Biking is an excellent way to run errands, connect with friends, and engage with local communities. However, the level of bike-friendliness varies greatly across U.S. cities.
Bicycling advocacy nonprofit PeopleForBikes has released its annual city ratings, showcasing the most bike-friendly communities nationwide — and, for the first time, internationally as well.
Leading in bike friendliness are the cities of Mackinac Island, MI; Davis, CA; and Minneapolis, MN. Appearing on the other end of the ratings, scoring poorly were the cities of Gulfport, FL; Mount Vernon, NY; and Richland Hills, TX.
The organization’s goal of these rankings is to help inform local leaders and advocates on how they can improve cycling accessibility and safety in their community.
“While hundreds of U.S. cities are committed to improving the efficiency and safety of their transportation systems through policy statements and plans, City Ratings leaders are those that follow through on those aspirations by redesigning their streets to make bicycling safer and more accessible to people of all ages and abilities,” said Rebecca Davies, City Ratings program director.
Cities on the Best Places to Bike list are categorized by size and scored on six categories for an overall score out of 100 for each city.
The categories are:
- Safe speeds (lowering speed limits)
- Protected bike lanes (building lots of them, plus off-street paths)
- Reallocated space (changing how road space is used)
- Intersection treatments (building safer crossings)
- Network connections (ensuring the network connects people to everyday destinations)
- Trusted data (OpenStreetMap data quality improvement)
The top 10 small cities
- Mackinac Island, Michigan: 99
- Provincetown, Massachusetts: 96
- Harbor Springs, Michigan: 92
- Springdale, Utah: 89
- Washburn, Wisconsin: 89
- Fort Yates, North Dakota: 88
- Crested Butte, Colorado: 87
- Blue Diamond, Nevada: 85
- Murdock, Nebraska: 84
- Sewanee, Tennessee: 83
The top 10 medium cities
- Davis, California: 78
- Cambridge, Massachusetts: 72
- Berkeley, California: 71
- Boulder, Colorado: 70
- Corvallis, Oregon: 70
- Ankeny, Iowa: 70
- Ames, Iowa: 66
- Anchorage, Alaska: 64
- Hoboken, New Jersey: 62
- Grand Forks, North Dakota: 61
The top 10 large cities
- Minneapolis, Minnesota: 71
- Seattle, Washington: 65
- San Francisco, California: 64
- St. Paul, Minnesota: 61
- Portland, Oregon: 59
- Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: 58
- New York City, New York: 56
- Arlington, Virginia: 53
- Washington, D.C.: 46
- Denver, Colorado: 46
Curious where your city ranks? Look up your U.S. city here>>
The top 10 international cities
- The Hague, Netherlands: 89
- Brussels, Belgium: 87
- Paris, France: 87
- Lyon, France: 86
- Utrecht, Netherlands: 86
- Leuven, Belgium: 85
- Munich, Germany: 85
- Amsterdam, Netherlands: 85
- Almere, Netherlands: 85
- Eindhoven, Netherlands: 85
The 2024 ratings are the first by PeopleForBikes to include cities in Europe, the U.K. and Australia, with dozens locales featured.
Cities on the Rise
PeopleForBikes recognizes that change takes time - in 2019, only 33 U.S. cities received a City Ratings score of 50 or higher. Now, the organization sees a score of 50 as a milestone for cities aiming to become a great place to bike, often demonstrating investments in bike infrastructure and other dedicated efforts to make their cities safer for cyclists. In fact, this year, 183 U.S. cities scored higher than a 50 in the City Rankings.
The 2024 Cities on the Rise, all of which made impressive improvements in their City Ratings scores over the last four years are:
- Salt Lake City (46 in 2020, 52 in 2024)
- Ames, Iowa (40 in 2020, 66 in 2024)
- Ann Arbor, Michigan (40 in 2020, 46 in 2024)
- Madison, Wisconsin (50 in 2020, 58 in 2024)
- Cambridge, Massachusetts (36 in 2020, 72in 2024)
- Austin, Texas (13 in 2020, 34 in 2024).
Curious where your city ranks? Look up your U.S. city here>>
