Being a paid subscriber, I've been exploring the use of Suggested Routes in my area via the Strava app. Every suggested route from my home location includes a very unsafe, high-speed, high-traffic road with no bike lane or paved shoulder when the option for a safer route nearby exists. If Strava has the ability to "follow most popular" segments when building routes via the website based off heatmap data, why can't Strava incorporate this type of AI to create suggested routes from the app that map to the "most popular" segments? This would likely avoid segments/roads with little or no heatmap activity and keep cyclists off more dangerous routes. In the attached image, suggested routes include the road circled in red EVERY time. The safer route would be in green.
A similar suggestion was made here (https://communityhub.strava.com/t5/strava-features-chat/unsafe-routes/m-p/2081), but the logic of my suggestion is a bit different and would be easier to implement, I think, and would be more "automatic" without relying on user ratings, which may be minimal or non-existent in some ares.