With more protected bike lanes and low-stress bike networks being built across the country than ever before, we had a tough time picking this past year’s best new bike lanes. While numerous projects deserve recognition, we rounded up the top nine projects worth emulating. 

9. Marin Boulevard Bikeway
Hoboken and Jersey City, New Jersey



In November, Jersey City and Hoboken completed construction on the Marin Boulevard and Henderson Street bikeway, which was first called for in the “Let's Ride JC Bike Master Plan” as a way to better connect the two cities. The expansion of CitiBike into Hoboken also increased demand to ride between the two cities, says Mike Lydon of Street Plans, who worked on the project’s design. In 2022, CitiBike’s most popular route was between Hoboken Terminal and Jersey City’s Hoboken Avenue and Monmouth Street, which saw a total of 5,500 bike share trips. With the completion of the Marin Boulevard project, those rides can now be made entirely on protected bike lanes.

The bikeway is separated from traffic with plastic curbing and flexible posts, and it includes a textured painted surface that makes the bikeway more visible and improves traction. As a “quick build” project, the cities chose to move forward with somewhat temporary materials to expedite the project and improve safety, something that wouldn’t have been feasible with more permanent materials that require sidewalk reconstruction and drainage work, not to mention a longer timeline. According to Lyndsey Scofield, senior transportation planner of Jersey City, this approach “provides us with more flexibility to iterate on the design over time as we learn what works well and what could be improved.”

After being declared one of Rhode Island’s most dangerous streets, Providence worked with the local community to reimagine Broad Street with protected bike lanes, bus islands, and crosswalk improvements. While balancing the needs of local businesses, bus riders, and people walking and biking, Broad Street now serves as a key component of the city’s Urban Trail Network, improving safety and accessibility for some of the city’s poorest and most diverse neighborhoods to jobs and opportunities citywide, as well as access to three major urban parks and multiple regional trails. Space for the bikeway was created by removing a wide center turn lane, which also helped reduce speeding along the street. 

7. Green Lake Outer Loop
Seattle, Washington

By converting a state highway lane into a two-way protected bike lane, Seattle created a new connection between Green Lake — one of the city’s most popular parks — and neighborhoods to the west. It also improved safety along the notoriously dangerous Aurora Avenue. As part of the project, precast concrete jersey barriers, which were repurposed from a nearby bridge repair project, were used to provide ample protection from adjacent motor vehicles. They also helped accelerate the construction of the project due to their immediate availability. 

According to Brock Howell, a member of the local advocacy group Aurora Reimagined Coalition, one of the primary goals of the project was to provide families the ability to ride around the park’s entire outer loop. The group hopes these improvements are a first phase in what will eventually become a completely redesigned Aurora Avenue, which stretches more than 10 miles from the Seattle-Shoreline border to downtown. “We have more work to do to improve safety along the rest of Aurora Ave North,” says Seattle Department of Transportation Director Greg Spotts, “But we expect this project to lead to safer speeds near Green Lake.” 

6. Hub City Hopper Trail
Spartanburg, South Carolina

As part of the larger 50-mile Daniel Morgan Trail System, the Hub City Hopper Trail — an extension of the Mary Black Rail Trail — demonstrates the benefits of connecting trails to town centers and urban areas. The project makes streets safer for people walking and biking while expanding access to recreational riding opportunities. It’s a trend we hope to see more of in urban and rural areas alike. 

The trail extension is already attracting new development to Spartanburg: A 132-unit housing project, the Fitzgerald, was planned by developers, in part, to take advantage of the city’s investment in the trail extension. In a recent WSPA feature on the project, John Montgomery, chair of the Daniel Morgan Committee, noted that they expect “to continue to see development pop up around the trail, [including] more residential, more apartments, because people see the value in trails and connecting them and promoting health and wellness. It’s a real community builder.” 

In 2021, Spartanburg County received a $23.8 million U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) RAISE grant — one of largest grants awarded by USDOT that year — to install more than 14 miles of multi-use trails and a new bicycle and pedestrian bridge as part of the Daniel Morgan Trail System.

Although it was technically completed in late 2021, we couldn’t resist putting Bloomington’s new 7-Line protected bike lane on our list for 2022. With a population of just under 80,000 people, the 7-Line proves that protected bike lanes aren’t just for big cities like New York or Los Angeles. The project connects downtown Bloomington with Indiana University’s campus and aims to increase bike ridership by providing a safe, comfortable place for people to ride.

In 2015, after Bike Portland called on the city to address a lack of safe space for people walking and biking along Naito Parkway and Waterfront Park, the city responded with improvements that provide plentiful safe space for people walking, biking, and rolling along the parkway. According to Gwen Shaw of Toole Design Group, the adjacent Waterfront Park “became busy with festivals and visitors during the summer months, making the existing conditions of no sidewalk and a standard bike lane a challenge.” Now, with a sidewalk, bi-directional protected bikeway, and pedestrian refuge islands, Naito Parkway offers a complete street that meets the needs of this busy area.

3. Bigelow Boulevard
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

The Bigelow Boulevard project, which was initiated and managed by the University of Pittsburgh, serves as an example of how institutions can invest in surrounding communities — to the benefit of both. According to Paul Supowitz, special assistant for strategic initiatives at the University of Pittsburgh, the project was driven by conflicts between various road users, congestion, and the need for better connectivity to the city’s bike network. 

Photo Credit: Matt Johnson, Montgomery County Department of Transportation

2. Capital Crescent Surface Trail
Bethesda, Maryland

When it was completed in November 2022, the Capital Crescent Surface Trail became the third project in Montgomery County to include a protected intersection. As part of a larger network, the project links downtown Bethesda to the nearby Capital Crescent Trail, an 11-mile paved and gravel trail that connects Bethesda with Georgetown and Silver Spring. According to Matt Johnson, capital project manager with the Montgomery County Department of Transportation, the two-phase project is part of a larger planning effort for the nearby Purple Line light rail project.

In April 2022, New York City announced plans to make the 34th Avenue Open Street permanent. (Photo Credit: John Surico)

One great way to make communities safer and more welcoming for people riding bicycles doesn’t even involve constructing new bike paths or bike lanes — simply remove cars from streets.

Although car-free streets have been a staple of people-centered spaces for decades, 2022 saw new examples come to fruition in communities across the country. San Francisco’s JFK Drive (which became permanent after voters rejected a ballot initiative to re-introduce cars), Beach Drive in Washington D.C.’s Rock Creek Park, and new car-free developments such as Culdesac in Tempe and Neighborhood Next in San Diego are all examples that advocates and elected officials should seek to emulate in their own communities. 

While many of these projects, including New York’s 34th Avenue, were spurred by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, cities are now moving to make them permanent, a trend unlikely to go away any time soon. Although some car-free streets were phased out of existence by many U.S. cities in the latter half of the 20th century, nearly all of those removals and declines can be attributed to other failed policies such as urban renewal, redlining, and auto-centric zoning. With these new wildly popular projects being integrated into low-stress bike networks, we think it's safe to say that car-free streets are making a comeback.

It was the late 1990s and I thought we were so clever. We had just convinced the San Francisco Department of Parking and Traffic to incorporate an innovative new design into its bike plan, a bold statement conveying “bikes belong” right there in the middle of the street. I had first seen a shared-use marking, or “sharrow” — a white bicycle painted directly on asphalt — in photos of Paris and Chicago, put there to help bicyclists get through intersections by indicating their path of travel. In 1993, James McKay, a bike planner in Denver, used it on a trial basis to emphasize a bicyclist’s right to ride in the middle of the lane. 

I was the young executive director of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition. We published a hard-hitting newsletter and organized leaders from businesses, churches, community organizations, youth groups, and more into a coalition that was giving unprecedented voice to the demands of San Franciscans for safer streets. Looking to those examples from Chicago, Paris, and Denver, we pushed to get an improved version of the sharrow design formally included in the city’s bike plan and approved for use by the state of California. Mayor Willie Brown famously painted the first sharrow on Grove Street outside of City Hall, getting some green paint on his fancy suit and laughing it off in his inimitable style. 

The City of Oakland, CA, experimented with this "super sharrow" on 40th Street in hopes that the symbol would be more effective if underlined by green pavement. It didn't work, and the USDOT did not approve the treatment.

San Francisco went on to paint thousands of these symbols all over its bike network, and hundreds of cities followed suit. I thought the sharrow would educate bicyclists to stay out of the “door zone”— the three or so feet of space adjacent to parked cars where motorists opening car doors and bicyclists could collide — and usher in a new era of safer streets, one where motorists would patiently wait behind bicyclists “taking the lane” because this painted symbol made it clear they had the right to do so. Where we couldn’t get a bike lane, I hoped this symbol would effectively convert the mixed-traffic lane into an adhoc bike lane when bicyclists were present.

It turns out that motorists really don’t like to wait behind someone on a bike, regardless of the paint on the street. Even Oakland’s experiment with the so-called “super sharrow,” where the bicycle path of travel is painted solid green, isn’t enough to get people on bikes to comfortably “take the lane.” Sharrow or no sharrow, most people on bikes dangerously hug the edge of the roadway, squeezing themselves into the door zone to avoid blocking car traffic.

Simply put, sharrows don’t do what we hoped they would. Studies back up that claim.

Early research in San Francisco and Florida showed evidence that behaviors changed slightly on streets with sharrows. For example, some bicycle riders positioned themselves a few inches further from the curb or car doors. A 2010 evaluation of shared lane markings in three separate cities again showed that the markings had some positive impact on behavior. Looking closely at the results, however, it was clear the changes were too minor to make a difference. After Oakland’s experiment with the super sharrow, the Federal Highway Administration announced it would not support future experiments, and Oakland does not plan to continue the treatment when it repaves the street. 

San Francisco still uses sharrows, but for the most part, city officials know better than to expect them to do much for safety. Today, beautiful sharrows point bicyclists along the circuitous path of the “wiggle,” where a right-left-right-left series of turns directs riders on a gentle grade between San Francisco’s steep hills. They are great for navigation and, perhaps, concentrating riders on certain streets — that’s about it.

Bright green arrows are useful for marking the zig-zag path that takes bicyclists across San Francisco while avoiding the steep hills.

It’s been more than 20 years since I had high hopes for the sharrow as a tool for safety. Today, we know so much more about what it takes to make our streets safer for bicycling. We need separate bike paths; we need protected bike lanes on busy roads; and where the lanes are shared, we need actual speeds reduced to 20 mph or slower. Sharrows don’t do any of that.

Sharrows do, however, accomplish something pernicious which I did not anticipate. They allow officials to take credit for doing something for bicycle safety without impacting car traffic, even though that something is next to nothing. It’s just pretending, and it’s worse than being honest about priorities. It’s insulting to the public to encourage bicycling by painting bike symbols on the street but doing nothing to actually make riding a bike any safer. 

Yes, good bike infrastructure can require tradeoffs that are more politically challenging than simply painting a symbol on the street. Now, at PeopleForBikes, I’m part of a team that has successfully helped cities build networks of bikeways that actually get more people riding safely and joyfully. We help city leaders with communications, organizing, and political strategies to overcome the challenges they will surely face in building truly effective infrastructure. 

We never suggest using sharrows to create a bikeway. We’ve learned our lessons. Now that we know better, it’s time to do more.

In many ways, Seattle is already a great city for bicycling. For the last two years, it’s ranked third among large U.S. cities in PeopleForBikes’ annual City Ratings. Plus, it’s also made significant network progress year over year: From 2020 to 2021, Seattle’s Bicycle Network Analysis score jumped from 53 to 58, thanks in part to nearly 10 new miles of protected bike lanes and trails.

Seattle’s Bicycle Master Plan lays out a vision for a connected network that includes 100 miles of protected bike lanes and nearly 250 miles of neighborhood greenways. When complete, every household will be within a quarter-mile of an all ages and all abilities bike facility. In order to ensure kids learn to ride, the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) funds Cascade Bicycle Club’s Let’s Go school education programming. Although SDOT doesn’t have a firm date for network completion, Seattle committed to having 90% of all personal trips have zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, opening up substantial funding for bikes and allowing for the completion of critical infrastructure.

In recent years, SDOT prioritized infrastructure decisions based on safety, equity and connectivity, particularly in regard to building key bicycle connections to transit. Last year, the department also announced a historic new Transportation Equity Framework (TEF), the goal of which is to help reimagine the city’s streets and transportation system by addressing persistent economic, racial and social inequities in Seattle. Bike champions are also ubiquitous in the city, helping elevate safety concerns, advocate for connections from certain underserved neighborhoods or allocate funds for historically marginalized communities.

One such champion is the nonprofit Seattle Neighborhood Greenways, a coalition of 16 neighborhood-based, volunteer-led chapters working to make Seattle’s streets more livable. Seattle’s cost-saving strategy for building new bike infrastructure has been to do it in conjunction with other paving projects or by scooping funding from other projects that are already happening. The result has been a lot of great new bike infrastructure in small chunks that don’t necessarily connect. In 2021, Seattle Neighborhood Greenways developed UnGap the Map, an advocacy campaign focused on getting the city to fill the gaps in its bicycle network.

“It’s really frustrating because if you want to bike in Seattle, you still have to be comfortable mixing with traffic,” said Clara Cantor, a community organizer with Seattle Neighborhood Greenways. “There are these super comfortable bike routes that will just end abruptly and leave you stranded in a terrifying intersection with no clear direction on where you’re supposed to go.”

While a great bike route might pick up a few streets away, a lack of good wayfinding signage makes it difficult to find for those who aren’t familiar with the city’s bike infrastructure. Likewise, a route that requires riders to mix in traffic, even for a quarter-mile, can be a big deterrent for some and an insurmountable obstacle for others, including children.

“It’s scary and dangerous, but it's especially hard for new riders,” said Cantor. “It makes for a much more exclusive bike culture.”

Although Seattle Neighborhood Greenways focuses on pedestrian safety as well, the Ungap the Map campaign is solely focused on bikes. The crux of the campaign is a shortlist of 10 major gaps in the city’s bike network — corridors the organization has identified as the most important places for the city to tackle first. Since smaller neighborhood groups make up the larger organization, there are other grassroots efforts happening to push for the closing of gaps on the neighborhood level, but the 10 routes remain the organization’s main focus.

The UnGap the Map project is planning both long and short term. In the long term, Seattle Neighborhood Greenways is working to influence the larger discussion with city planners around what a connected bike network looks like and how the city can get there. By changing the emphasis from how many bike lane miles are built to how many bike lane miles connect, advocates hope to create a city where people of all ages and abilities feel comfortable commuting exclusively by bike.

“Seattle is currently doing a big transportation plan update and we’re trying to influence that effort,” said Cantor. “We want to push the city to prioritize complete, connected routes, rather than keep building bits and pieces here and there.”

In the immediate term, the UnGap the Map campaign is focused on installing new wayfinding signage in order to help guide riders around Seattle, especially those that are new to biking or returning after a long time out of the saddle. In 2020, Seattle saw a 21-35% increase increase in the number of people riding bikes, and citywide, 60% of residents say they want to bike more but fear for their safety. The wayfinding signage, which will be installed across the city this summer, will help direct people through some of the existing gaps. Someone that comes to the end of a comfortable bikeway would reach a map that then points them to the best nearby routes.

“It’s not making people any safer but it’s helping them navigate through and find those routes that feel safer,” said Cantor, adding that for many people, that might include hopping up onto the sidewalk for a while.

Seattle Neighborhood Greenways settled on its list of 10 major gaps by prioritizing routes that connect different parts of the city, as well as accounting for safety and equity concerns. Four of the routes are what Cantor calls “citywide connectors,” or gaps that when filled would help people move around the city more efficiently. The other six are equity-focused routes that would majorly benefit the mostly South Seattle neighborhoods where they’re located, places with higher BIPOC and low-income populations that have historically been ignored when it comes to infrastructure investments.

Although none of the gaps have been filled yet, there has been significant progress on some of them. One is the “Beacon Ave. South” route, which would connect Seattle’s downtown to the entirety of its southeastern portion. The northern section of that route is currently funded and SDOT is working on design, with construction anticipated to begin in 2023 (the southern portion has yet to be funded but it’s on the city’s shortlist).

Another major connection, the “Georgetown” route, could bridge the Georgetown neighborhood to downtown through the SoDo neighborhood. Zoned industrial, every street in SoDo is wide and built to accommodate freight. Without a single safe bike corridor, SoDo is unsurprisingly dangerous to ride through and injuries and fatalities are common — two bicyclists have been killed there in 2022 alone. Because of the fatalities, SDOT is prioritizing this project and hopes to have it completed by the end of 2023 or the beginning of 2024.

“It still seems really far out but it’s closer than it ever has been,” said Cantor.

In fall 2021, PeopleForBikes awarded Seattle Neighborhood Greenways a $10,000 grant to support the organization’s advocacy work, outreach efforts, wayfinding signage and long-term planning. The emphasis on connectivity directly aligns with PeopleForBikes’ City Ratings system, which — recognizing that most people are only interested in biking when it's a comfortable experience — prioritizes low-stress biking connections and how well bike networks connect people with the places they want to go.

While Seattle has made significant progress in recent years and remains one of the best places to bike in the U.S., there’s still room for improvement when it comes to connectivity. According to Cantor, many bike infrastructure projects get heavily compromised before completion by stopping shy of a major intersection, not quite reaching a destination or being built with protection only in one direction. Compromising on individual projects can harm the connectivity of a network, as well as interrupt ambitious mode shift goals.

“If our goal is to have more people biking, that actually won’t happen if it feels the way it currently feels to bike,” said Cantor. “You have to make it comfortable, efficient and joyful or people are going to try it once and not come back.”

This fall, voters across the country will have the chance to approve hundreds of millions of dollars in new funding for bikes. The November 8 general election isn’t just about voting in high-level candidates, although those picks are crucial too. It’s also a time when many states, cities and counties put important ballot measures to vote. 

The upcoming November election is a big opportunity for citizens nationwide to enact positive change by approving new funding for better biking and walking infrastructure, new trail systems, park construction and maintenance and more. PeopleForBikes’ VoteForBikes campaign was created to help you know what initiatives will be on your ballot. 

In 2020, voters approved $500 million in funding for bike projects across the country and in 2021 $585 million was approved — big wins for riders across the U.S.! But with arguably the biggest election in at least two years coming up in a few weeks, there’s even more at stake with $1.9 billion in possible funding for bike infrastructure, from new and improved trails to protected bike lanes.

The ballot measures that most affect bikes typically take the form of new or renewed property taxes, income taxes or sales taxes; edits to General Plans allowing infrastructure changes or a bond measure that usually does not increase taxes. 

For example, in Florida’s Orange County, residents will have the chance to approve a one-cent sales tax increase — generating $600 million per year — to fund transportation decongestion across the county. The influx of cash would focus on improving mass transit and developing better options for bikers and pedestrians. On the other side of the country, Salt Lake City, Utah, is hoping voters will approve a 20-year, $80 million Public Lands bond that will protect natural areas and enhance recreational opportunities, with a strong focus on bicycle infrastructure. 

Use our VoteForBikes tracker to identify upcoming ballot opportunities in your state, city or county.

If we missed anything in your area, send us a note using this form. We rely on local partners and folks like you to make sure we’re amplifying progress in your area. You can also email our campaign coordinator directly at kyler@peopleforbikes.org 

Make your plan to vote! Early in-person voting and vote by mail begins as early as six weeks before election day. 

Help spread the word by telling your family, friends and local groups about these important ballot measures.

Joining us in ensuring that our state and local governments are funding bicycling, helping make our streets safer and more accessible for everyone. We hope to see you at the polls!

Like many towns across the U.S., a change in the way we do business has led to a loss of jobs, local economies and even pride. Places that once relied on logging or mining are now left without industry and struggling to maintain once-thriving population centers, all while also coming to terms with the need for a more climate-resilient economy. The Lost Sierra region of Northern California — which includes communities in California’s Plumas, Sierra, Butte and Lassen Counties — is no different.

The Sierra Buttes Trail Stewardship (SBTS), a nonprofit that builds and maintains multi-use trails in the region, wants to rethink how its towns do business. The organization developed a Trails Master Plan for Connected Communities, funded by the Sierra Nevada Conservancy, which puts forth a vision for a recreation-focused lifestyle through community investment, shared stewardship, economic opportunity and new local jobs. 

The project includes building a new 600-plus-mile trail system, dubbed the “Lost Sierra Route,” which will ultimately connect 15 mountain towns that span from Truckee northward to Westwood, near where the Sierra Nevada end and the Cascade Range begins. The landscape is nothing short of spectacular and once completed, is sure to become a destination for outdoor adventurists near and far — and a home for all of the business they tend to bring.

Mountain bikers riding from the town of Quincy pose on Mt. Hough before descending into Taylorsville below for an overnight stay. (Photo credit: Patrick Cavender)

“We’re not trying to replace the logging or mining industry. We still need industry, but we feel like recreation can complement things,” said Greg Williams, executive director of the Sierra Buttes Trail Stewardship. “We create jobs, opportunities, apprenticeships and trainings — we’re trying to retain working families here and retain talent.”

With wildfires increasing every year, the project also seeks to strike a balance between fuel management, recreation, healthy watersheds and public education. Williams is Northern Sierra Miwok and telling the story of his Indigenous ancestors, as well as others like the Washoe and Maidu, is another important part of the equation, not only to honor the original stewards of the land but also to draw inspiration from the less-extractive ways they continue to interact with it. 

A longtime bicyclist and former shop owner, Williams founded SBTS in 2003 after a big winter left a lot of trees down and trails damaged. With the Forest Service losing a good deal of its funding, Williams and a group of volunteers took the initiative to take care of the trails. Since then, the organization’s employees and volunteers have built more than 120 miles of trail, maintained more than 1,479 miles and collectively contributed well over 100,000 hours of labor to the surrounding National Forest lands. There are currently 66 full-time and seasonal employees, 24 of which are high school students from throughout the region. 

Employees and volunteers have worked on everything from garden-variety singletrack to wilderness portions of the Pacific Crest Trail to ADA-compliant paths to multi-use flow trails. The Connected Communities Project, which is slated for a summer 2030 completion date, will include the creation and maintenance of multi-purpose trails that allow for all dirt trail travelers, including eMTB and traditional mountain bikes, hikers and trail runners, equestrians, hunters, fishermen and, of course, wildlife. When possible, the trails will be ADA accessible.

“We're not saying no to any trail user that can fit on a trail,” said Williams. “It’s about inclusion, equity, diversity and access — not just in people but how they recreate.”

The trail will include mainstreet connections in the 15 mountain communities it serves, as well as traverse the headwaters of the Yuba and Feather Rivers, critical watersheds that supply more than 65% of California’s drinking water. The master plan also includes designated recreation zones, or areas that are on Forest Service land close to commercial centers. These areas will provide close access to trails for locals, helping them avoid having to drive to trailheads, as well as convenient downtown parking for visitors, which will help generate business.

The recreation zones were the result of community feedback from some 16 town hall meetings, 100 virtual meetings and in-person park sessions, complete with big dry-erase boards and maps where residents could draw in their dream plans. SBTS also opened up an online public survey and solicited takers using kiosks and booklets strategically placed at gas stations and businesses. All in all, the nonprofit got almost 1,200 people throughout the region to take the survey and some 800 took the time to draw on the maps to showcase their vision. 

It was through that public process that SBTS was able to gain support from other organizations, including the Forest Service, individual cities, counties and members of Congress. A strong partnership with the Forest Service is particularly important, as all of the proposed trails are susceptible to an environmental review. Importantly, SBTS is sure to always contract with local folks — whether that be biologists, hydrologists, archeologists or trail builders — in order to support the local economy and help build investment in the network.

Kelly Tan of Taylorsville provides input to members of the Sierra Buttes Trails Stewardship on the Lost Sierra Route. 

“We want this project to be like a recipe book — a national model for how communities can engage with land managers,” said Williams. “At every step of the way, we're documenting the pitfalls we’ve experienced and some of the really great things we did, and we'll be sharing throughout the nation how we did it. Hopefully, we can save people some grief and also inspire them to take it to another level.”

As part of that commitment to being open and transparent about the project, Williams is scheduled to speak at PeopleForBikes’ Electric Mountain Bike Summit on September 15, 2022, in Olympic Valley, California. For Williams and SBTS, allowing eMTBs on the trail system is an important part of keeping it inclusive and accessible to everyone. Like many things pertaining to good trail use, education is key and that’s why good signage, maps and informational kiosks are a key component of the Connected Communities master plan. Industry partners, shop owners and land managers all also have a role to play in making sure e-bikes are used responsibly.

“We want people to be able to ride e-bikes up here and we’ve been working with the National Forest and our industry partners to get bikes up here and take land managers out,” said Williams. “We want to give them an experience riding so as they’re making decisions, they have a good understanding of what an e-bike is.”

The Connected Communities project has a long list of industry partners, including Shimano, Santa Cruz Bicycles and Fox, but SBTS always welcomes more support. While the project has received the green light and secured some $2.6 million in grant funding to date, it will require an estimated $40 million total over the next eight years. For a team that’s committed to building trails — and doing so in a way that’s low-maintenance and won’t require a lot of additional money down the road — fundraising, while necessary, can be exhausting. For a volunteer-driven nonprofit, that time is better spent on outreach, education and trail building.

“To bring an economy to towns that desperately need it, $40 million isn’t that much,” said Williams. “Especially when you consider all of our programs, how many people we reach and the jobs and opportunities we create.”

It’s that impact that’s gotten most folks in the region on board. Pushback, in general, has been minimal and tends to dissipate once people realize the ways a recreation-based economy can help keep grocery stores and restaurants open, as well as motivate future generations to stay in place. After all, hikers and bikers aren’t the worst sorts of visitors, having an innate desire to protect the places where they play. Although there are sure to be some pressure points, the ultimate goal is a region with diversified recreation opportunities that connect communities and provide economic stability. A place where all people, especially youth, can learn about the environment and where climate resiliency is top of mind. 

“What we’re trying to create is multigenerational pride and a workplace for people to be able to come back to and raise their kids, and this is our chance, through recreation,” said Williams. “I’m confident that Connected Communities will be built in such a way that it’s going to change people’s lives — this will last, generation after generation.”

On November 8, voters across the country approved nearly $3.6 billion dollars in local funding for new bicycle infrastructure, all of which were opportunities that PeopleForBikes tracked and raised awareness for through our VoteForBikes campaign. This money will go towards better on-street biking and walking infrastructure, new trail systems, park construction, and other active transportation improvements. The November election marks the culmination of our 2022 campaign, which saw a total of 42 successful pro-bike ballot measures, representing $4.2 billion in new local bicycle infrastructure funds this year alone. 

A few notable measures from across the country:

Voters in Cook County, Illinois, increased funding by $380 million for county forest preserves, which boast 150 miles of paved trails and 200 miles of unpaved trails for riding. 

In Teton County, Wyoming, voters extended a penny sales tax to approve 15 local projects, including two that will net $18 million for bikes over the next six years by creating safe routes to school, as well as fund bike/ped safety signage and other features in the town of Jackson.

Over in Wake Forest, North Carolina, voters supported a $14.4 million bond solely dedicated to improvements on three town greenways and the construction of nearly 5 miles of additional pathways. 

In Salt Lake City, Utah, voters approved an $80 million public land bond that will provide recreational opportunities and natural area protection, with an emphasis on several bike projects and trails. 

Voters in Salem, Oregon, supported a large municipal bond to fund critical infrastructure projects, with a stated focus on multimodal needs and park improvements. At least $25 million in funding will be specifically dedicated to safer bicycle routes and crossings.

In San Francisco, California, the combined results of Measures I and J maintained car-free space in Golden Gate Park and along JFK Drive, two of San Francisco's significant routes dedicated to biking, walking, and active transportation.

Funding for these measures and 35-plus others embodies the groundswell in community support for safer and more accessible infrastructure. Regular people in dozens of cities and counties voted to raise or extend property, sales, and/or income taxes to fund this new local infrastructure directly or via bonds. Many measures also established community oversight boards to ensure the projects are being built as intended and with robust community input.

A big thank you to the millions of you who were part of this success — by voting, spreading the word, or simply riding in your hometown and demonstrating the importance of this infrastructure. Stay tuned in 2023 as PeopleForBikes continues to monitor local elections and build awareness around opportunities for better biking infrastructure! 

Focused on bikes as a climate policy solution and expanded electric mountain bike access, PeopleForBikes hosted our first industry fly-in since 2019.

PeopleForBikes convened a small group of bicycle industry leaders in Washington, D.C, June 14-15, 2022, to advocate for our shared federal policy priorities before Congress and the Biden administration. Executives from Rad Power Bikes, Specialized, Trek and Yuba Bicycles joined PeopleForBikes’ federal policy team for a series of meetings with congressional offices and committees on both sides of the aisle and White House climate policy officials. 

Prior to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, PeopleForBikes hosted three “fly-ins” every year in Washington, D.C., bringing together representatives from across the U.S. bicycle industry to network, learn how to advocate and help move our policy goals forward. In 2019, we hosted a retailer fly-in in partnership with the National Bicycle Dealers Association, a women’s fly-in and an executive-level fly-in. 

This year, with new security measures and COVID-19 protocols in place across Washington and federal buildings, we rebooted our fly-in program with a smaller group to hit the ground running in 2023. 

Our meetings ranged from positioning bikes and electric bikes as climate policy solutions to thinking ahead on recreation and electric mountain bike access on federal lands. We reconnected our industry members with congressional champions for bikes and e-bikes like Representatives Jimmy Panetta (D-CA-20), Mike Thompson (D-CA-05) and Earl Blumenauer (D-OR-03) to thank them for their leadership. 

Meeting with Republican staff on the House Natural Resources Committee and the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, we covered the U.S. Forest Service’s recently issued guidance for electric bicycle access and building support for America's Outdoor Recreation Act of 2022. 

Our group also met with the White House Council on Environmental Quality to discuss how to leverage electric bikes for emissions reductions policy and strategies, as well as how the bike industry is an active and forward-thinking partner in fighting the climate crisis. 

We ended the day on a high note with a happy hour co-hosted with our partners in advocacy, Protect Our Winters (POW), at Conte’s Bike Shop in Washington, D.C. From hill staff to bike advocates to professional athletes, the space was filled with lively discussion on the intersection of all of our work to lower carbon emissions, expand bike access and grow bicycling across the U.S. Check out this video from POW Action Fund for the highlights!

PeopleForBikes’ Fly-In Brings Industry Leaders Back to Washington, D.C.

When Jocelyn Dicent walks home from school, she has a choice between two streets.

One is Rockaway Beach Boulevard, a route her friends have urged her not to take because, as she says, “a lot of shady people get on that road.” The other is the Rockaway Freeway, a route beneath the A Train viaduct that has seen 117 traffic injuries and two fatalities in the last three years.

More often than not, she takes Rockaway Beach. At least it has sidewalks.

Dicent, 16, is one of a handful of youth leaders in this isolated, deeply multicultural corner of Queens who, since early 2014, have been searching high and low for government officials who’ll take a serious look at their plan to improve the Rockaway Freeway.

The simple concept: put a physical barrier between cars and other users, returning a comfortable biking and walking route to a waterfront community hit hard by Hurricane Sandy in 2012.

Replacing a ‘jewel of this community’

“After we lost our boardwalk, we had lost a mode of connectivity between the east side and the west side,” says Sabastian Rahman, who like Dicent is 16 and works as an intern for the Rockaway Waterfront Alliance‘s Shore Corps. “That was kind of like the jewel of this community. … People really enjoyed biking along there.”

Dicent says nearby Shore Front Parkway, whose bike lanes were upgraded in 2013 with jersey barriers, should be a model for the project they call the Underway.

“I know for a fact, having lived here all my life, I was not really keen on biking on Shore Front in the bike lane that was painted onto the road, because I just felt like I might be too close to the cars,” she says. “So I would just bike on the boardwalk. But once they put the jersey barriers there, I would gladly do so.”

She says the same thing would work on the Underway, where only a striped shoulder currently separates people biking or walking from speeding car traffic.

On Earth Day 2014, RWA’s student-led team temporarily closed part of the freeway to auto traffic to hold a community design charrette, complete with butcher paper, markers and a miniature model of the viaduct. They’ve also conducted in-person counts of biking, walking and driving traffic on the Underway and, with the help of RWA’s adult staff, gathered neighborhood-level statistics on obesity and physical activity.

All of that, plus block-by-block summaries of their proposal, went into a 35-slide presentation to the New York City Department of Transportation in June. They’ve also lobbied two local community boards, been featured on the local CBS News and personally gathered 2,000 signatures in support.

State Sen. Joseph Addabbo has made the concept “one of his campaign foundations,” Rahman said. But few other politicians have showed interest.

“They have so many things to deal with, so many issues, so many things that they would categorize as ‘bigger,'” Rahman says.

Rahman and Dicent say that as longtime locals, they’re certain the concept is both achievable and beneficial.

“We know our roads,” Rahman says. “We know the things that we need and we know the things that we don’t need.”

‘How is it that we would not receive some sort of outcome?’

Dicent says that as she gathered signatures in support of the plan, some adults told her it could never happen.

One upside of being young, Dicent says, is that such dismissals don’t faze her.

“As a teenager, I’m like, well, we’re doing all this stuff, so how is it that we would not receive some sort of outcome?” she says. “I just can’t see how we wouldn’t get something done.”

Queens teens push for protected bikeway to reconnect their peninsula

Austin, Texas, and Paris, France, both made big commitments to prioritize bicycling. But how do the cities’ efforts compare?

When people talk about great bicycling cities, places like Copenhagen and Amsterdam usually lead the conversation, perhaps followed by Portland or San Francisco if you’re focused on biking in the U.S. While these lofty reputations are thanks to a myriad of work done by each of these cities over many years, one underlying similarity links many of the world’s best places to ride a bike: a dedicated, concerted investment in infrastructure that gets people where they need to go, safely and conveniently, without needing to get behind the wheel of a car. 

Two cities — Austin, Texas, and Paris, France — both recently made such commitments to prioritize bicycling — connecting communities, relieving traffic congestion, improving air quality and fostering healthier residents along the way.

Paris’ journey began in 2014 under their newly elected Mayor Anne Hidalgo. In an effort to curb the city’s growing car traffic problems and make Paris a global cycling capital, Mayor Hidalgo’s “Plan Velo” was an aggressive, $167 million bicycle infrastructure program that promised to build 1,400 kilometers (~870 miles) of cycleways by 2020, essentially doubling the size of the bike network at the time. 

Also in 2014, Austin, Texas, set a similarly ambitious goal: Build a 400-mile bicycle network that winds throughout the city, connecting urban trails, quiet neighborhood streets and new protected bike lanes. The envisioned “All Ages and Abilities Bicycle Network” would be accompanied by other infrastructure updates, with the end goal of improving mobility and creating a more livable community for all Austin residents. 

“We have to do a better job of giving everyone in our city more equitable, safer and convenient transportation choices,” said Mayor Adler in a 2021 interview with PeopleForBikes. “People of all ages — whether they’re a child or in their eighties — and of all backgrounds have to feel comfortable and secure moving freely in Austin.”

Paris managed to build 1,000 of their planned 1,400-kilometers of cycleways by 2020, increasing bicycle use in the city by 54%, but Austin’s network rollout wasn’t as immediately successful. The city had constructed less than 20 miles of their envisioned network by the end of 2017, a pace that meant the project wouldn’t likely be completed for decades.

Thanks to the efforts of MoveATX, a coalition of community leaders, advocates, activists and local organizations, buoyed by the work of the PeopleForBikes Final Mile project, which sought to accelerate the construction of bike networks in five U.S. cities, Austin sped up the pace of construction, building more than 100 miles of new bikeways between 2019 and June of 2021. This accelerated progress brought the All Ages and Abilities Network to 215 miles, more than half of the envisioned miles in the 2014 plan.

While Paris’ initial success outweighs Austin’s by more than 400 more miles of bikeways built in the same timeframe, there are still lessons to be learned from the Texas Capital. The fact that Austin is only one of few North American cities to reach such a milestone while Paris is following in the footsteps of its bicycle-famous neighbors in Denmark, the Netherlands and Belgium shows Austin’s commitment to leading the way on building better bicycling infrastructure in the U.S. This network transformation taking place in its home state of Texas, known for its highways, big trucks and even bigger car-centric attitude, only doubles down on Austin’s dedication to bucking the norm and taking proactive steps that benefit everyone, not just those who drive. 

Outside of their network achievements, the physical size and density of Paris and Austin also makes them an interesting comparison. Austin’s population of just over 1 million resides on 272 square miles where Paris’ 2 million residents are squeezed into just 41 square miles, making Austin seven times larger than its French counterpart with half of the population. 64% of Austin residents currently being able to access the All Ages and Abilities Network show’s the city’s ongoing dedication to making sure infrastructure improvements aren’t solely tied to busy city centers.

Looking ahead, both Austin and Paris show no signs of slowing down. After re-election in 2020, Mayor Hidalgo announced “Act 2” of her Plan Velo, with $290 million in funding dedicated for cycling improvements through 2026. Beyond bike lanes, the additional plans also include removing more than 100,000 on-street parking spaces and limiting vehicle traffic across the city, taking street space back from cars and allowing more room for bike lanes, bike parking, green spaces and other public amenities. 

Thanks to overwhelming voter support for Proposition B in November 2020, Austin passed a $460 million active transportation bond meant to continue the expansion of walking and biking networks throughout the city. $40 million will be directly funding additional miles for the AAA network, of which City of Austin officials expect to pass more than 400 total miles (more than 100% of the original miles envisioned in 2014) by 2025. Once complete, Austin expects 83% of residents to be able to easily walk, bike or scoot using the AAA network throughout the city.

Depending on what metrics you look at, weighing the work of Austin and Paris may seem like comparing apples and oranges. But the common thread that unites the efforts of these capital cities located thousands of miles apart is this: Both cities are not historically known for cycling. But thanks to the strong political will of elected officials combined with existing public support for bicycling, both Paris and Austin made a decision — to prioritize bicycling in order to make their city a better place to live. Cycling utopias aren’t built in a day, but by laying the groundwork to position bicycling as a safe, healthy and easy way to get around, Austin and Paris may soon see themselves amongst the Copenhagens and Amsterdams of the world. 

Learn more about Austin and the Final Mile by visiting finalmile.peopleforbikes.org.

PeopleForBikes’ new SPRINT methodology lays the groundwork for cities looking to improve bicycling locally.

PeopleForBikes releases our annual City Ratings every June, ranking the best cities for biking and sharing actionable lessons on how any city can improve bicycling locally. Our new SPRINT methodology lays out six simple ways — safe speeds, protected bike lanes, road diets, intersection treatments, network connections and trusted data — in which cities can focus their efforts to make biking better, increasing their Bicycle Network Analysis (BNA) and City Ratings score and setting them on a path to becoming a great place to bike.

Travel speeds dictate the risk of serious injury or death in collisions between road users. When travel speeds are low, bikes and cars can safely mix. As travel speeds increase, streets should provide separate spaces for people bicycling, walking and driving. When cities reduce speed limits on residential streets to 25 mph or lower, as Flower Mound, Texas, is doing, their BNA score improves. Speed limit reductions on other kinds of streets can also improve BNA scores. Along with speed limit reductions, PeopleForBikes encourages cities to implement traffic calming features that ensure drivers follow the posted speed limit.

PeopleForBikes, Slow Streets are Safe Streets

PeopleForBikes, What St. Paul Got Right For Bikes

NACTO, City Limits: Setting Safe Speed Limits on Urban Streets

Smart Growth America, Why safety and vehicle speed are incompatible goals for street design

US Department of Transportation, National Roadway Safety Strategy

Protected bike lanes provide physical, vertical separation between motor vehicle traffic and people riding bikes. Protected bike lanes make roads safer for all users, including people driving, and all U.S. cities need more of them. Unprotected bike lanes, also known as painted bike lanes, conventional bike lanes, buffered bike lanes or simply bike lanes, are useful in limited circumstances, such as when travel speeds are 35 mph or less and cars are limited to one or two travel lanes. When roads are wide and fast, streets must provide robust physical separation to keep people riding bikes safe. Cities can be creative with their physical separation using concrete planters, bollards, curbs and even temporary construction materials such as jersey barriers.

PeopleForBikes, Making a Better Bike Lane

PeopleForBikes, Protected Bike Lane Inventory

PeopleForBikes, Study Finds Bike Lanes Can Provide Positive Economic Impact in Cities

FHWA, Separated Bike Lane Planning and Design Guide

Portland Bureau of Transportation, Portland Protected Bicycle Lane Planning and Design Guide

For nearly a century, cities have attempted to solve growing traffic congestion by widening roads and freeways. We now know that adding motor vehicle travel lanes results in more cars on the road, a phenomenon known as induced demand, which leads to pollution, increased noise and worse safety outcomes. Wider roads also facilitate speeding. 

Reducing motor vehicle travel lanes, also known as a road diet or right-sizing, benefits all road users by slowing down traffic and shortening crossing distances at intersections. When motor vehicle travel lanes are reduced, the extra lane can be repurposed as a protected bike lane, sidewalk, greenery or outdoor space for local businesses. 

NACTO, Urban Design Guide, Neighborhood Main Street

Project for Public Spaces, A Placemaker’s Primer on Road Diets

When assessing if a safe trip is possible, the BNA considers whether there is infrastructure in place that facilitates safe crossings, also known as an intersection treatment. Streets need intersection treatments when two large roads intersect or one large road intersects a smaller road. Cities can improve their BNA score by adding safe crossings at intersections or mid-block when the distance between existing crossings is far. The BNA counts stop signs, traffic signals, flashing or hybrid beacons and crossing islands as safe intersection treatments.

NACTO, Don’t Give Up at the Intersection

PeopleForBikes, Protected Bike Intersection Inventory

Nick Falbo, Protected Intersections For Bicyclists

US DOT NHTSA, Making A Community Safer for Pedestrians: A Protected Intersection

People who bike on city streets often are familiar with the “bike lane to nowhere,” a lane that abruptly ends in the middle of fast-moving motor vehicle traffic. Gaps in a bike lane represent a broken network connection. A complete bicycle network is continuous, with no gaps or breaks.

Creating a strong bike network also means ensuring people can bike from their homes to common destinations using safe, convenient routes. Paths that wind through a park or along a river are great for recreation, but they are only useful for transportation if they quickly and efficiently help people get to the grocery store or a transit station.

Land use is another important facet of network connections. Cities with compact development and street grids have greater potential for rapid BNA score improvement. Compact development enables people to live close to where they work, shop and recreate, providing more destinations within biking distance and more potential routes to bike to those destinations safely. Similarly, streets with a grid design are better for bicycling because they provide more routes and shorter routes to reach the same destination. Cities can support compact development through incentivizing urban infill and removing parking mandates.

PeopleForBikes & Pedestrian and Bicycle Information Center, Defining Connected Bike Networks

League of American Bicyclists, Benchmarking Bike Networks

Congress for New Urbanism, Street Networks

Not Just Bikes, The Lively & Livable Neighbourhoods that are Illegal in Most of North America

ITDP & Martha Roskowski, Ideas to Accelerate Parking Reform in the United States

Parking Reform Network, Parking Mandates Map

Tracking data on bicycling infrastructure is challenging because there are few state standards and no federal standards requiring streets to be safe for people riding bikes. Cities are left on their own to decide what counts as safe bike infrastructure, and whether and how to track information about that infrastructure. In the absence of consistent safety and data collection standards, along with easily accessible public repositories for city-level infrastructure data, City Ratings relies on OpenStreetMap and two annual surveys, the Community Survey and City Snapshot, to measure the quality of cities’ bike networks. 

Greater accuracy in OpenStreetMap data leads to more accurate Bicycle Network Analysis results, and more responses to the Community Survey strengthens the relevance of the Community Survey score (please note that the Community Survey is not a representative sample of any city’s population, and typically reflects current riders’ experiences). While not required to generate a City Ratings score, the City Snapshot helps PeopleForBikes improve data quality and strengthen the City Ratings program in the future. Anyone can edit OpenStreetMap data and respond to the Community Survey. City officials can respond to the City Snapshot survey.

PeopleForBikes, City Snapshot notification

PeopleForBikes, OpenStreetMap editing guidance

PeopleForBikes, The Importance Of Mapping Bicycling Data

PeopleForBikes & Pedestrian and Bicycle Information Center, Using Connectivity Measures to Evaluate and Build Connected Bicycle Networks

US Department of Transportation, Moving to a Complete Streets Design Model: A Report to Congress on Opportunities and Challenges

How to Make Any City Better for Bicycling

Using extensive research and data collection, PeopleForBikes' City Ratings program highlights communities that embrace the bicycle as a tool for mobility, economic growth and recreation.

For the sixth consecutive year, PeopleForBikes, in conjunction with Trek Bicycle, is proud to publish the findings from a year of research in a comprehensive guide to and ranking of 1,058 cities for biking in the United States. In 2022, the top three bikeable cities in the country are: Provincetown, Massachusetts; Davis, California; and Fayette, Missouri. 

PeopleForBikes’ City Ratings program highlights communities that embrace the bicycle as a tool for mobility, economic growth and recreation, while also suggesting that the vast majority of American cities and towns have yet to implement relatively simple changes that make communities more bikeable.

These results are the culmination of extensive research and data collection, including factors such as cities’ speed limits, existing infrastructure and overall safety, as well as community input on what people think about biking in their city. Cities are scored and ranked using a combination of PeopleForBikes’ Bicycle Network Analysis and Community Survey, resulting in an overall score of 1-100. 

“The Bicycle Network Analysis (BNA) tool provides the basis for each city’s score, demonstrating how easy it is for residents to get to key services like grocery stores, employment, healthcare and more,” said Rebecca Davies, City Ratings program director. “Not only does the BNA highlight if riders can get to these places, it shows how safe it is to do so by ranking streets as high or low stress based on factors like the quality of bike infrastructure and street speed limits. When combined with our Community Survey, we are not only able to see what the maps of these cities tell us, but also what the people actually riding in these cities think about biking where they live, work and play.” 

Also included alongside the ratings are PeopleForBikes’ Best Places to Bike for 2022, 10 U.S. cities that all offer actionable lessons on improving bicycling locally. Focusing on youth engagement, connecting bike networks and building trails for all skill levels are just a few ways any city can become a best place to bike. 

“Our goal is to work with the bike industry, advocacy partners and elected leaders to make America the best place in the world to ride a bike,” said Jenn Dice, president and CEO of PeopleForBikes. “One of our main strategies to achieve this vision is prioritizing the construction of safe, connected bike infrastructure. By evaluating and comparing cities’ bike networks across the U.S., our City Ratings program helps benchmark progress and share lessons for success.” 

Trek Bicycle has been a long-time Coalition member and partner of PeopleForBikes and the City Ratings program and has once again underwritten the project for 2022 through a donation based on a portion of sales from their Bontrager helmet line. 

“At Trek, our mission is to get more people on bikes. If that’s going to happen, those people need great, safe places to ride in their community,” said Trek Bicycle’s VP of Advocacy, Bob Burns. “Our support of PeopleForBikes’ City Ratings is long standing and we feel our commitment to the program will accelerate investment in cycling infrastructure and help build a future where everyone has access to great places to ride.”

Not all cities in the United States were scored as favorable for biking, however, with Oak Park, Illinois; Mount Vernon, New York; and Pelham Manor, New York, rounding out the bottom three. Of the 1,058 American communities included in the survey, 95% garnered fewer than 50 points out of a possible 100 — a sign that the majority of U.S. cities have ample room for improvement in terms of bicycling infrastructure and safety. 

While these cities may currently lack the infrastructure and policies for excellent biking conditions, PeopleForBikes’ research shows there are several easy ways for a city to improve its score — most notably, and perhaps most easily, is lowering speed limits. “Respected studies from groups like American Association of State Highway Transportation Officials (AASHTO) and the Lund Institute in Sweden highlight that just a 10% reduction in speed on streets results in 34% fewer fatal crashes,” said Davies. “Not only can cities quickly improve their scores by reducing speeds, they create safer places to ride in the process.”

Notable stats from this year’s research include Seattle, Washington’s five-point jump in score from 54 to 59, as well as consistent but smaller score increases from most large cities including: Brooklyn, New York; San Francisco, California; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Portland, Oregon; St. Paul, Minnesota; and Detroit, Michigan. The city with the highest Community Survey score (70) was Bentonville, Arkansas.

In addition to the 1,058 cities ranked in the United States, PeopleForBikes analyzed 47 cities in Canada. European and Australian results will be released later this year.

2022 CityRatings: The Best Places to Bike in the U.S.

Time and again, we’ve seen that when speed limits fall, safety rises — as do cities’ Bicycle Network Analysis scores.

“Slow streets are safe streets.” While somewhat cliche, that oft-repeated adage is also true: Speed is a key factor in traffic deaths. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, speed played a role in a quarter of all fatal crashes in 2018 — as speed limits and speeds increase, so do fatalities. Between 2019 and 2021, as speeding has increased, per capita vehicle deaths have only gotten worse, rising an astonishing 17.5%.

All of this is terrible news for pedestrians as well as bicyclists, who make up a fifth of traffic deaths and are far more vulnerable to dangerous street design and aggressive driving. As the National Organization of Transportation Officials (NACTO) notes, vehicle speed at the time of impact is directly correlated to whether a person will live or die. That means that a car traveling at 35 mph is five times more likely to hit and kill a person than a car traveling at 20 mph. Not to mention, cars traveling at higher speeds are also more likely to crash in general.

Because the likelihood of fatality increases exponentially with vehicle speed, even small reductions in speed limits can have an outsized effect. The Highway Safety Manual shows that deadly crashes can be decreased by 17% if speeds are reduced by just 1 mph, while a separate study from Sweden's Lund Institute of Technology found that a 10% reduction in the average speed led to 34% fewer fatal crashes.

Not only can lower speed limits save lives but they also make it easier for people to choose not to drive. When travel speeds are low, bikes and cars can safely mix. When cities reduce speed limits on residential streets to 25 mph or lower, their Bicycle Network Analysis score — a major component of the PeopleForBikes' City Ratings system — improves. Speed limit reductions on other kinds of streets can also improve BNA scores. In fact, the fastest way for cities to make streets safer for bicycling, and thus improve their scores, is by slowing down streets.

Aside from better, more accurate data inputs, the main reason cities experienced a drastic improvement in their 2022 City Ratings score was due to speed limit reductions. In Miami, after the city lowered speed limits from 30 to 25 mph on neighborhood streets, its BNA score jumped from 4 to 20. As a result, Miami’s City Ratings score went from 13 in 2021 to 26 in 2022. Similarly, in 2021, when Knoxville, Tennessee, decided to lower its default speed limit from 30 mph to 25 mph, its BNA score improved from 8 in 2021 to 24 in 2022 and its City Ratings score jumped from 19 to 31. Seattle’s BNA score also rose from 53 to 58 last year, thanks in part to the city’s widespread reduction of speed limits on most major roads.

From 2020 to 2021, St. Paul, Minnesota's City Ratings score also increased significantly, owing to a series of infrastructure improvements but also to the city lowering its default speed limits, switching from 30 to 20 mph on residential streets and 25 mph downtown. St. Paul made the decision after the Minnesota state legislature changed its laws in 2019, allowing cities to deviate from the state standard and set speed limits on their own streets for the first time. While not required to repost new signage on every single residential street (the city instead relied on a substantial marketing campaign), St. Paul still installed or changed more than 725 speed limit signs on city-owned streets.

Inclusive Biking

Sustainable Transportation

Electric Bikes

Bike Business

Recreational Bike Access

City Riding

Topics

Bike Networks

PeopleForBikes at Work on Bike Networks

News

The Best New U.S. Bike Lanes

We Were Wrong About Sharrows

Working to 'Ungap' Seattle's Bike Map

Vote for Better Bike Infrastructure

The Lost Sierra Route

Bikes Win Big at the Polls

PeopleForBikes’ Fly-In Brings Industry Leaders Back to Washington, D.C.

Queens teens push for protected bikeway to reconnect their peninsula

A Tale of Two Biking Cities

How to Make Any City Better for Bicycling

2022 CityRatings: The Best Places to Bike in the U.S.

Slow Streets Pave the Way to Better Bike Cities

The Secret Behind Bentonville’s Success

A Proven Model for Accelerating Bike Networks

The Importance Of Mapping Bicycling Data

A Pro-Recreation Policy Package Is on the Horizon

RAISE Grants Present Big Funding for Better Bike Infrastructure

Bikes Won Big at the Ballot Box

Announcing Our Fall 2021 Industry Community Grant Awards

Better Bike Policy Can Prevent Deaths