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Safety concerns are a barrier to increasing bicycling. BikeMaps.org, a tool for crowdsourcing bicycling collisions, near misses, and falls, offers rich data on local bicycling safety concerns. Our goal is to characterize dominant bicycling safety issues reported in nine Canadian cities. We analyzed 2,513 BikeMaps.org reports (522 collisions, 151 falls, 1840 near misses), and summarized the types of incidents reported, ratios of near misses to collisions by incident type and by city, and injuries resulting from various types of crashes. Incidents categorized as a ‘dangerous pass, overtake at midblock’, were most commonly reported and had the highest ratio of near misses to collision reports (9:1). Cities with a high commute mode share for bicycling had lower near miss to collision reporting ratios. Overall, 40.3% of reported collisions or falls required medical treatment. Incident types with the most severe outcomes were ‘left cross at an intersection’ (58.4% reported needing medical treatment); ‘vehicles failing to stop at intersection or yield to bike’ (54.0%); and ‘multi-use paths, vehicle conflicts at intersection’ (48.5%). Mitigating conditions leading to real or perceived concerns over dangerous passes by vehicles should improve bicycling comfort. Bicycling injuries will be reduced by safety improvements at intersections including those with multi-use paths.

Canada does not conduct a national household travel survey, resulting in a data gap on walking and bicycling. These data are key to surveillance of physical activity and health, as well as in epidemiological injury risk calculations. This study explored the use of available national data sources, the Canadian census and the Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS), to tally walking and bicycling and examine trends in fatality risk. Estimates of the percentage and number of Canadians walking or bicycling to work were calculated for 1996–2016 using the census. The CCHS was used to estimate the number and proportion of Canadians walking or bicycling for leisure (2000–2014) and to work or school (2008–2014). We combine these data with National Collision Database data on the number of pedestrian and bicyclist fatalities (1999–2017) and compare trends in fatality risk over time using each dataset. Across all data sources, walking was more common among women, while bicycling was more common among men. Men were at higher fatality risk than women. These results should be interpreted with caution given limitations this study identifies in census and CCHS data, including narrow definitions for bicycling behaviour, lack of detail regarding amount of use, and inconsistency of questions asked over time. A national household travel survey should be a priority for public health purposes in Canada.

We used 2013/2014 Canadian Community Health Survey to describe who bicycles for leisure, commuting, or both leisure and commuting. Nearly one-quarter of Canadians bicycled in the 3 months prior to the survey: 7 Canadians bicycled for leisure for every 1 person who bicycled for commuting purposes. People bicycling for leisure were more likely to be younger, male, higher income, and identify as white. Commute bicycling captured a very small proportion of the bicycling population; men were nearly twice as likely to commute compared to women and there was little difference in bike commuting across racial identity.

Transportation shifts in Canada precipitated by COVID-19 may persist into recovery. We examined commuters in a national survey (Canadian Perspectives Survey Series 3) and commute changes attributed to COVID-19 risk. We modeled associations of changing commute with pre-COVID-19 mode, adjusting for coarse socio-demographic covariates. We found that all out-of-home commute modes declined during COVID-19, with increases in telework. Commuting by public transit was most strongly associated with change in commute mode to avoid COVID-19 risk. Among pre-COVID-19 transit commuters, 18.2% continue to rely on transit, and personal motor vehicle use is more common (13.0%) than walking (3.4%) or cycling (2.9%).

A docked public bicycle share program (PBSP) makes bicycles available to the public. There is limited evidence on the impact of PBSPs on safety. We estimated the impacts of implementing a PBSP on the likelihood of bicycle crashes using a difference in differences approach with repeated cross-sectional survey data (self-reported crashes) collected in 8 Canadian and US cities, from 2012-2014. Relative to control cities (Detroit, Philadelphia, Vancouver), we found that the odds of reporting a bicycling crash did not change after implementing a PBSP (New York, Chicago) and were lower in cities that had existing PBSPs (Boston, Montreal, Toronto).