Better days for Boston cyclists
Once ranked among America’s worst bicycling cities, Boston has cleaned up its act in recent years, becoming a safer place to bike to work, according to a Harvard Chan School study of injuries to bicycle commuters between 2009 and 2012. That finding comes despite a rise in the overall number of bicycling accidents and a plateau of accidents with injuries because of a rapid increase in the number of bicyclists on Boston’s roads. The study found the accident rate — the chances of any single cyclist being involved in an accident — held steady and the rate of accidents with injuries fell significantly, from 82.7 percent of all bicycling accidents in 2009 to 74.6 percent in 2012. The change translated to a 14 percent annual drop in the chance of getting injured in a bike accident in Boston, according to the study. Researchers said the change was likely evidence of a “safety...