Biking has long been a core part of the culture in Mill Valley, California. Mount Tamalpais, or Mount Tam to locals, sits just north of the city and is best known as the birthplace of mountain biking. In addition to this extensive network of trails, residents of Mill Valley are now seeing more opportunities for biking even closer to home.

A Holistic Approach to Solving Transportation Problems

Located just north of the Golden Gate Bridge, the roads of Mill Valley were originally laid out to serve a more rural population. As the population grew, the city’s geography limited opportunities for major infrastructural changes — there simply wasn’t room to add more car lanes. With traffic increasingly impacting daily life, Mill Valley needed to find a better solution to move people safely and efficiently to the places they wanted to go.

The city council recognized the opportunity for a transportation modeshift, and also the need to approach the issue of traffic more holistically. In 2023, Mill Valley created the Transportation Mobility Advisory Committee (TMAC), which addresses the four major modes of transportation: cars, buses, bikes, and walking.

Building a More Bikeable City: Applying the SPRINT Principles

Summarized by the acronym SPRINT, PeopleForBikes identified six principles that can help cities of all sizes become great places to ride:

Mill Valley has already applied a number of these principles in their work to improve biking locally, best exemplified by the Miller Avenue project. Miller Avenue is essentially one of the  main streets in and out of Mill Valley, and the city completed a major overhaul of the road in 2018 with continued improvements in the years since.

Safe Speeds: Mill Valley lowered the speed limit on Miller Avenue from 30 mph down to 25 mph, aligning with NACTO guidelines. The city has also been proactive about lowering speed limits on other key streets, especially near schools.

Protected Lanes: A buffered bike lane was added in each direction along Miller Avenue.

Reallocating Space: Miller Avenue was narrowed down to one lane in certain parts to allow for the construction of the buffered bike lane. In another part of town, an agreement was made to construct a multi-use path through the middle of a golf course, improving connectivity between the neighborhood and downtown.

Intersection Treatments: The city is working on a safety corridor study on Miller Avenue, which includes looking at how to improve the safety of two major intersections for bikes, pedestrians, and cars.

Network Connectivity: Mill Valley is currently updating its bike/pedestrian plan and connectivity will be a big focus in prioritizing future projects which will be reviewed annually. The city also puts a lot of emphasis on connecting to surrounding towns, collaborating on mutli-use paths that provide additional opportunities for getting around by bike.

Trusted Data: A representative from Mill Valley attended PeopleForBikes’ mapathons and updated their OpenStreetMap data to better reflect Mill Valley’s infrastructure, leading to a more accurate City Ratings score.

Bike and pedestrian infrastructure has long been a key part of Mill Valley’s city planning strategy. Equally important is the support of residents for safer places to walk and bike. With the construction of new bike lanes, the culture around bikes as transportation has started to shift.

“The thing about humans is we like to do what other people are doing. If you are stuck in traffic and you're looking at people on their bikes riding by, you go, ‘You know what? There's probably a better way of doing this. Maybe I should [ride] too.’,” says Urban Carmel, Mill Valley city councilmember and former mayor. “The Miller Avenue bike lane is really important because it's a billboard for what we're trying to create.”

By building infrastructure that provides a comfortable, safe, connected alternative to driving, Mill Valley is proactively supporting a modeshift and creating a culture of biking throughout the city. With the rising popularity of e-bikes and cargo bikes, this culture is expanding to a much broader array of people.

“Advocacy looks different now because it covers so many segments of our population,” says Kat Jones, another city councilmember. “It's a lot easier to gain support for bike infrastructure from this broad swath of the population. It just has a different face than it did before. A nice bike lane has really changed a lot of lives.”

Bill Hoppin, chair of TMAC, describes Mill Valley as a city where residents have pride in their town and want to see it continue to improve and be best-in-class as a place to live and raise a family. They also growingly see a clear 1:1 relationship for traffic reduction that results when one trip by car is replaced by a bike. This is why Hoppin selected PeopleForBikes’ City Ratings program, because it’s a clear, data-driven way to measure annual progress and maintain momentum.

“We want to do really well on this, and we think that PeopleForBikes can help us fundamentally create a better, safer, more sustainable city — a city that lives up to the values it proclaims,” says Hoppin. “It's not going to happen overnight, so having an annual ranking that can show incremental improvement and progress is critical and we are excited for what comes next.”

Stay tuned for the release of PeopleForBikes’ 2026 City Ratings in June, highlighting communities like Mill Valley that are building connected, low-stress networks. This year, new census data, refined bike network analyses, and updated design standards are reshaping how cities are scored. Learn more here.

Building a Culture of Biking in Mill Valley, California

When New York City installed protected bike lanes on 9th Avenue, something remarkable happened: injuries for all street users fell by 58%. Across NYC corridors with protected bike lanes, pedestrian injury rates have dropped by 12 to 52% depending on the corridor. These infrastructure improvements aren't just making streets safer for cyclists — they're protecting everyone who uses our roads.

Protected bike lanes do more than separate cyclists from cars. They fundamentally reshape how streets function, creating multiple safety benefits for pedestrians as well as people riding bikes. By placing a physical barrier between the bike lane and vehicle traffic, these designs shorten crossing distances at intersections. That means instead of navigating across multiple lanes of mixed traffic, pedestrians cross distinct, predictable zones.

The safety improvements are dramatic. Streets with protected bike lanes in New York City typically see injury crashes drop by 40% for all road users — drivers, pedestrians, and cyclists alike. Some locations have recorded reductions exceeding 50%. A comprehensive study across 12 large U.S. cities found that streets with protected bike lanes had 44% fewer deaths and 50% fewer serious injuries compared to average American streets.

These lanes also reduce turning conflicts at intersections. When cyclists have their own protected space, drivers making turns have clearer sightlines and fewer potential collision points. The result is less traffic weaving, fewer sudden movements, and more predictable street behavior — all factors that directly benefit pedestrian safety.

Portland, Seattle, and San Francisco demonstrate what's possible when cities commit to protected infrastructure. Portland's fatality rate dropped 75% between 1990 and 2010 as the city built out its protected bike network. Seattle saw a 60.6% decline, while San Francisco recorded a 49.3% reduction in fatal crashes during similar periods of infrastructure investment.

The key to these successes lies in thinking about the broader network. Cities that connect protected bike lanes into comprehensive networks see exponentially better results than those installing isolated segments. Evidence from Austin, Chicago, Portland, San Francisco, and Washington D.C. shows ridership gains of 21 to 171% when protected lanes connect into networks — with proportional safety improvements following.

Philadelphia offers another compelling example. After expanding its protected bike lane network, the city saw a 95% increase in ridership. More cyclists using protected infrastructure means fewer riding on sidewalks — New York City documented sidewalk riding dropping by up to 84% after installing protected lanes, directly enhancing pedestrian safety.

Not all bike lanes deliver equal safety benefits. A 13-year analysis of more than 17,000 fatalities and 77,000 severe injuries across major U.S. cities revealed that only physically separated protected bike lanes improve safety. Painted lanes showed no benefit — and in some cases increased risk compared to unmarked roads. The distinction is crucial: physical separation changes driver behavior and creates genuine protection.

Research from the University of Colorado Denver and University of New Mexico, with findings highlighted by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, confirms that cities with more protected bike lane footage per square mile experience fewer fatalities and serious injuries across all road users. However, the study also highlighted that design quality matters. Lanes with frequent driveway crossings, like Washington D.C.'s 15th Street NW, pose higher risks than fully separated or raised designs.

The most effective protected bike lanes use concrete barriers, planters, or parked cars as buffers — not just flexible posts. These robust separations cut cyclist-motorist crashes by 53% while reducing injuries for all street users. Streets with these high-quality protected lanes experience 28% fewer injuries per mile than those without any bike infrastructure.

Despite overwhelming evidence, some community members worry that bike lanes make streets more dangerous. The data tells a different story. New York City's comprehensive analysis shows protected lanes reduce total deaths and serious injuries by 18.1%. For pedestrians specifically, these lanes cut deaths and serious injuries by 29.1%, with an even more impressive 39% reduction for seniors.

This safety improvement extends beyond direct infrastructure benefits. Protected bike lanes calm traffic speeds, encourage more predictable driver behavior, and create visual cues that remind all road users to stay alert. They transform chaotic, multi-use spaces into organized corridors where each mode of transportation has its designated place.

An April 2025 analysis of protected bike lane impacts reinforced these findings, directly countering narratives that bike infrastructure endangers streets. As cities expand these networks using federal funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, we're seeing consistent safety improvements across diverse urban environments.

For advocates and community members pushing for safer streets, the evidence provides a clear roadmap. Focus on building connected networks rather than isolated lanes. Push for physically separated designs with robust barriers. Use city-specific data in local campaigns — statistics from peer cities can be powerful tools for change.

When engaging with local officials, emphasize that protected bike lanes aren't just cycling infrastructure, they're comprehensive safety improvements that benefit all road users, especially pedestrians. The 44% reduction in deaths and 50% drop in serious injuries across 12 major cities represents thousands of lives saved and injuries prevented.

Protected bike lanes represent one of the most effective tools we have for creating safer streets. The data from cities across the country proves that when we give each mode of transportation its own protected space, everyone benefits — especially our most vulnerable road users.

A.J. Bruning is a personal injury attorney at Bruning Law Firm in St. Louis, Missouri.

Why Protected Bike Lanes Are Good for All Road Users

Every five to six years, Congress passes legislation to reauthorize federal surface transportation funding programs. For more than a year, congressional lawmakers in both the House and the Senate have been working on bipartisan proposals to reauthorize federal funding for roads, bridges, and transit systems, as well as bike infrastructure like trails, protected bike lanes, and multi-use paths that directly drive ridership, retail demand, and long-term growth for the U.S. bicycle market. The last major infrastructure bill, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), contained major wins for bikes thanks to the work of PeopleForBikes and our partners.

PeopleForBikes is once again leading the bike industry’s federal advocacy strategy, working to continue the momentum gained through the IIJA. Since early 2025, our team has lobbied lawmakers to include critical infrastructure funding and policies that support: 

High-quality, modern bicycle infrastructure that boosts local economies, reduces congestion, and improves safety and public health 

Efficiency and modernization improvements to key programs that streamline project delivery and accelerate progress

Congressman Sam Graves, chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and lead author of the bill, is expected to release and begin markup of the bill in early-to-mid May. If that happens, the next 60 to 90 days will determine what bike infrastructure funding and policies make it into the final bill.

Lawmakers are still negotiating major policy provisions in the bill, and it remains unclear whether they will meet the mid-May target. While Congress must reauthorize surface transportation programs before they expire on September 30, 2026, a short-term extension of current law is increasingly likely. Lawmakers are still grappling with several long-standing and unresolved issues including identifying a sustainable funding source and broader disagreements about transportation priorities. These challenges are compounded by a packed legislative calendar and the approaching midterm elections.

An extension would maintain current funding levels established under the IIJA, likely ensuring that communities across the country can continue building bike lanes, trails, and connected networks without interruption. Additional time could also allow lawmakers to strengthen key programs and policies, helping deliver a final bill after the mid-term elections that better supports safe, connected places to ride and long-term growth in the U.S. bicycle market.

Although we do not yet know what will be in the bill, PeopleForBikes has pressured lawmakers to include funding for key programs, such as the Transportation Alternatives Program and the Safe Streets and Roads for All Program. 

House lawmakers recently introduced three more bills central to PeopleForBikes’ federal infrastructure policy agenda that will create more places to ride. These bills are under consideration for adoption into the broader surface transportation reauthorization package:  

Active Transportation for Public Lands Act (H.R. 8514)

Expands access to biking and walking in national parks and public lands by funding new and improved trails and bike paths. This bill will unlock expanded outdoor recreation economies, boost demand for bike tourism, and create more high-quality places to ride in some of the country’s most visited destinations.

Active Transportation Infrastructure Investment Program Reauthorization and Improvement Act (H.R. 8565)

Strengthens and expands the Active Transportation Infrastructure Investment Program (ATIIP) to fund connected, protected bike networks in communities nationwide. By making biking a viable transportation option, this bill will directly drive ridership growth, increase bike sales, and support long-term market expansion for the bicycle industry.

Parks to People Active Transportation Act (H.R. 7751)

Invests in greenways and trail connections that link neighborhoods to parks, jobs, and essential destinations. By improving network connectivity and access to safe places to ride, this bill will help build more bike-friendly communities, increase bicycling participation for both transportation and recreation, and expand the customer base for bike businesses.

A Critical Bill at a Critical Moment for Bike Businesses

Communities across the country have made huge strides in recent years to expand access to safe places to ride a bike. While growth in bike lanes and trails has come thanks to a mix of federal, state, and local investments, federal funding — especially in the upcoming surface transportation reauthorization bill — is critical to continuing this momentum. Where people can safely ride bikes, they buy bikes: PeopleForBikes’ data demonstrates that communities with better bike networks have more bike shops and higher sales. As our industry continues to navigate evolving consumer demand and a challenging trade environment, it is crucial that we continue to boost demand for bicycling by creating more places to enjoy the many benefits of riding a bike.

With lawmakers targeting to introduce this bill by mid-May, it is critical that Congress hears from members of the bike industry about how important their support for pro-bike infrastructure policies is to your business.

Now is the time to speak up. Contact your senators and representatives and make it clear to them that investing in bike infrastructure is investing in American communities, public safety, and economic growth. Reach out to PeopleForBikes Director of Federal Policy Chris Bell at chris@peopleforbikes.org if you would like additional assistance contacting your elected officials. 

What the Federal Transportation Bill Means for Bike Infrastructure and the U.S. Bicycle Industry

CicLAvia in Los Angeles highlights the potential of Open Streets to create people-centered corridors.

When the 2026 World Cup arrives in the United States, host cities will face a familiar problem at an unfamiliar scale: how to move hundreds of thousands of people to and from matches without grinding to a halt. More lanes for cars won’t solve it. They never do.

What will help? A fast, visible multimodal transportation network that lets people move efficiently over short distances — by bike, on foot, and via transit. Thankfully, cities don’t need years or billion-dollar projects to make this happen. Even with the World Cup just weeks away, cities can use smart planning and quick-build tools to quickly deliver game-ready bike networks.

From Los Angeles to Atlanta to Boston, U.S. host cities have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to move millions of fans more efficiently. While matches will be played in a handful of official host cities, surrounding communities — like Newark, Pasadena, and Fort Lauderdale — will also absorb a surge of visitors and need to plan accordingly.

Start with the trips people will actually take between hotels, transit hubs, fan zones, and stadiums. Map those connections first and focus on continuity over perfection. To help visitors understand the network, cities should publish a simple, highly visible “Bike to the Match” network map that links stadiums and official fan zones, hotels and visitor districts, major transit stations, and key neighborhood corridors. The goal is to create a clear, connected network that works on day one.

The network shouldn’t stop at city limits. Hotels, short-term rentals, and fan activity will spread across metro regions, putting pressure on smaller cities and towns that may be less prepared. Building connected bike networks across jurisdictions can help distribute demand and reduce congestion everywhere.

While not everyone will choose to ride a bike, multimodal improvements like a cohesive bike network will help reduce traffic congestion for those who still choose to drive. 

Bonus: These same improvements reflect the kind of low-stress, connected bike networks that drive stronger City Ratings scores.

Use Open Streets to Create Instant Capacity and Turn Streets Into Fan Zones

The most successful World Cup host cities won’t just move crowds, they’ll turn streets into part of the experience.

One of the fastest ways to expand capacity is to open key streets to people walking and biking. Open Streets programs like CicLAvia regularly draw tens of thousands into people-centered corridors. For the World Cup, cities can use the same playbook on match days and high-traffic weekends to create safe, high-capacity routes to stadiums and fan zones. To do so, cities should focus on priority corridors, temporarily closing them to through traffic while allowing biking, walking, and limited local access, as well as staffing them with clear wayfinding and traffic management.

These corridors can also function as linear fan zones that bring the city to life with vendors and local businesses, music and live programming, watch parties, and sponsor activations.

Fans arrive together — by bike, on foot, or via transit — already immersed in the atmosphere instead of stuck in traffic. Businesses along the route see increased foot traffic, and cities gain a flexible, low-cost way to manage crowds. When done right, Open Streets don’t just solve congestion, they turn mobility into a signature part of the World Cup experience.

Not every street can be fully opened to people walking and biking. That’s where quick-build infrastructure comes in. Using paint, posts, and temporary barriers, cities can install protected bike lanes in a matter of weeks. Cities should focus on connecting Open Streets corridors to one another, linking neighborhoods to the main network, and creating safe access to transit hubs.

Cities can also treat these routes as real-world pilot projects — tracking ridership, safety, and usage to identify which corridors should become permanent improvements after the World Cup.

Make It Comfortable for First-Time Riders

World Cup visitors won’t be transportation experts. Many will be navigating a new city for the first time. That makes comfort and clarity essential:

Separate bike space from vehicular traffic wherever possible. 

Simplify intersections with clear markings.

Use bold, consistent wayfinding so routes are easy to follow.

If it feels safe and intuitive, people will use it. If it feels confusing or dangerous, they won’t.

Cities need to meet the demand that will come from an influx of visitors who do not have their own bikes with them. That means quickly scaling up bike share systems by adding more bikes; installing temporary docking stations near stadiums, transit hubs, hotel hubs, and fan zones; and promoting simple, short-term passes for visitors.

Hotels and event organizers can help promote access, making bike share the easiest option for short trips.

Even the best network fails without a secure place to park. Host cities should treat bike parking as essential infrastructure with large, staffed bike valet areas at stadiums, temporary racks at fan zones and along major routes, and clear signage so people know where to go. When bike parking is easy and secure, more people choose to ride, whether they’re heading to a stadium, stopping at the grocery store, or visiting a local park.

As more Americans use e-bikes, cargo bikes, and shared micromobility options, cities must also consider bike parking that works for a wide range of riders and devices, including visible racks outside of neighborhood businesses, bike corrals that replace a single car parking space, secure bike rooms at apartment buildings, and longer-term weather-protected parking near transit stations and downtown job centers.

Biking works best when it’s an integrated part of a larger system. Open Streets and bike routes should feed directly into transit stations, making it easy to combine transportation modes. This approach expands the reach of transit and reduces pressure on any single system.

The most important decision cities can make is to treat these changes as more than temporary. Quick-build lanes can become permanent. Open Streets corridors can evolve into recurring programs that help community members come together and experience the joy of riding a bike. Bike share expansions can serve residents long after the final match. While the World Cup is a deadline, it’s also an opportunity to accelerate projects that cities already need.

The cities that get this right will show the rest of the country what’s possible when streets are designed for people, with the opportunity to leave behind something even more valuable than a successful global event: a multimodal transportation system that serves residents and visitors for years to come.

The 2026 World Cup is a rare chance to transform mobility in cities nationwide. PeopleForBikes is here to help get it right. We can provide the resources to turn temporary, game day infrastructure into permanent, world-class networks. Don't let the momentum stop at the final match. Contact PeopleForBikes at info@peopleforbikes.org to learn how we can support your city’s journey toward a safer, more connected future.

How World Cup Host Cities Can Move Millions By Bike

Every year, PeopleForBikes uses the Bicycle Network Analysis (BNA) to produce our annual City Ratings, a data-driven measure of how well a city’s bike network connects people to the places they want to go. This program helps cities identify gaps in their bike networks, highlights opportunities to improve, and benchmarks progress over time.

Since its inception in 2017, the BNA has undergone multiple iterations, including accounting for speed limit differences (2019) and removing the community survey as the program expanded (2021). These updates have steadily improved the accuracy with which City Ratings reflect real-world bike networks.

For 2026, PeopleForBikes is introducing a new set of methodology changes to the BNA to feature the most up-to-date data, reflect best practices in street design, and incorporate feedback from City Ratings users.

With these updates, some cities may see score changes that reflect the updated methodology rather than recent infrastructure changes. As a result, comparisons between 2025 and 2026 should be interpreted with this updated methodology in mind. By introducing these improvements all at once, we can establish a consistent baseline for City Ratings so that future year-over-year changes can more reliably reflect real progress on the ground.

City Ratings are calculated based on the low-stress connectivity between where people live and important everyday destinations. These destinations fall into six main categories: People, Opportunity (employment, jobs), Core Services (medical care, grocery stores), Recreation, and Retail. Each census block is scored based on its access to these six categories, and then a population weighted average is taken of all block scores to calculate a community’s overall City Rating. Weighting by population means that the scores of census blocks with a higher number of people are going to have a greater effect on the overall rating.

What Changed in the 2026 City Ratings and How It Affects Your Score

City Ratings now incorporates 2020 U.S. Census data, which became available in stages through 2023 and 2024, replacing the 2010 baseline used in prior years. To maintain consistency in year-over-year comparisons, City Ratings relies on stable national datasets, which are then incorporated once complete detailed releases are made public.

This update provides a more current view of where people live, improving how the BNA measures access to people. As a result, the People score and overall weighting better reflect today’s population distribution. For example, if a neighborhood with strong bike infrastructure has grown in population, that increased access is now captured in the score.

The BNA has also been updated to use the latest data from the U.S. Census’s Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics Origin-Destination Employment Statistics (LODES), which helps us better understand where jobs are actually located within a city and increase the precision of the City Ratings Opportunity score. 

Together, these two changes strengthen how City Ratings measures access to people and jobs — two core components of a well-connected bike network.

Updated Bike Facility Standards Based on NACTO Guidance

In 2025, the National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO) released the third edition of its Urban Bikeway Design Guide. The guide includes updated standards for street design, outlining best practices for building low-stress bike networks for people of all ages and abilities. In accordance with this guide, the criteria for classifying streets as high- or low-stress have been updated in the BNA. 

For buffered and conventional bike lanes, lower speed limits are now required for the road to be considered low stress. These updates align City Ratings with current best practices for low-stress bike networks, reflecting how street design standards have evolved in the U.S. over time.

Exclusion of Destinations and Roads Outside City Boundaries

In previous versions of City Ratings, the Bicycle Network Analysis included some roads and destinations just beyond city limits — typically within one to two miles — as part of a city’s score. In some cases, that meant scores were influenced by infrastructure outside a city’s control. Based on feedback from City Ratings users, the 2026 update limits the analysis to roads and destinations within official city boundaries. This ensures each City Ratings score reflects the bike infrastructure and connectivity a city can directly plan, build, and maintain. This change isolates each city’s score to its own network, without influence from nearby areas.

The BNA now excludes low-stress routes that require significant detours (more than 25% longer than a direct route), reflecting how people typically choose more direct travel options and avoid biking if long detours are required to do so safely. 

The retail category has been expanded to include all destinations tagged as ‘shop’ in OpenStreetMap. Previously, the BNA only used areas tagged as ‘retail’. However, it has become best practice in OpenStreetMap to tag individual locations as shops, while larger shopping areas with multiple stores are tagged as retail. This update will better reflect the presence of individual retail locations within a city.

Ferry terminals have also been added as a destination in the transit category. 

U.S. city boundaries are now standardized and fetched directly from the U.S. Census. Previously, boundaries came from multiple sources, including city governments, OpenStreetMap, and the Census.

In earlier versions of the BNA, some census blocks counted in a city’s score weren’t realistically reachable by bike. These areas weren’t connected to the rest of the network within a reasonable riding distance—often because of physical barriers like water bodies, mountains, or limited crossings. While they may appear close on a map, they aren’t practical to reach by bike. These areas are now excluded from scoring, so City Ratings reflect how well a network works where biking is actually possible, rather than being influenced by geographic constraints outside a city’s control.

More Accurate Classification of Bike Infrastructure

A number of small changes were implemented in the BNA to more accurately classify bike infrastructure. This includes fixes such as no longer classifying golf course paths as cycling infrastructure and updating tags for specific features, such as contraflow bike lanes or two-way protected bike lanes.

The BNA is open source, and all methodology updates are publicly available on the brokenspoke-analyzer GitHub repository. 

These updates mark a meaningful improvement in how City Ratings measures real-world bikeability. By using updated data, aligning with new design standards, and focusing on infrastructure within city control, the BNA now provides a clearer picture of how investments in bike infrastructure are improving connectivity for people riding bikes in communities throughout the U.S.

PeopleForBikes’ 2026 City Ratings will be released in June, highlighting communities that are building connected, low-stress networks — and where critical gaps remain.

2026 City Ratings Methodology Updates: What Is Changing and Why It Matters

Ask any group of bike advocates what kind of infrastructure gets more people riding and you’ll get a familiar list: protected bike lanes, off-road paths, and protected intersections. But new research suggests that’s not the only question that matters.

A recent study published in Transportation Research Record by Nicholas N. Ferenchak and Wesley E. Marshall makes something clear that many of us have felt intuitively for years:

It’s not just what you build. It’s how connected it is. The collective strength of a bike network matters more than any single project — by a lot.

Researchers analyzed more than 14,000 neighborhoods across 28 U.S. cities and found that denser bike networks were 4.6x more strongly associated with ridership growth than individual facility installations. In other words: a connected system matters. Now, that doesn’t mean individual projects don’t matter, but rather that projects only reach their full potential when they’re part of something bigger.

The study confirms what PeopleForBikes has long advocated for: low-stress infrastructure works — but context also matters.

1. Protected bike lanes lead the way. Protected bike lanes consistently showed the strongest standalone impact on ridership growth among individual facility types. Even when installed in weaker networks, they still moved the needle.

2. Buffered lanes also perform well. They’re not quite as powerful as protected lanes, but they show meaningful gains.

3. Paint-only bike lanes? It depends. Here’s where things get interesting: standard (paint-only) bike lanes appear to increase ridership, but once you account for the surrounding network, that effect disappears. Basically, paint alone doesn’t drive ridership — connectivity does.

4. Shared lane markings (sharrows) don’t move the needle. No surprise to anyone who has ever biked next to fast traffic with a sharrow under their tires.

So what does a connected bike network look like on the ground?

Low-stress bike routes that link up instead of dead-end.

Trips that feel continuous, not interrupted.

A network that takes you where you actually want to go.

A fragmented network, on the other hand, looks far too familiar in many U.S. cities:

Great bike lanes that suddenly disappear.

A patchwork of infrastructure with gaps that require confidence (and risk tolerance) to navigate.

This new study shows that avoiding this fragmentation means everything. 

One of the most interesting findings is that protected bike lanes work even in weaker networks, but other facility types rely heavily on strong networks to be effective. That creates a clear takeaway for cities: If you’re still working to create a bike network, start with protected lanes. If you already have some infrastructure, focus on filling the gaps. Either way, the goal is the same: build toward a complete network, not isolated wins.

We often talk about the “interested but concerned” majority — people who would bike if it felt safe. That concern shows up clearly in PeopleForBikes’ participation data: a majority of adults worry about being hit by a car while riding, and nearly half say they’d ride more if bikes and cars were physically separated. In other words, the demand is there, but without a connected, low-stress network, most people won’t act on it.

This research helps explain why so many don’t choose to ride. While a single protected lane might feel safe, if it doesn’t connect to a full trip, it’s not enough. Most people don’t bike for the best segment of a route, they decide to ride or not based on the worst part of the trip. That’s why a single safe segment isn’t enough — people need an entire trip that feels safe. That’s also why building a low-stress connected bike network is the most reliable way to increase ridership.

What You Can Do To Help Your City or Town

To help your community get more people riding, here’s what you should be asking when considering a new bike project:

Does this project connect to something useful, like another part of the bike network or an important destination?

Does it reduce the number of gaps in the network?

Is it safe to cross intersections in the network by bike? 

Does it make a complete trip possible for more people?

Does it move us closer to a complete low-stress system, as defined by SPRINT?

Will this improve our City Ratings score?

A disconnected mile of bike lane is not equal to a connected one.

If there’s one takeaway from this research, it’s this: You can’t piece together a bike boom one project at a time. Protected lanes matter. Design quality and separation from motor vehicles matter. But network completeness is what unlocks scale. That’s how you go from “some people bike here” to “biking is a normal way to get around.” The future of biking in the U.S. isn’t just about building more lanes — it’s about building networks that actually work.

If this sounds familiar, it should. It’s exactly what we measure through our annual City Ratings. Cities don’t improve by adding a few standout projects, they improve by building connected, low-stress bike networks that work for everyone. It’s also a core concept in PeopleForBikes’ SPRINT principles — a framework for building connected, low-stress bike networks that make riding possible for more people, not just the most confident. Without that network, even the best projects can only do so much.

PeopleForBikes’ 2026 City Ratings will be released in June, highlighting communities that are building connected networks — and which ones still have gaps to close.

Connected Bike Networks Are Key to Growing Ridership

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Bike Networks