Kea Wilson wrote:

In what its authors believe to be the first study to quantify the public health benefits of U.S. bicycle sharing systems, epidemiological researchers at Colorado University calculated that on an average year, users of the mode saved the national healthcare system more than $36 million, despite the fact that there are only about 100,000 shared bikes in the country and many are located in dangerous, car-dependent cities. Riders themselves were saved a collective total of 737 “disability adjusted life years,” or years spent living with debilitating health conditions such as cancer, dementia, and ischemic heart disease, thanks to the preventative power of active transportation.

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The researchers found bike share users had a marginally higher risk of dying in traffic crashes or from pollution-related ailments compared to drivers or transit riders, although they also had a much lower risk of dying from diseases related to physical inactivity than their inactive counterparts. (Pedestrians, meanwhile, had a higher risk of dying from all three causes compared to their counterparts who biked.)

In real numbers, those risks aren’t as big as you might think: famously, zero American residents died on bike share vehicles from 2007 through 2014, and deaths on the mode are still rare, a fact that experts attribute to many cities’ efforts to plan bike share networks in tandem with bike infrastructure improvements.

Still, Rojas-Rueda emphasized the remaining risks of bike share can be mitigated through good Vision Zero planning. But the public health risks associated with sedentary modes such as driving are baked in.