PeopleForBikes is an organization dedicated to “making biking better for everyone by uniting millions of Americans, thousands of businesses, and hundreds of communities to make every bike ride safer, more accessible, and more fun.” To do this, the organization supports policies, programs, projects, and incentives that promote cycling infrastructure in an effort to reduce the barriers to biking for transportation and recreation across the U.S.
PeopleForBikes’ City Ratings is a system the organization uses to measure the quality of biking in cities across the country and worldwide. Essentially, the ratings are a measurement of a city’s network of bike lanes, paths, and cycling infrastructure that enables people to easily, comfortably, and safely ride around the city. This year, the City Ratings include nearly 3,000 cities worldwide, including 209 new cities in the U.S.
These rating scores aren’t intended to be a competition, even though it certainly seems preferable to get a higher score. Instead, PeopleForBikes hopes to track a city’s bikeability, including the progress of bike infrastructure projects, to provide data to leaders, advocates, and community members so they can work toward improving the cycling experience in their city. With City Ratings dating as far back as 2018, many cities have years of data available to track their progress over time.
Each city is rated on a scale of 0 to 100 using their “Bicycle Network Analysis (BNA) data analysis software that measures the quality and connectivity of a city’s bike network.” SPRINT is an acronym for six performance factors used in the assessment: Safe speeds, Protected bike lanes, Reallocated space for biking and walking, Intersection treatments, Network connections, and Trusted data. You can check out the methodology page if you want to learn more about the BNA analysis.
This year, the City Ratings site also includes the organization’s Great Bike Infrastructure Project as well as the National Bike Project Tracker. PeopleForBikes’ Great Bike Infrastructure Project advocates for and invests in bike infrastructure projects across the U.S. Along with the National Bike Project Tracker, the organization tracks the progress of past, present, and future projects for transparency and accountability. “Because when we measure it, we can improve it, and, ultimately, get it done.” On the PeopleForBikes website, there are currently 2,193 total bike infrastructure projects in various stages, including off-road trails, protected bike lanes, other bikeways, and bike facilities throughout the U.S.
Interested in finding out how your city scored? You can find the full list of City Ratings on the PeopleForBikes website. Along with a rating, each city has its own page showing a more detailed breakdown of the score, ratings over time, an interactive BNA map, and the National Bike Project Tracker map.
There are far too many to list here, but we’ll mention some of the highlights. The car-free hamlet of Mackinac Island, Michigan, tops the list with the first perfect score of 100 in the City Ratings history. Brooklyn, New York, rose to the top of the large city rankings, and Davis, California, got the highest score for medium-sized cities in the U.S.
Here are the top ten most bikeable small, medium, and large cities in the U.S. and the top ten international cities, according to PeopleForBikes’ City Ratings analysis.
Small U.S. Cities (<50,000 population)
- Mackinac Island, Michigan: 100
- Provincetown, Massachusetts: 96
- Sauk City, Wisconsin: 90
- Springdale, Utah: 89
- Washburn, Wisconsin: 89
- Fayette, Missouri: 89
- Murdock, Nebraska: 89
- Fort Yates, North Dakota: 88
- Crested Butte, Colorado: 87
- Perrysville, Ohio: 85
Medium U.S. Cities (50,000-300,000 population)
- Davis, California: 81
- Berkeley, California: 73
- Corvallis, Oregon: 71
- Boulder, Colorado: 70
- Cambridge, Massachusetts: 68
- Ankeny, Iowa: 65
- Hoboken, New Jersey: 65
- La Crosse, Wisconsin: 65
- Anchorage, Alaska: 64
- Ames, Iowa: 64
Large U.S. Cities (>300,000 population)
- Brooklyn, New York: 73
- Minneapolis, Minnesota: 72
- Seattle, Washington: 66
- Queens, New York: 63
- San Francisco, California: 63
- St. Paul, Minnesota: 62
- Portland, Oregon: 61
- Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: 59
- Washington, D.C.: 52
- Manhattan, New York: 51
International Cities
- Paris, France: 89
- Delft, The Netherlands: 89
- The Hague, The Netherlands: 89
- Brussels, Belgium: 87
- Lyon, France: 86
- Nijmegen, The Netherlands: 86
- Eindhoven, The Netherlands: 86
- Utrecht, The Netherlands: 85
- Almere, The Netherlands: 85
- Munich, Germany: 85
To find the full list of City Ratings, learn everything about the PeopleForBikes organization, Bike Infrastructure Projects, and much, much more, check out peopleforbikes.org.
About PeopleForBikes
PeopleForBikes is a national bicycle advocacy nonprofit and the U.S. bicycle industry’s trade association representing more than 340 bicycle industry supplier members and nearly 1.4 million individual supporters. Through their three areas of influence — infrastructure, policy, and participation — they accelerate the construction of safe, fun, and connected places to bike, advance pro-bike and pro-bike-business legislation; and reduce barriers to welcome more people to the joys of riding a bike. Their goal: become the best place in the world to ride a bike. Join at peopleforbikes.org and donate to support their work.
