Doesn't seem true where I live. Maybe you have a study to support this claim?\
> Bikes probably do make more sense if a majority of your population lives in one or two cities, otherwise it just doesn’t.
Cities in general seem to be conducive to bikes. Not sure why the whole country needs to live in just one or two cities or how that could logically follow.
Nationwide, you’re more than twice as likely to die while riding a bike than riding in a car, per trip, according to a 2007 study led by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention epidemiologist Laurie Beck. Bike riding is also about 500 times more fatal than riding in a bus. Though Beck didn’t run numbers on subway and commuter rail systems, they may be the safest form of transportation of all. Despite a series of well-publicized accidents and maintenance issues, Metrorail and Metrobus reported just two injuries per million riders in 2015.
per trip
exposure rates such as the number of trips, distance,
or hours walked and cycled [...] are crucial in
measuring the safety of these 2 nonmotorized modes.