Public transit is a lot of things: an affordable way to get around, a means to reduce congestion, a climate solution.
Another contribution that gets far less billing: Public transit is a crucial tool for making streets safe from death and serious injury in traffic, a danger that is especially (and preventably) high in the United States.
In this country, places with strong, well‑used are much safer, with far fewer people killed or seriously injured on the roads. And the better the public transit service, the safer still.
So it is not just about whether a city has some buses or a rail line. It is about how much transit is available, how often it comes, and how many people actually use it. When transit is frequent, reliable, and woven into daily life, it becomes one of the most powerful traffic‑safety interventions we have.
Below is a primer on how that works.
Transit‑rich places are empirically safer
Across the United States, the safest big cities on the roads tend overwhelmingly to be the ones where people ride transit a lot.
Analyses that combine crash data with transit usage reach the same conclusion again and again. A study in the Journal of Urban Health by Hamidi and Ewing (2020), highlighted by Streetsblog USA, found that cities with a higher share of passenger miles traveled on transit per person had significantly lower traffic fatality rates. The more transit use per capita, the fewer people killed on the roads (Hamidi & Ewing 2020; Anderson 2019).
The U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Roadway Safety Strategy documents note that communities with strong transit and lower per‑capita driving generally see fewer serious crashes (USDOT 2022). And analysis by the American Public Transportation Association (APTA) and Vision Zero Network concludes that public transportation is far safer than private vehicles, both for riders and for people outside the vehicle (APTA & Vision Zero Network 2016). One widely cited synthesis finds that using public transportation is about 10 times safer for commuters than traveling by car, with commuter/intercity rail even safer (Safety+Health 2018; APTA 2018).
On an individual level, travel on buses and trains is much safer per mile than in private cars. Litman’s review of national data finds that the risk of death while traveling by transit is an order of magnitude lower per passenger‑mile than by automobile (Litman 2022). The chance of being killed as a passenger on a bus or train is tiny compared with the chance of being killed in or by a car during an equivalent journey.
The risk of being hit while walking or biking by a transit vehicle is also very low. Transit vehicles account for a large share of passenger miles, but only a small share of pedestrian and cyclist deaths. Federal Transit Administration safety data show that per mile traveled, buses and trains are implicated in far fewer fatal collisions with people walking or biking than cars and light trucks (FTA 2023; Litman 2022).
There is another, less obvious benefit that is profound. In a transit‑rich setting, your chance of being the driver who kills or seriously injures someone else drops sharply. In a car‑dependent system, many drivers will, over a lifetime, be involved in at least one serious crash. When more of your daily trips happen on transit, operated by professionals, your exposure to being that driver shrinks. So does the exposure of the people you love.
When we talk about “transit‑rich” places in this context, we are not just talking about any city that has a bus line or a rail spur. We mean cities and regions where buses, trains, or trams run often, in many directions, for most of the day and week. You do not need to check a timetable. You can trust that service will be there when you show up. Large numbers of people actually use it for work, errands, and daily life.
This is not a binary category. It is a spectrum. The more frequent, widespread, and reliable the service, and the more people who ride, the larger the safety benefits. A peak‑only commuter bus on a few corridors does not move the needle much. A network that offers all‑day, evening, and weekend service across a region does. That is the standard we should have in mind when we say that transit‑rich places are safer.
Professional drivers instead of millions of distracted amateurs
A core safety advantage of public transit is that it replaces many trips by untrained, distracted, or impaired drivers with trips led by professionals.
Distracted driving has become a full‑blown epidemic. NHTSA estimates that more than 3,000 people were killed in distraction‑related crashes in 2022 in the United States (NHTSA 2023). Surveys suggest that most drivers admit to reading or sending texts while driving, and smartphone use behind the wheel has become routine. Touchscreens, apps, and constant notifications mean that everyday car trips often involve split attention.
Transit operators live in a different world. They are subject to commercial licensing standards, intensive training, and regular oversight. They are expected to avoid distractions completely and can lose their jobs for behavior that is routine among private drivers. There is a strong professional culture around staying focused on the road.
Professional drivers also tend to be more conservative and deliberate in their decisions. They learn specific routes deeply, including the tricky merge points and blind corners. They are trained to scan for pedestrians and cyclists, to slow for stale green lights instead of trying to beat them, and to wait for a clear gap before turning left across oncoming traffic. The incentive structure points toward caution rather than saving a few seconds.
Crucially, they are better equipped to handle unusual or dangerous conditions. Ice and snow, sudden storms that cut visibility, flash flooding, smoke, or debris in the road all raise the risk of catastrophic errors. A professional operator has been trained to respond in those moments, knows how the vehicle behaves on slick surfaces, and often has experience driving that same corridor in bad conditions. This reduces risk not just for riders on the transit vehicle, but for everyone around them. A bus operator who handles an icy downhill correctly can prevent a multi‑car pileup behind.
Per passenger mile, bus and rail travel are dramatically safer than driving yourself. That is the combined effect of training, conservative norms, and the simple math of consolidation. One focused, experienced operator moving a full vehicle through an intersection is a safer proposition than dozens of rushed commuters each doing the same thing in separate cars.
If something does go wrong, it is also generally better to be on a transit vehicle than in a small private car. A bus or train has far more mass and structure to absorb energy in a crash. It sits higher, is less likely to be crushed under another vehicle, and gives passengers more crumple zone between them and the impact. Large vehicles also tend to hold the road better on slippery surfaces and are less likely to be blown off course by wind or pushed off the pavement by a minor slide. If a bus or train does become disabled, there is a built‑in system to call for help, coordinate emergency response, and evacuate passengers. You are not stranded alone on a dark roadside with a damaged car and a dying phone battery.
A lifeline for people who should not be driving
Transit also protects people by giving them a way to travel when they are not in good shape to drive.
Many people are never safe drivers. They may have significant vision loss, seizure disorders, cognitive impairments, or physical limitations that make driving very difficult. Others start out safe but become marginal over time as they age. Slower reactions, reduced peripheral vision, difficulty turning and scanning all chip away at their margin for error. Yet many keep driving longer than they would like, because without a car they struggle to reach work, appointments, or even the grocery store (Rosenbloom 2018).
Then there are the temporary conditions that make driving dangerous. Exhaustion after a long shift. Alcohol or drug use. New medications that cause drowsiness. Grief, anger, or anxiety that monopolizes attention. None of this shows up in driver licensing data, but it shows up every day in crash reports.
Where there is frequent, reliable transit at the right times of day, some share of those risky trips is shifted away from the driver’s seat. A bartender who otherwise might drive home after closing can take a late‑night bus. An older adult who avoids night driving can schedule trips by day and use transit the rest of the time. Someone whose license has been suspended can still get to work legally. The more credible and convenient transit is, the more these shifts happen.
Research on alcohol‑related crashes suggests that areas with stronger evening and night transit have lower rates of drunk‑driving fatalities per capita than otherwise similar areas (APTA & Vision Zero Network 2016; Martin & Porter 2018). The logic generalizes. When people have a realistic alternative to driving themselves, some will take it. When they do not, far more will decide to “chance it.”
This is why service quantity and quality matter. A line that runs once an hour and stops at 8 p.m. does not really function as a safety valve. A line that runs every 10 or 15 minutes until midnight or later does.
Fewer miles, fewer chances to crash
Traffic safety is partly about exposure. Every mile that people travel in private cars at speed on public roads presents a chance for something to go wrong. Reducing vehicle miles traveled is one of the most reliable ways to reduce crashes and especially deadly ones.
Transit cuts that exposure in several ways.
First, it directly replaces some car trips. If you ride a bus instead of driving ten miles to work and back, that is ten miles of your own driving taken off the table. Scale that up to thousands of riders over hundreds of days and the avoided risk becomes large.
Second, it consolidates trips. Instead of thirty or forty commuters each navigating a corridor in separate cars, one operator drives a full vehicle. There are simply fewer distinct drivers making lane changes, entering intersections, and reacting to hazards.
Third, over time, strong transit networks reshape cities. Development tends to cluster around frequent lines and stations. That brings homes, jobs, and services closer together. When more needs can be met within a short walk or quick transit ride, people drive less. Trip distances shrink. Speeds come down. That means fewer high‑energy crashes.
Data from around the country show a clear link: regions with lower per‑capita VMT tend to have lower traffic death rates (Ewing & Hamidi 2014; Litman 2022). When transit improvements are strong enough to shift substantial numbers of trips, and when they are paired with supportive land use policies, both fatal crash counts and serious injuries decline. That protects everyone, but it is especially important for young drivers, who have high crash rates per mile, and older adults, who are more fragile in crashes.
Safer streets for everyone, not just riders
Transit investments often come bundled with street changes that make corridors safer for all users.
Dedicated bus lanes or rail corridors usually mean narrower general traffic lanes and clearer separation of movements. Stations and stops bring better crosswalks, curb extensions, raised platforms, and improved lighting. Signals may be retimed to protect people crossing the street and to avoid dangerous turning conflicts. Speeds often come down as drivers adapt to the new layout.
These are classic safety measures. They shorten crossing distances for pedestrians, slow vehicles at the points where conflicts are most likely, and make movements more predictable. They benefit riders getting to transit, but they also make life safer for anyone walking, biking, or driving along the corridor (NACTO 2016).
As more people walk or bike to reach transit, drivers also grow more accustomed to seeing them. Cities respond with better sidewalks, protected bike lanes, and safer intersections in those catchment areas. There is evidence of a “safety in numbers” effect, where the crash risk per person walking or biking falls as their numbers grow (Jacobsen 2003).
There are design challenges to manage. Bus stops on high‑speed roads without good crossings can be dangerous to reach. Conflicts between buses and bikes at stops need careful layout. But when agencies treat transit upgrades as part of a complete‑streets strategy, the result is usually calmer, more forgiving streets.
A controlled setting to focus automation
Transit is also a promising and relatively safe place to apply automated driving technologies.
A lot of attention has gone to private “self‑driving” cars, which would have to handle every kind of street, speed, and situation. That is a hard safety problem. Transit applications are more contained. Low‑speed shuttles, downtown circulators, and campus connectors can run in defined areas on predictable routes. They can be monitored by professionals and integrated with existing control systems (FTA 2020).
In these settings, automation can help maintain safe following distances, consistent speeds, and reliable stopping for pedestrians and red lights. It can be used to extend transit into places or times where it would be too expensive to run full‑size buses with operators, giving more people a safe alternative to driving themselves.
Used this way, automated transit complements human‑operated transit and fits naturally into a safety‑first system.
Transit‑oriented development and inherently safer neighborhoods
Finally, transit and safety are linked through how and where we build.
Transit‑oriented development focuses housing, jobs, and services within an easy walk of frequent lines and stations. The result, when done well, is compact, mixed‑use neighborhoods with slower streets and more daily destinations close by.
These environments are inherently safer. People take more trips on foot, by bike, or by short transit rides, and fewer long, fast car journeys. Local streets are narrower and calmer. Children and older adults can often get around without needing to cross wide, high‑speed roads. More people on the street means more eyes, which can improve personal security as well as traffic safety.
Vision Zero and “safe system” approaches emphasize that the most reliable way to prevent deaths and serious injuries is to reduce the amount of kinetic energy moving through the system. That means fewer high‑speed, long‑distance car trips and more slow, local movement. Transit‑oriented development, supported by frequent service, is a direct investment in that kind of urban form (OECD/ITF 2016; Safe System Consortium 2021).
By contrast, when growth continues in auto‑oriented patterns, every new home, job, or store adds more high‑speed driving to the network. Roads get wider, block lengths get longer, and the consequences of any mistake become more severe. In that context, even well‑intentioned drivers cannot fully outrun the risk built into the system.
Public transit will not fix every safety problem. Street design, vehicle standards, enforcement, and culture all matter. But when we talk honestly about what reduces fatal and serious injury crashes, strong, frequent, well‑used transit belongs near the top of the list.
It replaces millions of risky car trips with safer trips led by professionals. It gives people a viable way to travel when they are too tired, impaired, or frail to drive safely. It backs up automated technology in contexts where it can be deployed most safely. It supports compact, walkable neighborhoods that generate less high‑speed traffic. And by doing all of that, it lowers the odds that any of us will be the next person to cause, suffer, or witness a life‑changing crash.
We should stop treating transit as a side benefit and start naming it for what it is: core safety infrastructure.
Selected references
U.S. Department of Transportation (2025). 2025 National Roadway Safety Strategy Progress Report. U.S. DOT. https://www.transportation.gov/sites/dot.gov/files/2025-01/2025-NRSS-Progress-Report.pdf
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (2025). Traffic Crash Deaths | Early Estimates Jan–June 2025. U.S. Department of Transportation, NHTSA. https://www.nhtsa.gov/press-releases/nhtsa-reports-sharp-drop-traffic-fatalities-first-half-2025
TRIP (2025). Addressing America’s Traffic Safety Crisis: Examining the Causes and Impact of Rising U.S. Traffic Fatalities. TRIP. https://tripnet.org/reports/addressing-americas-traffic-safety-crisis-report-july-2025/
Federal Transit Administration (2024). National Public Transportation Safety Plan. U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Transit Administration. https://www.transit.dot.gov/sites/fta.dot.gov/files/2024-04/National-Public-Transportation-Safety-Plan.pdf
U.S. Department of Transportation (2024). National Roadway Safety Strategy: 2024 Progress Report. U.S. DOT. https://www.transportation.gov/NRSS
National Safety Council (2023). Motor Vehicle Deaths in 2023: Preliminary Estimates. National Safety Council. https://www.nsc.org/news-resources/injury-facts/motor-vehicle
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (2023). Distracted Driving 2022 (Traffic Safety Facts Research Note). U.S. Department of Transportation, NHTSA. https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/813533
Federal Transit Administration (2023). Transit Safety and Security Statistics. U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Transit Administration. https://www.transit.dot.gov/nts
Litman, T. (2022). Safer Than You Think! Revising the Transit Safety Narrative. Victoria Transport Policy Institute. https://www.vtpi.org/safer.pdf
Safe System Consortium (2021). The Safe System Approach for the United States. Johns Hopkins Center for Injury Research and Policy. https://www.jhsph.edu/centers-and-institutes/johns-hopkins-center-for-injury-research-and-policy/publications-resources/the-safe-system-approach-for-the-united-states
Federal Transit Administration (2020). Strategic Transit Automation Research (STAR) Plan. U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Transit Administration. https://www.transit.dot.gov/research-innovation/strategic-transit-automation-research-star-plan
Hamidi, S., & Ewing, R. (2020). Is sprawl killing us? Journal of Urban Health. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11524-020-00439-6
Anderson, M. (2019). Public transit is a safety tool as well as a climate solution. Scientific American / Sightline Institute. https://www.sightline.org/2019/10/24/public-transit-is-a-safety-tool-as-well-as-a-climate-solution
Rosenbloom, S. (2018). The transportation needs of older adults. Public Policy & Aging Report. (Illustrative citation for aging/older adults and mobility safety.)
American Public Transportation Association (2018). Public Transportation Is 10 Times Safer Than Auto Travel. American Public Transportation Association. https://www.apta.com/news-publications/press-releases/public-transportation-is-10-times-safer-than-auto-travel
Safety+Health Magazine (2018). Public transportation is 10 times safer for commuters, analysis shows. Safety+Health Magazine. https://www.safetyandhealthmagazine.com/articles/16727-public-transportation-is-10-times-safer-for-commuters-analysis-shows
OECD/International Transport Forum (2016). Zero Road Deaths and Serious Injuries: Leading a Paradigm Shift in Road Safety. OECD Publishing. https://www.itf-oecd.org/zero-road-deaths
NACTO (2016). Transit Street Design Guide. National Association of City Transportation Officials. https://nacto.org/publication/transit-street-design-guide
American Public Transportation Association & Vision Zero Network (2016). Public Transportation: A Safer Way to Travel. American Public Transportation Association. https://www.apta.com/research-technical-resources/reports/public-transportation-a-safer-way-to-travel
Ewing, R., & Hamidi, S. (2014). Measuring Urban Sprawl and Validating Sprawl Measures. National Cancer Institute; Smart Growth America. https://www.smartgrowthamerica.org/app/legacy/documents/measuring-sprawl-2014.pdf
Jacobsen, P. L. (2003). Safety in numbers: More walkers and bicyclists, safer walking and bicycling. Injury Prevention. https://injuryprevention.bmj.com/content/9/3/205
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