How Bike Ridership Data Can Improve Bike Safety in Los Angeles
Publication Date: 2026 | Source: UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies
Biking is a crucial mobility option for cities as it is dramatically more space-effi cient than cars. Los Angeles, however,
has failed over the last ten years to increase the viability of biking, as the number of cyclist deaths and serious injuries
has not changed, while ridership has stagnated, and may be decreasing. One reason for this may be that LA’s bike
infrastructure planning does not take into account where people are actually biking. This project examines the many
benefi ts that an understanding of bike ridership patterns can provide for bike infrastructure planning. In order to
estimate LA’s bike ridership, several data sources are analyzed through spatial, temporal, and longitudinal lenses. One
key source of data was recorded trip data from Metro Bike Share, Los Angeles’s rentable bike share program. I fi nd that
bike share users exhibit travel patterns that closely resemble those of other cyclists within the same areas, suggesting
that bike share data can serve as a useful proxy for broader ridership trends. Further, this report shows how bike
ridership data can enable cities to invest proactively in areas where ridership is growing, build adaptively around
shifting time-of-day trends, prioritize important connectivity bottlenecks, and identify interventions that will impact the
greatest number of cyclists. For two examples, Koreatown exhibits the most nighttime ridership and areas around
UCLA and USC exhibit the fastest-growing ridership compared to all other LA neighborhoods. Finally, ridership volume
is a key factor in understanding cyclist risk, and in strategically leveraging the “safety-in-numbers” phenomenon for
cyclists.
