What are the most cyclist-friendly cities in America – where the bike lanes are protected, the intersections safe and greenways stretch distantly into the horizon?
According to a new ranking of 2023’s Best Places to Bike by the Boulder-based advocacy group PeopleForBikes, Minneapolis came in first for most cyclist-amenable major city, followed by San Francisco, out of nearly 1,500 cities in the U.S. For medium-sized cities, Davis in Yolo County — the home of the U.S. Bicycling Hall of Fame — ranked first, followed by Ankeny, Iowa, and Berkeley.
The rankings from PeopleForBikes are meant to reflect the quality of a city’s bicycle network. Six factors are taken into calculation: safe speed limits, protected lanes, reallocated space for biking and walking, intersection design, network connections and trusted data. Cities have also received numerical scores, which the group explains thusly:
“Each city receives a City Ratings score on a scale of 0-100. A low score (0-20) indicates a weak bike network, meaning the city lacks safe bikeways or there are gaps in the network. A high score (80-100) indicates that most common destinations are accessible by safe, comfortable bike routes that serve people of all ages and abilities. For larger cities, a score of 50 is the tipping point to becoming a great place to bike.”
Here are the top five best places to bike in 2023 from the large and medium-sized city categories. For the complete list check out the full ranking:
Large cities (population above 300,000)
1. Minneapolis (68 percent score)
2. San Francisco (63 percent score)
3. Seattle (62 percent score)
4. Philadelphia (57 percent score)
5. Portland, Ore. (56 percent score)
Medium cities (population 50,000-300,000)
1. Davis, Calif. (77 percent score)
2. Ankeny, Iowa (74 percent score)
3. Berkeley (72 percent score)
4. Boulder (68 percent score)
5. Corvallis, Ore. (63 percent score)
