mschwett
Well-Known Member
- Region
- USA
this is sometimes an interesting look, updated people for bikes ratings of bike infrastructure in the US, Canada, and selected (not sure by what metric) other countries.
of course the top five of any significant size in the US are all college towns, and the top two are in Northern California.
1 davis, ca. (81)
2 berkeley, ca (73)
3 corvallis, or (71)
4 boulder, co (70)
5 cambridge, ma (68)
for large cities (over 500k) the results are slightly more surprising!
1) minneapolis (72)
2) seattle (66)
3) san francisco (63)
4) st paul (62)
5) new york (61) interestingly they also listed the boroughs separately, and brooklyn would have been #1 at 73, were it a separate city)
globally, Paris had the highest score for a mega city at 89 (!!!) with munich close behind (85) and then Barcelona (79) and Berlin (78.) a sorry state of affairs when the highest US college town doesn’t come to multi-million population cities/metros in Europe!
some cities that have good reputations for cycling, but didn’t break out of mid pack, and some cities that are about as bad as you’d expect :
Denver (47)
Boston (35)
San Diego (33)
Los Angeles (25)
Chicago (11)
Houston (11)
of course people will quibble with the methodology, but there is a clear methodology which goes beyond anecdotal or opportunistic experience.
cityratings.peopleforbikes.org
the network access score is the most interesting part, which ranks how many useful destinations can be reached from a given census block without using high stress routes. this is really the meat of the analysis imo, since a lot of places have some nice scenic trails and paths but gaping holes in the network or traffic conditions that would allow one to actually use a bicycle for a wide range of tasks and recreation.
of course the top five of any significant size in the US are all college towns, and the top two are in Northern California.
1 davis, ca. (81)
2 berkeley, ca (73)
3 corvallis, or (71)
4 boulder, co (70)
5 cambridge, ma (68)
for large cities (over 500k) the results are slightly more surprising!
1) minneapolis (72)
2) seattle (66)
3) san francisco (63)
4) st paul (62)
5) new york (61) interestingly they also listed the boroughs separately, and brooklyn would have been #1 at 73, were it a separate city)
globally, Paris had the highest score for a mega city at 89 (!!!) with munich close behind (85) and then Barcelona (79) and Berlin (78.) a sorry state of affairs when the highest US college town doesn’t come to multi-million population cities/metros in Europe!
some cities that have good reputations for cycling, but didn’t break out of mid pack, and some cities that are about as bad as you’d expect :
Denver (47)
Boston (35)
San Diego (33)
Los Angeles (25)
Chicago (11)
Houston (11)
of course people will quibble with the methodology, but there is a clear methodology which goes beyond anecdotal or opportunistic experience.
Explore the City Ratings | PeopleForBikes 2025 City Ratings
Browse over 2900 cities across North America and see how they rank for biking.
cityratings.peopleforbikes.org
the network access score is the most interesting part, which ranks how many useful destinations can be reached from a given census block without using high stress routes. this is really the meat of the analysis imo, since a lot of places have some nice scenic trails and paths but gaping holes in the network or traffic conditions that would allow one to actually use a bicycle for a wide range of tasks and recreation.
