Cycling Safety as Mobility Justice

When it comes to encouraging city cycling, a key policy priority has been to foster a safe cycling city. Indeed, concerns about traffic safety are consistently identified as a barrier to uptake. Improving cycling safety is also important for reducing cyclist injuries, a public health priority. Given this elevated status of “safety” in cycling discourse of all kinds, we explore cycling safety in multiple contexts in this chapter. We begin with a brief literature review, highlighting key research findings and debates in studies on cycling safety. Much of this work focuses on traffic safety and considers either ‘objective’ or ‘perceived’ safety at the scale of the individual or the neighborhood. Then, a different approach for thinking about cycling safety is introduced: reimagining cycling safety as mobility justice. This approach involves a more comprehensive and holistic view of safety that considers not just cyclists’ safety from cars, but from other forms of danger such as crime or sexual or police harassment. In so doing we explore the intersectional power relations that can shape one’s safety while on the move.