This past September, as I biked the streets of Lyon, France, I was struck by the signs and signals catering to cyclists. From the small, dedicated bike traffic lights alternating between red and green to a sign indicating that bikes could turn right on a red or even go straight at an intersection, the roads were easy to navigate, even for a foreigner. This dedication to the bicycle has paid off: Yet another sign broadcasts the fact that more than 28 million bike trips have been made so far this year.

My time in Lyon was reminiscent of similar experiences I’ve had in well-known cycling cities such as Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Utrecht, and Antwerp. The city, situated close to the Swiss border and home to just over half a million people, ranks high in PeopleForBikes’ City Ratings with a score of 81 for 2023. A high score (anything from 80-100) indicates that most common destinations are accessible by safe, comfortable bike routes that serve people of all ages and abilities. 

It’s one thing to see a network map and read about what makes a city great for bicycling, and quite another to experience it firsthand. 

In Lyon, there’s an abundance of protected bike lanes — separated both from cars and pedestrians — that can accommodate two-way traffic. Greater Métropole de Lyon, which is comprised of 59 municipalities, currently has 1,200 km (745 miles) of cycling facilities, of which 450 km (279 miles) are separated from traffic. Included in that mix is the impressive 1.75 km (1 mile) Crois Rousse multi-modal tunnel built in 2009, which includes a dedicated lane for buses, a sidewalk for pedestrians, and a 3-meter wide bi-directional bike lane, with barriers separating all three.


All of this from humble beginnings, considering that for most of the 20th century, Lyon was a car-centric city. In the 1970s, the first of the city’s bike infrastructure went in, advancing at no more than a trickle until the early aughts, when progress began to noticeably ramp up. By 2005, Lyon launched its bike share system, Velo’v, and began building more bike infrastructure for people to safely use it. Lyon also curbed driving by instituting low-emissions zones, which restrict vehicles according to the city’s air pollution levels, since 2016.

Today, Lyon’s bike lane network continues to grow, thanks in large part to an ambitious $290 million program known as Les Voies Lyonnaises (“The Lyon Routes”), which on completion will consist of 12 bike roads spanning 250 km (155 miles). The overarching goal of this network is to connect Lyon’s downtown core with its satellite, suburban communities to the north, south, east, and west, making it safer and more convenient for both commuters and leisure travelers from outlying areas to get into the city safely by bike. 

As shared by Arthur Bajula, the cycle and pedestrian planning officer for Métropole de Lyon, the city currently has roughly six miles of the new Lyon Routes network built. “We plan to have a third of the project — 90 km or 55 miles — completed or under construction by the summer of 2024,” says Bajula, noting that the network also plays a role in the city’s ongoing efforts to reduce air pollution. “The idea is to strengthen alternative mobility options such as cycling… and to promote cleaner vehicles within low emission zones.”

These numbers point to something of a hockey stick model, with a slow beginning which then ramps up. This echoes the trajectory of the Green Party, which came to power in Lyon in 2020 and has dedicated much of its early years to laying the groundwork for substantial climate work. This includes goals such as reducing C02 emissions by 40%, creating thousands of new ‘green jobs,’ and securing Lyon’s place among the world’s top bike cities. 

Unsurprisingly, part of the delay can also be attributed to a handful of car-centric mayors from other Métropole de Lyon municipalities who have sought to slow down the city’s two-wheel transition.

“There’s a lot of political opposition by certain mayors who are not green,” says Pamela Vennin, project manager with Lyon’s International Relations Department, explaining that the mentality is that citizens need cars to maintain their lifestyles and rights to privacy. “They don't want the cars to have problems.”

Still, in the face of vocal opposition, the Green Party has continued to push ahead, choosing to take space from cars by instituting “road diets” — slashing four or six-lane roads with parking on each side of the street to one or two lanes, with no parking, a bike lane, and wider sidewalks. 

“Some citizens have been pushing back,” says Vennin. “But it's the political will to tackle global warming, starting with mobility.”

Despite some pushback, all signs point to the Lyonnais embracing bicycling. Within the highest traffic areas of the downtown core, protected bike lanes are commonplace. So much so that you need to make a mental note when walking about to always look both ways for bikes when crossing the street. Even in outlying areas where traffic is lighter and there’s less of a need for protected bike lanes, painted lanes with sharrows on shared streets are the norm.

Last year, 72 bike counters tallied more than 42 million trips in Lyon, reflecting the fact that over the past decade biking trips have grown by 10-15% annually. Since COVID, the pace has picked up with 15-20% year-over-year growth. Overall, bicycling has increased by an incredible 370% since 2013. 

With so many cyclists, the city is also working to actively expand its bike parking infrastructure. In 2020, Lyon had 15,000 bike racks and according to Bajulaz, the goal is to quadruple the number of bike racks to 60,000 by 2026. For secure parking, such as bike garages, the goal is to increase the number of spaces tenfold, from 1,500 in 2020 to 15,000 by 2026.

In addition to the expanding network of bike lanes and places to park, other initiatives have helped pave the way for more widespread bike adoption. For instance, the Velo’v bike share program has been a tremendous success, with 422 stations serving 22 of Greater Lyon’s municipalities and more than 10 million rentals in 2022. In my time there, stations were prevalent and obviously well-used by both tourists and locals alike.  Shared micromobility becomes even more critical when you consider that one in three residents doesn’t even own a car — a statistic underscored by the fact many locals use Velo’v for commuting. 

Lyon is also making an effort to remove financial barriers to mode shift through its bike purchasing program, whereby any city resident is eligible for a grant of up to 1,000 Euro (about $1,053) towards purchasing an e-bike, a cargo bike, a folding bike, or an adaptive bike. The city also loans some 10,000 bikes, many of them reconditioned, to students or young adults seeking jobs between the ages of 18 and 25 through its Free Velo’v program. Most unique perhaps, is Lyon’s Les Auteliers de l’Audace, a bicycle repair training and resale program that recruits residents without a job as a way to help them reintegrate into society. 	

City officials are also working to make it easier for residents to take their bikes on public transit. “It is now possible to bring your bicycle on trams outside of peak hours,” says Bajulaz, adding that bikes are also allowed on the metro, funiculars, and trains. “We are also experimenting with bringing bikes on certain buses.”

Lyon’s civic leaders remain cognizant of everyday challenges that intersect with the city’s biking experience, ranging from getting more residents on board and comfortable with biking to discouraging drivers from parking or driving on road space dedicated to bikes. Or, as I experienced firsthand during my tour, the prevalence of bikers riding too fast or aggressively, which impacts the safety of both pedestrians and other cyclists. 

Still, compared to most North American cities, Lyon is an exemplary place for bicycling. With a solid network already in place and a population that’s already attained critical mass, the city’s key players are thinking bigger. The planner Bajulaz continues to draw inspiration from other top cities while Lyon Mayor Grégory Doucet is aiming for a city that is “100% walking and cycling.”

The other challenge and opportunity is that, with just three years left in their term, the city’s ruling Green Party feels a sense of urgency to get as much biking infrastructure built as possible before the next election. The concern is that if they don’t win, opposition parties will be less willing to continue advancing the substantial cycling work already underway, or, possibly, to begin prioritizing drivers. 

For now, that outcome is hard to imagine. Biking through Lyon’s streets, some of which have been around since Roman times, one feels as if they’ve landed on the right side of history. Everywhere you turn, there are people on bikes as well as clusters of bikes parked adjacent to where residents work and play. Increasingly, there are streets with few, if any, cars.

Mark Douglas Wessel is an urban journalist and communications consultant whose writing focuses on what we can do to create a more sustainable, more liveable world. For more of his work, go to: www.markdouglaswessel.com

What It’s Like To Ride in a Top-Rated Bike City

PeopleForBikes’ latest initiative, The Great Bike Infrastructure Project, is an ambitious program aimed at transforming communities across the United States by championing pro-bike policies and launching thousands of bike infrastructure projects. The goal of the project is to create safer and more accessible biking opportunities for everyone.

This visionary program comprises three vital components:

1. The implementation of thousands of bike projects

3. Significant investments in local communities 

In this four-part blog series, "A Legislative Playbook to Build More Bikeable Communities," we’ll dive into the legislative arm of our new program, exploring policies that promote safe, complete bike networks while also highlighting states and municipalities that are successfully putting these policies into action.

The policy pillars that make up The Great Bike Infrastructure Project’s legislative arm are outlined in the program’s Legislative Guide. Designed to aid policymakers and advocates in expanding local bike infrastructure for transportation and recreation, this comprehensive guide outlines four highly effective legislative solutions to accelerate the construction of safe and connected biking infrastructure. 

The key strategies featured in the guide include:

Funding for Bike Infrastructure: While there is an unprecedented amount of federal funding available for bike infrastructure, state and local funding are essential to propel more projects forward. Local funding also provides the 20-50% local match required for most federal grants. Our guide offers examples of more than a dozen different state and local funding mechanisms for bike infrastructure, ranging from Tax Increment Financing districts to sales tax revenue and everything in between.


Mandating Complete Streets: The implementation of Complete Streets mandates is a pivotal strategy for advancing bike infrastructure. Complete Streets ensure that all road users — including pedestrians, cyclists, public transit users, and drivers — have safe and accessible ways to reach their destinations. Our guide provides examples of legislation that includes strong and specific requirements for creating Complete Streets, including language that allows for limited exceptions and denotes clear roles and responsibilities to make mandates effective.


Advancing Bike Infrastructure Through Climate Legislation: Our guide underscores how state and local climate legislation can facilitate the construction of bike projects. By including bike infrastructure in climate legislation, communities can help reduce vehicle miles traveled and greenhouse gas emissions, ultimately delivering significant environmental and fiscal benefits. We highlight examples of climate legislation in Minnesota, Washington, Rhode Island, and Hawaii, showcasing the most effective components.


Creating Safer Places to Ride: Ensuring streets are safe for cyclists is paramount to encouraging the adoption of bicycling for both transportation and recreation. Our guide emphasizes several strategies for local communities and states to achieve safer streets, including measures to reduce traffic speeds, ban right turns on red, and adopt modern design standards.

In this blog series, we will provide in-depth insights into each of these legislative strategies and demonstrate where we are already witnessing success stories. Promoting safe and connected places to ride remains our overarching goal to get more people on bikes.

Our work at PeopleForBikes to advance bike riding across the U.S. relies heavily on our local advocacy partners in all 50 states. If you are actively involved in improving bike infrastructure in your community, we would love to hear from you and discuss how PeopleForBikes can support your efforts. Please reach out to us at info@peopleforbikes.org. Together, we can make biking safer and more accessible for all.

A Legislative Playbook to Build More Bikeable Communities

When in Washington, D.C., Congressman Earl Blumenauer doesn't drive. That’s an incredible feat considering Blumenauer is 75 years old and has served as a Democratic representative for Oregon’s 3rd congressional district since 1996. For decades, the congressman has commuted to Capitol Hill and around town by bike, living his values while simultaneously advocating for bicycling at the national level.

During his tenure, Blumenauer founded the Congressional Bike Caucus, fought to extend commuter benefits to cyclists, and co-sponsored the introduction of the E-BIKE Act in 2021, which though it has yet to pass, has inspired a proliferation of e-bike incentives at the state level. This Congress, Blumenauer reintroduced the E-BIKE Act alongside the Bicycle Commuter Act, which would offer tax benefits to Americans commuting to work by bike, and the Sarah Debbink Langenkamp Active Transportation Act, which would unlock Highway Safety Improvement Program funding for projects that connect two pieces of safe cycling infrastructure.

Blumenauer’s efforts have also directly improved his daily commute: Over the course of two years, he successfully lobbied to get two miles of protected bike lanes built on Pennsylvania Avenue between the White House and the Capitol, a powerful symbol of integrating bicycling into our nation’s the transportation ecosystem. 

“The key for me has been to take the bicycle, the most efficient form of urban transportation ever designed, and be able to try and help people understand its power,” says Blumenauer, who regularly positions bicycling as a way to create a healthier, more sustainable, and more equitable world. “The ability to be able to make that case, to engage people, to show what a difference cycling makes — that’s something I'm very proud of.”

Blumenauer was a featured speaker at PeopleForBikes’ recent SHIFT‘23 conference in Bentonville, Arkansas. We interviewed the congressman ahead of the conference to talk about federal support for bicycling, the need to close the de minimis loophole, and — in line with this year’s conference theme — all things electric bikes.

Your focus has always been on leaving a better world for our children. Can you speak to that and how a push for bicycling makes sense in that context?

The bicycle is such a powerful tool and we need to make sure that it is integrated in both domestic and foreign policy. As I’ve said, the bicycle is the single most efficient form of transportation ever designed. It liberates young people, it costs relatively little to access, it's better for congestion, and it allows the rider to burn calories instead of fossil fuel, something that is important if we're going to fight climate change. There are also a great number of positive economic impacts.

There's so much money that is, for example, consumed parking cars. We have some estimates that there are six, eight, ten parking spaces or more for every vehicle. Those spaces give the illusion that we provide “free parking” — well, that is paid for with higher rents, more air pollution, and problems with stormwater runoff. Parking spaces cost $8,000-12,000 per parking space, and if it’s structured parking, we’re talking about $20,000-30,000 per space. “Free parking” is extraordinarily expensive.

You can easily park eight, nine, or ten bicycles in a space that would just be one car. And part of what we are finding is that people who bike are actually better customers. If you're biking at 10 or 15 miles per hour, you're more likely to pull over and explore something. You're more likely to have lunch or shop as opposed to when you're whizzing through a neighborhood at 40 miles per hour.

We know that parking reform is key to building bike-friendly cities, but I think it's hard for the average person to see the connection. How do we talk about bicycling more holistically in the context of some of our nation’s most pressing issues?

When parking is removed, that makes it much easier to finance and build affordable housing. There are so many of these elements that are ingrained in the way that we do business. Less parking means more choices and healthier air. You have to show people the impact the bicycle can have.

More bike utilization gives us a way for us to reduce the challenges for housing. It's a way to reduce congestion since every bicycle that's next to you when you pull over a stoplight is a car that’s not in front of you. Bikes provide a healthy alternative to cars and the more people take advantage of it, the more they're sold, which naturally helps build momentum.

What do you think are the chief impediments when it comes to getting people to bike in the first place?

A big part of it is having safe cycling infrastructure. Traffic safety is a huge problem in this country and the carnage on the road is really painful. The more we invest in improving that cycling infrastructure, the more people will actually use it. The bicyclist and the pedestrian are the indicator species of livable communities.

Part of what needs to happen — and I’ve been involved with this work in my congressional district in Portland — is that we need to redesign roads to be more bike-friendly. We need to lower speed limits and create bike boulevards. One of my proposals that was enacted included creating a $1 billion Safe Streets and Roads for All grant program to fund projects that help prevent death and serious injury on roads and streets.

These are things that really make a difference to individual commuters, but they also provide a sense of safety and security so that those commuters then want their family to cycle with them. And when they do, they're healthier and they're happier. They also save money and are making a difference for the health of the planet.

What are you currently working on to address these challenges?

Between the Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, we’re putting in the resources to ensure local bike projects qualify for federal funds and that much-needed infrastructure gets built. There’s been a 70% increase in funding to create and maintain bike lanes and sidewalks, and we’ve also made it so that shared micromobility like bike sharing and scooter systems are eligible for federal resources. Bike infrastructure is something we’ve dramatically underinvested in in the past and there’s now more funding for it than ever before.

We've also had a proposal to allow electric vehicle charging station credit to be used for two and three-wheeled electric vehicles. There's a lot of talk about the infrastructure for electric cars, but we need the same thing for electric bikes. 

There’s also a piece of legislation that I’m going to introduce soon which would allow people to cash out on their employer-sponsored paid parking. Meaning, that if an employer gives them a free parking space, the employee has the right to take cash instead of that space. It’s about letting the employee make the choice about whether they’re going to drive, take transit, bike, or use shared micromobility — it’s about leveling the playing field so that our default isn’t unlimited free parking. 

What else is giving you hope when it comes to bicycling?

For decades, we’ve basically surrendered to the single occupancy vehicle and that’s had devastating effects on communities. With its Reconnecting Communities and Neighborhoods Grant Program, this administration is actively trying to heal communities that have been harmed by freeway projects, which have divided neighborhoods and only increased congestion. 

The new vision is a low-carbon, equitable future, which makes a big difference for people of color and low-income households who have been on the receiving end of historical harm. Part of what I hope we'll be able to make more progress on is being able to provide more cycling opportunities for low-income and people of color.

I’ve also been watching with delight some of the work that's being done around the country to broaden the range of people who are involved in bicycling. Whether that’s by putting diverse faces in cycling leadership positions or companies focusing on equity. It's making a difference and there's more that we can do going forward.

Electric bicycles are outselling analog bikes and electric cars, and it seems like every state is coming out with an incentive program of its own. How are e-bikes changing the conversation around bicycling in the U.S.?

An e-bike makes any cyclist into a bike commuter — the barrier to entry is so low, you can immediately begin cycling. There are a number of people I know whose second car is an e-cargo bike so that they can shop and schlep the kids around. We also see more and more companies looking to e-cargo bikes for deliveries. It makes a huge difference to congestion in our communities and to the environment.

It's really remarkable what an e-bike does in terms of ease, in terms of safety, and in terms of dealing with challenging geography. It has also been remarkable watching the number of people now who are using e-bikes, who got introduced to them with bike share.

I must admit, I was a little bit of a snob, holding out on buying an e-bike. But a recent vacation I took had me cycling in areas that were challenging for me on a conventional bike. The next day I took an e-bike and it was magic. So I am a fan. I'm planning on getting my e-bike this fall.

Do you think there’s still hope for a federal e-bike incentive?

I think we have an excellent chance at some point but nothing much is passing in this Congress. We're just trying to hold on to what we passed in the last Congress and get it implemented. But I think the handwriting is on the wall: E-bikes are extraordinarily popular, and they’re expensive for low and moderate-income people. An e-bike tax credit is a way to avoid that.

Many low-quality, uncertified e-mobility products are coming into the U.S. under ‘de minimis,’ the regulatory loophole that allows products under $800 to be imported without being inspected, taxed, or forced to adhere to safety standards. Can you speak to the Import Security and Fairness Act and how it aims to close this loophole?

Over two million packages arrive in the United States that are directly shipped to consumers, uninspected, and untaxed. Oftentimes, we're quite confident they’ve used forced labor. Of these packages, we also have inferior quality e-bike batteries coming in, which have been catching fire.

We're working hard to make sure that we close the de minimis loophole so that countries that are not market economies and are on the watch list do not qualify. People recognize the inequity of the loophole and there’s more interest in closing it from businesses. I think that's a very, very good sign.

Is there anything else you’d like to leave us with?

I don't believe that we have to declare war on the automobile, but we also don't have to surrender to it. There are all these little tiny decisions that we collectively make to prioritize cars, which are not really little tiny decisions when you multiply them by hundreds of thousands of times across the country. We need to move away from cars shaping our communities towards communities being able to shape the vision they have for the future. 

Congressman Blumenauer Is Bicycling’s Biggest Advocate

For the first time since our City Ratings program launched seven years ago, Minneapolis, Minnesota, tops the list of the best large U.S. cities for bicycling with a score of 68. In 2022, the city’s score hovered in the 30s, and its leap to number one speaks to a number of notable changes. 

First, Minneapolis’ data received a massive update — while that’s not the most exciting reason, it’s essential. Our scoring system is informed using data from OpenStreetMap, which is essentially the Wikipedia of street maps, meaning anyone can edit it. If a city’s data in OpenStreetMap doesn’t adequately reflect the breadth and/or quality of the city’s on-the-ground infrastructure, then its corresponding City Ratings score will be lower. Thanks to updates to its OpenStreetMap data, Minneapolis saw its score rise.

That being said, the midwestern city, home to a population of about 425,336 people, has also made huge strides in building out the safe, connected bicycle infrastructure that demands OpenStreetMap updates — and defines the world’s best places to ride. 

“What's really unique about Minneapolis — what's different than many of the other notable cities for bicycling in North America — is that the backbone of our network is probably one of the best urban trail networks in the country,” says Luke Hanson, a senior transportation planner for the city. “Minneapolis' status as one of the top cities for bicycling is both a combination of strategic multimodal investments that include that kind of urban trail network, as well as deliberate complimentary policy guidance over time. Those pieces go hand in hand to create our current bike network.”

A key component of Minneapolis’ cycling urban trail network is the Grand Rounds Scenic Byway, a continuous, 51-mile loop of off-street bike trails that traverses the entire city. For more than 100 years, the byway has been a recreational and transportation resource for people biking, walking, and rolling — a historical network that the city has been able to build off of over time with strategic and complimentary investments primarily along former rail corridors. That includes the Midtown Greenway, the Cedar Lake Trail, the Hiawatha LRT Trail, and the Dinkytown Greenway, which are all repurposed, grade-separated trails that avoid conflicts with motor vehicles and connect some of the most important destinations in the city. 

“All of this has been augmented by a series of initially painted buffered bicycle boulevard facilities throughout the city that provided network-level connectivity,” says Hanson. “More recently, many of these facilities have been improved by transitioning them from traditional unprotected bike lanes to protected facilities in a variety of different design types, utilizing things like protected intersection design and other tools we have available to us.”

Hanson is quick to point to the various policies that have helped Minneapolis develop one of the country’s most robust bicycle networks: its 2011 Bicycle Master Plan, 2013 Climate Action Plan, and 2015 Protected Bikeway Update to the Bicycle Master Plan. The 2015 plan outlined a long-term objective of creating 174 miles of protected bike lanes as part of the city's bike network. In 2019, the city also conducted a neighborhood greenway study to look at ways to transition traditional bike boulevards to make them more comfortable, safer, and more appealing to a wider group of people. Finally, the city’s 2020 Transportation Action Plan provides policy guidance to continue implementing protected and safe bike facilities throughout the city.

Minneapolis currently boasts 21 miles of on-street protected bike lanes and 106 miles of off-street sidewalk and trail miles. By 2030, the goal is to have 141 miles of newer, upgraded all ages and ability bikeways throughout the city, along with a micromobility mode share of 10% (the Climate Action Plan outlines a long-term goal of raising the bicycle commute mode share to 15%). Unfortunately, the loss of the city’s Nice Ride bike share system earlier this year complicates that vision (and is arguably a huge oversight on the part of the city).

“[Mass mode shift] is still a goal and it’s important to work towards that even with the challenge of not having a reliable bike share system,” says Hanson. “What we're trying to establish is a complimentary transportation network where people have options beyond just driving and single occupancy vehicles. In addition to transit, we're thinking through walking, biking, rolling, and other methods to make sure people have transportation options and choices to help us get to those mode shift goals. Marketing is important but we’re reinforcing that with infrastructure.”

Other complementary policies, such as redesigning intersections and reducing speeds, play an equally important role. In 2020, Minneapolis and its twin city St. Paul lowered their default speed limits, switching from 30 to 20 mph on residential streets and 25 mph for larger, arterial, city-owned streets. Lowering speed limits aligns with Minneapolis’ Vision Zero work by reducing the likelihood of crashes and the likelihood of a crash leading to serious injuries or death. Since lower speeds are critically important in places where people are walking, rolling, and biking — which is most locations in Minneapolis — they correspond with higher City Ratings scores.

“Lowering speed limits is a tool but we're also using street design to compliment those lower posted speed limits,” says Hanson. “Traffic calming measures such as raised crossings, speed humps, speed cushions, medians, and narrowing roadways are equally important. Even if they’re not explicitly a bike project per se, they make it safer and more comfortable for people to bike.”

Other things Minneapolis is doing well include leveraging federal grants to fund projects, taking advantage of street resurfacing projects to upgrade infrastructure, and creating a brand new Street Design Guide. According to Hanson, in addition to providing guidance on what an all ages and abilities bikeway should look like, the guide also includes guidance on when to install them (the short answer: on any major throughway undergoing reconstruction). Notably, the city also eliminated parking minimums and made the choice to transition away from single-family housing, choices that contribute to better cities for cycling (it also helps that Minnesota is progressive when it comes to its state transportation policy).

“It's not as simple as the silo of transportation infrastructure — these things build upon one another to make a functional, practical system for people to rely on and use,” says Hanson. “It’s important to acknowledge that there are a lot of additional projects that aren’t bike-specific that work to make biking safer and more comfortable.”

Having worked on bike projects for more than a decade, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Hanson himself is a regular cyclist, relying on his bike for most trips. He credits the local bike culture as a major contributing factor to what makes Minneapolis such a great place to bike. On any given week, there are dozens of social rides throughout the city, including non-drop rides, family-friendly outings, and meet-ups for identity-specific groups. There are organizations that empower people to be comfortable on their bikes through all four seasons, as well as Grease Rag and other groups that provide inclusive environments for bicycle education.

Hanson also credits local advocacy groups and community-based organizations with helping create a safer, more comfortable, and more equitable environment for bicycling. 

“We've found a lot of value in partnering with established community groups and organizations to perform better, more meaningful project engagement,” says Hanson. “Doing so allows us as city staff to better build relationships with residents through trusted community members. Meaningful relationships are a really, really important resource for us.”

In recent years, Minneapolis has also been the site of racial unrest and the need to connect with and prioritize the needs of historically underserved communities has been pushed to the forefront. The city recently created a Racial Equity Framework for Transportation, which acknowledges that certain populations and geographies in the city have borne the brunt of displacement, pollution, and a slew of other outcomes directly tied to an inequitable transportation system. Importantly, this framework can help city planners be strategic and prioritize transportation investments in those same communities.

Hand in hand with those investments is a tangible plan for lowering barriers to bicycling through youth education. Currently, Minneapolis Public Schools are rolling out universal bike education for fourth and fifth graders in two-thirds of the city’s public schools, with plans for it to eventually be district-wide. After all, an all ages and abilities bike network only benefits youth that know how to ride.

“In the last few years, I think we’ve made some really meaningful progress,” says Hanson. “And I also appreciate that there’s always ongoing work to do.”

How Minneapolis Became a Top U.S. Bike City

Even great biking cities need to constantly improve to ensure they remain at the forefront of creating better communities for bicycling. Just ask Munich, Germany, which, even with a City Ratings score of 83, strives to make its city even better for bicycling with the 2022 announcement of a new plan for six cycling expressways and a bicycle ring road to be completed by 2025. 

City Ratings scores and the creation of great places for biking are positively impacted by plans that embody PeopleForBikes' SPRINT framework: reducing speeds, constructing protected bike lanes, reallocating road space, improving intersections, establishing comprehensive networks of safe cycling routes, and using trusted data to inform decision-making. These strategies help communities enhance bike infrastructure and make riding better for everyone.

With that in mind, we explored our top-rated U.S. cities for 2023 to find the most exceptional bike plans. Each of these communities sets an inspiring example for others to follow, demonstrating the transformative power of well-crafted bike plans in building vibrant, bike-friendly communities that get more people riding more often.

Rated as the top large U.S. city in our City Ratings program for 2023, Minneapolis has developed one of the country’s most robust bicycle networks thanks in part to its 2011 Bicycle Master Plan, 2013 Climate Action Plan, 2020 Transportation Action Plan, and 2015 Protected Bikeway Update to the Bicycle Master Plan. The 2015 plan outlined a long-term objective of creating 174 miles of protected bike lanes as part of the city's bike network. To help implement these plans, Minneapolis’ Street Design Guide was created to steer the design of road reconstructions and retrofits.

In 1967, Davis constructed a bike lane on 8th Street, making it the first U.S. city with a designated bike lane. Today, Davis is PeopleForBikes’ highest-rated medium-sized city, with more than 100 miles of bike lanes and paths. The city has bike plans dating back to 1977 available on its website, offering a glimpse into how thinking about bike infrastructure has changed over the decades. Davis’ most recent plan, its 2014 Beyond Platinum Bicycle Action Plan, outlines strategies to help Davis continue leading the way in creating a safe and attractive bicycling community to meet climate adaptation goals and accommodate a growing population.

San Francisco's Vision Zero Action Plan and Quick Build Program is part of the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency's efforts to prioritize safety and sustainable transportation. In recent years, it’s gained significant traction, building upon the city’s transit-first policy, which voters approved in the 1970s. The program’s success lies in its iterative design process, which uses streamlined delivery to produce quick results, project evaluations to determine what’s working in regard to safety outcomes, and the willingness to redesign projects if needed. 

As it approaches its tenth anniversary, the program has showcased notable achievements for people riding bikes, including increasing bike volumes by up to 75%, reducing vehicle-bike interactions at bike signals by 93%, reducing vehicular speeds, and decreasing the percentage of vehicles blocking bike lanes by 90%.  All of this has helped land San Francisco our number two spot among large U.S. cities in this year’s City Ratings program.

In 2021, Seattle updated its Bicycle Master Plan to guide the city’s work over the next four years, listing specific infrastructure projects to be completed within that time frame. Through regular updates to the plan, Seattle has been able to adjust project lists and provide progress reports to the City Council and the Seattle Bicycle Advisory Board on the implementation status of the overall master plan — something that is required by City Council Resolution in Seattle. 

The Bicycle Master Plan works in conjunction with the city's Vision Zero Plan and Bicycle and Pedestrian Safety Analysis, which help prioritize bicycle infrastructure based on safety considerations, as well as the Seattle Trails Upgrade Plan, which helps guide trail connectivity and maintenance projects. Together, these four plans have helped the city lower speed limits to 25 mph for more than 90% of its arterial streets and, as of November 2022, build out 32 miles of protected bike lanes and trails, as well as nearly 60 miles of neighborhood greenways. All of this work has helped Seattle increase its Bicycle Network Analysis score — which directly informs City Ratings results — from 47 in 2018 to 62 in 2023. 

From 2000 to 2009, Philadelphia saw a 151% increase in bicycle commuting, making it the fastest-growing mode of transportation in the city. In 2012, when Philadelphia released its updated Pedestrian and Bicycle Plan, the city had already used its 2000 version of the plan to create more than 230 miles of bike lanes and other on-road bicycle facilities to keep up with growing demand. In 2013, the city also released its Trail Master Plan, which has since been updated annually. 

While the 2012 plan focused on improving network connectivity by filling gaps in the network, the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia wanted more, challenging the city to construct 30 miles of protected bike lanes. That idea gained traction in 2018 when the Kenney Administration integrated it into Connect: Philadelphia's Strategic Transportation Plan. 

Key components of these plans (and the city’s Vision Zero Plan) helped increase Philadelphia’s Bicycle Network Analysis score from 43 in 2018 to 57 in 2023. They include the creation of neighborhood slow zones, an impressive regional trail network, and new protected bike lanes on JFK Boulevard, Market Street, Race Street, Torresdale Avenue, and Parkside Avenue.

In 2019, Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller made a commitment to Vision Zero, joining more than 40 other U.S. communities in an effort to eliminate traffic deaths and serious injuries. That commitment has clearly paid off for the city’s bike network: While it’s not a top-rated city (yet), Albuquerque's Bicycle Network Analysis score jumped from just 13 in 2019 to 29 in 2023. 

Released in 2021, Albuquerque’s Vison Zero Action Plan incorporates clear themes and corresponding action items, designating lead agencies and organizations responsible for implementing each. Importantly, the plan overlays a vulnerable communities index map with the high fatal and injury network map to address safety concerns to improve equity. 

From 1997 to 2007, Teton County and the Town of Jackson constructed more than 25 miles of paved shared-use paths. Since the completion of the Pathways Master Plan in 2007, that mileage has grown exponentially, landing Jackson in the number six overall spot in our U.S. City Ratings program with a score of 79. With 70 miles of paved pathways and 152 miles of trails, the pathway system now links the community to even more riding opportunities in nearby Bridger-Teton National Forest and Grand Teton National Park. 

Beyond identifying priority infrastructure investments to improve and expand the Pathways system, the Master Plan lays out clear recommendations for needed policy changes, team structures, and finances to complete the plan’s vision and maintain the Pathways network, ensuring the system is set up for long-term success. The 2015 Community Streets Plan complements the Pathways Master Plan by providing a street design manual that governs the development of public infrastructure projects, ensuring that bikeways are developed under set standards and in line with the master plan. 

In 2021, Hoboken released its Vision Zero Action Plan, which aims to achieve Vision Zero in five years by implementing immediate improvements for safer streets. The plan helped the city identify high-crash corridors and intersections and recommend specific measures to reduce crashes and their impact, many of which the city has moved quickly to implement, including protected bike lanes, curb extensions, high-visibility crosswalks, and a citywide 20-mile-per-hour speed limit. 

Hoboken’s 2010 Bicycle and Pedestrian Plan also helped put the city on the right track to becoming what is now one of the best medium-sized cities in the U.S. for biking, with a City Ratings score of 62. Even more importantly, Hoboken has achieved something most advocates in other U.S. cities can only dream of: no traffic fatalities for four consecutive years.

Cambridge achieved one of the most significant increases in our City Ratings program, soaring from 31 in 2018 to an impressive 58 in 2023. Improvements in Cambridge have been propelled forward through the 2020 Cambridge Bicycle Plan, the city’s Vision Zero Action Plan, and the implementation of separated bike lanes as mandated by the Cambridge Cycling Safety Ordinance. Perhaps most influential, the Cycling Safety Ordinance requires the city to build almost its entire citywide network of protected bike lanes by 2026.

How Great Bike Plans Transform Communities

Every year, PeopleForBikes releases the results of its City Ratings, a data-driven program that evaluates, identifies, and compares the best global cities and towns for bicycling. Using this data, we help city leaders pinpoint improvements to make biking better and safer for everyone in their communities.

City Ratings scores are generated using PeopleForBikes’ Bicycle Network Analysis, which you can learn more about here. High-scoring cities often perform well across six factors captured in the acronym SPRINT: safe speeds, protected bike lanes, reallocated space for biking and walking, intersection treatments, network connections, and trusted data.

For 2023, we rated 1,484 cities of all sizes throughout the U.S. and 249 international cities on the quality of their bike networks. 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.

With so much data to sort through, we created this summary report to showcase how the program works alongside high-level takeaways from this year’s ratings.




For 2023, the top-scoring small, medium, and large U.S. cities for bicycling are: Provincetown, Massachusetts; Davis, California; and Minneapolis, Minnesota. Minneapolis, Minnesota, saw a tremendous increase in its score over last year, improving 31 points between 2022 and 2023, landing at the #1 spot in large U.S. cities for this year. 

Newcomers to the top 10 include Milwaukee, Wisconsin, a large city that improved its ratings score from 35 out of 100 in 2022 to 45 out of 100 in 2023. That jump also helped Wisconsin see a substantial rise in ridership as well. Eco-Counter data shows that ridership growth in the state outpaced the rest of the Midwest region: On the weekends, there are 20% more rides happening across Wisconsin than there were in 2019 and weekday rides are up 27%.  

Longmont, Colorado, also edged its way into the top 10 medium cities, improving its score from 36 in 2022 to 59 in 2023. Among small cities, Blue Diamond, Nevada; Murdock, Nebraska; Shorewood, Wisconsin; and Mifflinburg, Pennsylvania, are all new to City Ratings and earned top 10 spots for 2023. Jackson, Wyoming, also moved into the top 10 small cities for the first time this year.


The average score among all U.S. cities is 23 out of 100. Cities in the top 10 score 55 out of 100 on average.


Five percent of U.S. cities score 50 or higher in this year’s City Ratings, with 50 being the threshold score for becoming a great place for bicycling. Meanwhile, more than half of U.S. cities score between 10 and 30.


Among medium and large cities with more than 50,000 residents, the top-scoring city in each state ranged from Davis, California (77) to Cheyenne, Wyoming (7).

Speed limits play a large role in City Ratings scores, and a growing number of cities across the U.S. are lowering speeds to make their roads safer. Slightly more than half of U.S. cities have speed limits of 25 mph or less on residential roads, while the remaining cities with speed limits of 30 mph or greater on residential roads could improve the safety of their bike network by reducing travel speeds.

Roads outside of residential areas also benefit from speed limit reductions, alone or in combination with other safety improvements such as upgrading bicycle infrastructure. The chart below summarizes the bike infrastructure needed on local roads based on their speed limits to improve a city’s score. 

Now in our sixth year of City Ratings, multiple years of data allow us to see changes in the quality of cities’ bike networks over time. Data quality has improved over the years as well, which is reflected in score changes. The chart below illustrates five years of data measuring the quality of bike networks among this year’s top 10 large cities.

More than just data, PeopleForBikes utilizes its City Ratings program to benchmark cities’ progress on improving the quality and connectivity of their bike networks as well as establish best practices for city leaders, decision-makers, and advocates to identify improvements to be made in their communities, ultimately making bicycling better for everyone.

Topics

Bike Commuting

PeopleForBikes at Work on Bike Commuting

News

What It’s Like To Ride in a Top-Rated Bike City

A Legislative Playbook to Build More Bikeable Communities

Congressman Blumenauer Is Bicycling’s Biggest Advocate

How Minneapolis Became a Top U.S. Bike City

How Great Bike Plans Transform Communities

2023’s Best Places to Bike