewer deaths when compared with the car drivers. In addition, Bicing has resulted in a reduction in annual carbon dioxide emissions in the region by 9 million kilograms (9,000 metric tonnes). (That's about 1% of Barcelona's annual carbon emissions from all road vehicles.)

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