Paul Van Dyk was born and raised in Long Beach, California, never living more than a mile outside of the city’s limits. When it came time to attend college — at California State University, Long Beach — he decided to study traffic engineering, driven by a longtime love of cars. Van Dyk was eventually hired on by the Long Beach Public Works Department, where he has worked as an engineer for more than a decade.

“After being tasked with the design of bike facilities, I started riding a bike to and from work and fell in love with the principles of living in a 15-minute city,” says Van Dyk, who was recently promoted to the position of city traffic engineer. “My work is now trying to expand that type of lifestyle to the entire city, so folks can bike or walk to a grocery store or school or the dentist or wherever around town.”

Van Dyk’s conversion from car to bike lover isn’t so surprising — Long Beach has the year-round sunny, warm weather California is known for and there are few things as joyful as riding a bike near the coast. As early as 2012, Van Dyk saw an opportunity to bring bike share to Long Beach to help make bicycling more accessible to visitors and locals alike. While it was still the early days of shared micromobility, the nearby city of Fullerton already had a bike share pilot and Van Dyk and his team took notes with their own system in mind. In 2016, in partnership with CycleHop, the city launched Long Beach Bike Share with 10 stations and 100 bikes. 

About a year and a half later, seeking more unilateral control over the program, the city took ownership of the operation of the bike share system. Since August 2017, the city has owned and operated the program with the assistance of Pedal Movement, a Long Beach-based operator that oversees maintenance and rebalancing services for the pedal-powered system. Under this operational model, Long Beach Bike Share has expanded considerably, refurbishing more than 500 bikes from now-defunct systems and more than doubling its fleet size and geographic reach. 

“The bike share system has been complimentary to our rollout of infrastructure — they leverage one another,” says Van Dyk. “If we're trying to promote our bike share hubs somewhere, we'd better make sure that we have a bike boulevard or protected bikeway that gets people to that ultimate destination.”

For example, the rollout of bike share at Cal State Long Beach wouldn't have been possible without protected bike lanes on the campus arterials and bike boulevard projects that move folks from downtown to campus safely. Since the city oversees bike share as a public service, its integration with safe places to ride just makes sense. It also means that as bike share has expanded outside of the more tourist-heavy parts of the city, infrastructure has too. 

When Long Beach Bike Share was first deployed, it was primarily concentrated mostly in the southern half of the city, an area that includes the downtown core, coastline, and access to the local light rail. In the last few years, however, city planners have shifted their focus to making bike share a primary commute option that equitably serves all community members. That means expanding the system’s footprint into the more underserved area of North Long Beach and Central Long Beach.

“Having now deployed throughout the city, we are analyzing the gaps in our network in order to better serve disadvantaged communities,” says Van Dyk, explaining that in places without sufficient sidewalks, that might mean adding in-street docking stations. “In the past, we’ve been limited to places with park space, so we’re moving now towards an in-street paradigm which gives us more flexibility.”

As a way to complement the system expansion and grow use among low-income residents, the city recently launched Bike Share For All. The program, which is funded through the Long Beach Recovery Act, provides qualifying applicants with $5/year memberships, which include up to three hours of ride time each day (a standard annual membership costs $15/month or $120/year and includes 90 minutes of daily ride time). 

To qualify, applicants must provide proof of enrollment in one of 16 various local, state, or federal assistance programs, which include food assistance, state financial aid for students, and veterans benefits. Interested community members can sign up online or in person and are able to pay in cash. Members without smartphones can also receive a tap card to unlock bikes, available upon request during the application process.

As part of a larger effort to break down barriers to use, Long Beach Bike Share has removed out-of-hub parking fees for mid-trip stops. For example, if you check out a bike from a hub, go to the grocery store, and then return the bike to a hub at the end, you won’t be charged. Additionally, Bike Share for All members will receive a warning call before they’re ever fined.

“Our libraries don't collect fines and we really wanted to adopt a more user-friendly model for bike share, similar to a library,” says Van Dyk. “I really consider these bikes to be a public amenity, almost like a book we want people to lend back and forth.”

Inspired by low-income bike share programs in Philadelphia and New York City, Long Beach’s main concern when designing Bike Share For All was to make sure the cost was affordable and that everyone could use it. While marketing materials are already available in the city’s four most common languages — English, Spanish, Khmer, and Tagalog — Van Dyk says that the plan is to conduct more targeted community outreach around Bike Share For All in the upcoming year. 

“We plan to build relationships in the year to come, partnering with local community organizations that connect us to those who would benefit the most,” says Van Dyk, adding that a collaborative advocacy environment is also crucial when it comes to implementing bike infrastructure. “We also have a youth climate core intern on staff and he'll be deployed as a Bike Share For All ambassador this summer, performing some in-person engagement throughout the city.”

Long Beach city staff has found that whenever they do conduct community outreach, people consistently ask for the same thing: More protected bike lanes. The city has responded with an ambitious Bicycle Master Plan, which by 2040 will bring an all-ages and abilities network to every Long Beach neighborhood. Once completed, Long Beach will be one of the safest bicycling cities in America, with protected bike facilities on every single one of its arterial streets.

The challenge thus far has been balancing that vision with other priorities, including rail and pedestrian amenities. This year, the city is taking yet another step in the right direction by creating its own Street Design Guide for engineers. The goal of the design guide is to connect all relevant departments around a shared vision that ties into the city’s Bike Master Plan, Vision Zero work, and sustainability commitments. So every time a road is repaved, planners will have to account for a variety of considerations from what species of trees to include to where a bike share hub will go. 

“We’re equipping our staff, whether they’re engineers, planners, or interns, to have a street design guide that lays out all of these considerations,” says Van Dyk, adding that engineers especially need a toolbook to draw from. “We’re overhauling our project implementation to put people first and create more opportunities for 15-minute lifestyles.”

Long Beach’s City Ratings score hovers in the 30s, a ways off from a score of 50, the benchmark for safe, convenient places to bike. Still, the city is committed to making bicycling safe, convenient, and accessible for all. Crucially, there’s also political will amongst Long Beach’s electeds, including a city council that wants to see 30% bicycle mode share by 2040 and Vision Zero in a decade. At the national level, Rep. Robert Garcia, a California Democrat and the former mayor of Long Beach, introduced a bill that would eliminate parking minimums, a crucial step in creating better cities for bicycling. 

Currently, Long Beach offers more than 150 miles of bike paths, bicycle boulevards, and separated bike lanes, about 50% of the 300 miles the Bike Master Plan calls for. While there’s a lot of work ahead, the city is well-positioned to see it through. Indispensable to meeting its goal is Long Beach Bike Share, which will not only make bicycling an option for casual cyclists or those with limited means but will help spread the gospel of bicycling by making it ubiquitous on city streets.

“Over the past few decades, it's been easy to be in a bubble, whether it's inside of your personal vehicle or in a social media space — bikes are such a great antidote to that,” says Van Dyk. “Bicycles humanize a city and make it a place of community, where you can turn your head and greet a person, engaging with the city at that tactile level. That's something that we just really want to share with people.” 

Bike Share Boosts Long Beach's Bikeability for All

In late July, PeopleForBikes unveiled our newest groundbreaking initiative: The Great Bike Infrastructure Project. This ambitious program will transform communities by advancing pro-bike policies and thousands of bike infrastructure projects in all 50 states, making biking safer and more accessible for everyone.

In the coming months, we’ll take a deeper dive into the specific projects and policies included in the Great Bike Infrastructure Project. For now, read on for a high-level overview of the program. 

At the heart of this new program is a national database featuring an interactive map and list of more than 1,000 bicycle infrastructure projects across the United States. The tool tracks crucial information including each project’s status, state and local advocacy organizations supporting the project, and links to learn more. This first-of-its-kind, easily accessible resource will help people learn about projects in their communities — like bike trails, shared-use paths, protected bike lanes, bike parks, and more — and help ensure they get funded and built. 

Local advocacy efforts are often required to advance these projects, and we encourage you to check out the projects in your area and contact the linked state and local advocacy organizations to learn how you can support getting those projects across the finish line. If you’d like to add a project to our database or correct the details of an existing project, please visit our FAQ page. 

Legislative Strategies for Bike Infrastructure

As part of the Great Bike Infrastructure Project, PeopleForBikes also created a Legislative Guide to assist policymakers and advocates in expanding bike infrastructure for transportation and recreation. As we work to make the U.S. the best place in the world to ride a bike, this comprehensive guide outlines the four most effective legislative approaches to accelerate the construction of safe and connected places to ride. 

The guide includes legislative examples from a variety of communities and states, with tips on adjusting policies to suit your own community’s needs. To help advance these policies in your community, we also included links to existing legislative language to use when crafting your own bills. 

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

One of the key strategies for advancing bike infrastructure is the implementation of Complete Streets mandates. Complete Streets ensure that all road users, including people walking, rolling, biking, and using transit, have safe and accessible ways to get where they want to go. Our guide provides examples of legislation that include strong and specific requirements for creating Complete Streets, limited exceptions, and clear roles and responsibilities to make Complete Streets mandates effective.

Advance Bike Infrastructure Through Climate Legislation

Our guide emphasizes how state and local climate legislation can facilitate the construction of bike projects. Including bike infrastructure in climate legislation can help reduce vehicle miles traveled and greenhouse gas emissions, ultimately contributing to serious environmental and fiscal benefits for communities. Our guide highlights examples of climate legislation in Minnesota, Washington, Rhode Island, and Hawaii, with specific examples of the most effective pieces.

Making streets safer for people riding bikes is paramount to encouraging biking as a mode of transportation and recreation. The guide highlights several strategies for local communities and states to achieve safer streets by reducing traffic speeds, banning right turns on red, and adopting modern design standards. 

PeopleForBikes invites bike industry members, advocates, policymakers, and everyday riders to join us in creating more liveable communities by helping advance pro-bike legislation and bike infrastructure right in your backyard. Together, we can build a vibrant, healthier, and more sustainable future for all.

For more information about PeopleForBikes’ Great Bike Infrastructure Project, visit infrastructure.peopleforbikes.org.

Introducing the Great Bike Infrastructure Project

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How Minneapolis Became a Top U.S. Bike City

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How Great Bike Plans Transform Communities

On any given Wednesday during the school year, you can find a pack of more than 150 kids bicycling to Alameda Elementary School in Portland, Oregon. The bike bus, as it's known, represents roughly 33% of the entire school and according to parents and onlookers, it’s a joy-filled, active transportation event that you can’t help but want to be a part of. In their free time, kids practice their bike skills to participate and on Wednesday mornings, they rally their parents to be on time.

This particular bike bus is the brainchild of Sam Balto, or Coach Balto to his students, a physical education teacher and safe streets advocate that leads the charge in a neon vest with pop music blasting alongside him. Passionate about safety and the well-being of our youth, Balto started his teaching career in Boston in 2015. That same year, he launched his first walking school bus, leading a group of ten kids along a route to school. He’s been passionate about Safe Routes to School and active transportation “buses” ever since.

“After that day, I saw the joy of kids walking to school and how different that was than all other days,” says Balto, noting the immediate behavioral change the students underwent. “I also realized that relying on volunteers [to run the buses] is not a sustainable or equitable model.”

When Balto moved to Portland, he started another walking school bus, again taking note of how successful it was but also what a great need there was for volunteers and other forms of institutional support. When the pandemic hit — accompanied by bus driver shortages and a desire to stay outdoors — bike buses took off around the world, with viral videos surfacing in Barcelona, San Francisco, and even nearby Hood River, Oregon. Inspired, Balto decided to form a bike bus for Earth Day 2022.

“We started with 75 kids and one route,” says Balto. “It was a huge success and we decided to keep doing it, so I reached out to parent volunteers to see if they could keep doing it for the rest of the year.”

Volunteers are a crucial part of any walking or bicycling school bus, as they help ensure the bus stays together, everyone moves safely, and that cars keep their distance. Once the parent volunteers assured Balto they were on board, the bike bus began to grow, adding another route and a bigger catchment zone to make it easier for kids and families to join. That first year, the bus grew from 75 to 120 kids in just six weeks.

“Because it was being done consistently, families were able to plan for it,” says Balto, noting that a weekly activity helps justify a parent’s investment from a time and monetary perspective. “Kids were asking for new bikes so that they could join.”

In 2023, the bike bus became a year-round weekly institution and has only been canceled once due to weather (and in that instance, it became a walking school bus). As a whole, Portland’s bike infrastructure is relatively good and the bus route primarily traverses low-stress neighborhood greenways. The element of critical mass and again, its predictability, have helped keep students safe and area residents prepared. In fact, most neighbors come out and cheer the students on.

For Balto, as with many volunteers that participate in bike buses, the outcomes make the effort worthwhile. Not only do parents report that kids look forward to school more on bike bus mornings, but they also share how bike buses help make everyone in the household more physically active. Others note how active transportation buses can help reduce truancy and increase focus and confidence amongst its participants, something that supports outcomes from research done by Outride on youth bicycling. 

“The biggest thing is just the joy that the kids have,” says Balto. “Not every kid will be on a sports team and have that experience, but the bike bus is like a team where everyone plays an important role.”

Coming out of the pandemic, parents have also really loved seeing their kids be a part of a community. The bike bus is not only a way for their kids to be active but also ensures they’re part of something bigger than themselves. When compared to driving your child to school — a largely solitary act that does little to get them excited for the day ahead — the bike bus always wins. Even with so many parents on board, however, Balto has long recognized the need to pay them for their time. 

Transportation funding, unfortunately, isn’t as flexible as many Safe Routes to School advocates (Balto among them) would like it to be. When Balto and others started looking into how they might reallocate unused funding to financially support and grow the bike bus movement, they realized they were up against tremendous barriers. To grow the movement and make it more equitable, the system would need to change. Introducing a state bill made the most sense.

Thanks to the videos Balto posted on Twitter and the attention his efforts were garnering nationally, he was able to connect with more experienced politicos. They in turn connected him with Representative Khanh Pham, who represents District 46 on Portland’s outer southeast side. When Blato and Rep. Pham met in September 2022, she was immediately receptive, agreeing on the spot to write a bill that would bring more flexibility to student transportation funds.

“Passing legislation to make it easier for students to bike, walk, and take transit to school is an initiative that solves so many overlapping challenges,” says Rep. Pham. “It's a public health initiative, it’s education policy, it's climate action, and ultimately it's community building by encouraging neighbors, parents, and students to spend time together.”

Coincidentally, another Oregon legislator, Representative Hoa Nguyen, whose district borders Rep. Pham’s, wrote an almost identical bill. Having been an attendant at her school, Rep. Nguyen saw firsthand how a walking school bus led to a 30% increase in student attendance. Nguyen also noted how teachers saw a significant decrease in disruptive classroom behavior from students, largely because they were able to expend some energy on their morning walk to school.

The legislators joined forces and ultimately decided to call their combined bill (HB 3014) the “Bike Bus Bill.” The bill itself is relatively basic: If passed, school districts across Oregon will have more flexibility with how they spend their state transportation dollars, letting them organize things like bike buses and walking school buses in addition to traditional buses and carpool lines. 

"Currently, these funds can only be used for traditional yellow school buses or in some cases, school-owned vans," says Rep. Nguyen. "But that isn’t always the best option for all students. With the passage of HB 3014, districts will be able to request reimbursement  for alternative transportation options like crossing guards or coordinators to lead walk and bike buses."

The bill would have the greatest impact on those households that don’t own a vehicle and that live close to their schools — too close for a bus route — but face dangerous obstacles in traveling safely.

The “Bike Bus Bill” will make it easier to organize bike buses and pay the volunteers that are indispensable to their success. (Photo credit: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)

Last month, when the Oregon House Committee on Education held a hearing for the bill, Reps. Pham and Nguyen, Balto, and some 27 other advocates, students, and parents showed up to give live testimony in support of the bill. Rep. Pham drew attention to the “epidemic of traffic violence” our students, especially those from lower-income communities, are facing every day and how the bill would help them safely cross short-but-dangerous distances to get to school. Others pointed out that owning and maintaining a car is out of reach for many and how active transportation solutions can help cities meet their carbon reduction targets. 

“The first time I rode the bike bus I was overcome with a sense of community. I felt like I was biking on an ocean of joy. Every student should be able to feel what I did,” said Alameda Elementary student Isla, speaking at the hearing. “Safe Routes to School programming and investments are a cost-effective game-changer for reducing daily driving…the passage of HB 3014 will improve the climate and encourage people to get active.”

For Balto, the bill is a testament to the creative possibility bikes can offer and the power of community-led initiatives. “[The bill] is about providing a more direct service to school communities,” says Balto. “It breaks through the noise and is all about the joy of children.”

The Bike Bus Bill continues to progress through the Oregon legislature — a work session is currently scheduled for the end of the month and it's hard to say when, if at all, the bill will become law. Whether it does or not, Balto will continue leading his bike bus every Wednesday and supporting others who want to emulate his efforts in their own communities. 

“I don’t have a choice but to keep going — when kids want these things and are advocating for them, that’s student-led education,” says Balto. “They’re the ones picking what they want to see and do and we should all capitalize on that and support it.”

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

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

For 2023, we rated 1,484 cities of all sizes throughout the U.S. and 249 international cities on the quality of their bike networks. Each city receives a City Ratings score on a scale of 0-100. A low score (0-20) indicates a weak bike network, meaning the city lacks safe bikeways or there are gaps in the network. A high score (80-100) indicates that most common destinations are accessible by safe, comfortable bike routes that serve people of all ages and abilities. For larger cities, a score of 50 is the tipping point to becoming a great place to bike.

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




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

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

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


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


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


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

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

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

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

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

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

These four U.S. cities, all with populations under 50,000 people, scored well in the 2021 City Ratings. Here’s what they’re doing right.

Small cities have an inherent advantage when it comes to bicycling — since they tend to have smaller road networks, changes to a few key streets can really make a difference when it comes to bicycling. On average, the top small cities (those with populations of 50,000 or fewer) score higher in the 2021 City Ratings than the top medium and large cities. Independent of a city's efforts to build great bike infrastructure, there are a few possible explanations for this scoring trend.

First, many of the smaller cities and towns in the 2021 City Ratings tend to have smaller boundaries than we might think. We often envision a small city as extending into the land surrounding it, while in reality, its borders might not encompass much beyond a few main streets. Our 2021 City Ratings are based on our Bicycle Network Analysis (BNA), which only evaluates trips that start within the city boundary. Thus, if your home falls outside the city limits and it’s difficult to bike downtown, that wouldn’t impact your city's score. Inaccurate or missing data in OpenStreetMap will also have a larger impact on a small city's network score, with poor data sometimes improving a city's score. 

Moreover, small cities, especially more rural ones, often consist of a traditional downtown street grid, a few main connecting streets and one or two roads that lead out of town. If speed limits are low, the downtown grid becomes largely low stress, offering multiple routes to reach the same destination. The flip side is that if there’s only one high-stress road to your destination, it can be impossible to bike there using only low-stress routes.

Although the four small cities below definitely benefit from their size, we’ve chosen to highlight them for reasons that go beyond breadth. While completely different in terms of geography, culture and approach, they're all doing something right when it comes to bicycling.

“You hear a lot of people talking about the 15-minute city,” said Rik Ahlberg, chair of the Provincetown Bicycle Committee and owner of Pedal Ptown Bike Tours. “Well, this is the five-minute town. I can get from one end to the other in seven minutes on my bicycle.”

Located on the northern tip of Cape Cod, Provincetown has a year-round population of 3,000 people and five bike shops. Bicycles were introduced to Provincetown in the late 1800s — the first bike path was proposed in 1899 — and they’ve been a primary mode of transportation ever since. Today, residents are able to access all essential services, from the grocery store to the dentist, within a two-mile bike ride. 

“There’s virtually no corner you can stand on in Provincetown and not see a bike rack somewhere,” said Ahlberg, noting that there’s even waterfront bike parking at the beach. “Our bike racks were old and not attractive, so we invested in upgrading them all to the APBP [Association of Pedestrian and Bicycle Professional] standards.” 

Commercial Street, Provincetown’s main drag, is one way for cars but two way for bicycles. Almost every other street is small, forcing drivers to go slow, creating naturally low-stress bikeways. It also helps that development is dense in Provincetown and no highways bisect it. In the summer months, Provincetown’s population balloons to nearly 60,000 people, and although many people arrive by car, they also bring their bikes.

“Bikes also aren’t tied to economic status here,” said Ahlberg, noting that Provincetown has one of the best year-round commuter rates, as high as 20% by some counts. “Across the board, people ride bikes just because it’s convenient.”

This year, we featured Provincetown in our Advocacy Academy series, “Lessons from the Best Biking Cities.” Watch to learn more about how the town has embraced and encouraged bicycling, engaged its community and invested in low-stress, complete streets.

Traverse City, located in the northwest part of Michigan’s mitten and bordering Lake Michigan, has a population of roughly 15,000 people. With a total area of 8.66 square miles, the small city is flat and laid out on a grid, making it easy to navigate by bike for folks of all ages and abilities. There’s also a strong history of recreational mountain biking, which helped lay the foundation for in-town bike culture.

“Most of the biking in Traverse City really started off as recreation and we have a lot of very large areas of mountain bike trails right around downtown,” said Shawn Winter, planning director for the city. “Within five minutes you can be in the woods — everything is just compact and accessible.”

Although recreational riding helped jumpstart the bike culture in Traverse City, Winter attributes the larger shift to different organizations that have come together and advocated for change over the years. Nonprofit TART Trails, for example, maintains a network of multi-use trails, 5.4 miles of which are in Traverse City proper, and has been hosting a bike commuter event for 27 years. Likewise, Norte, a bike-centric, youth-focused advocacy organization, has been instrumental in achieving a 473% increase in participation in kids actively transporting themselves in the Grand Traverse region. There are also three bike shops in town and regular workshops where residents can learn about things like winter biking.

“Winter is very real in Michigan — it’s a legitimate season that dominates most of the calendar,” said Winter, noting that people sometimes use it as an excuse for not investing in non-motorized infrastructure. “Traverse City does a great job of plowing the sidewalks and people have the gear to bike year-round. Winter really doesn't have the impact on bicycling that I think people assume it would.”

In the summer, tourists flock to Traverse City, taking part in Kayak, Bike & Brew tours and using the bike racks on BATA, the local transit system, to pedal trails further outside of town. According to Winter, Traverse City’s downtown, as well as most parks and beaches, are so popular that they’re actually more accessible by bike due to limited parking. The city’s main east-west corridor, 8th Street, was also redesigned to be more walkable and safe, with lowered speed limits and new bicycle tracks.

“When they redid the street, they added three mid-block crossings in that stretch and did a lot of streetscape improvements with landscaping design, lighting and benches,” said Winter, noting that there are now brand new multi-story buildings under construction in a once bleak stretch. “It's a great example of how public investment can be a catalyst for additional private investment.”

Pella is a small midwestern town of around 10,300 people, home to Central College and famous for its Dutch roots. The tourist town, which covers just 8.73 square miles, celebrates that history with a fully functional 1850s-style windmill, an annual tulip festival and a downtown canal. Like the Netherlands, Pella is also a great place to bike — although it could do more to embrace that aspect of its heritage.

“It’s a small, grid town that’s just easy to get around in,” said Mark Wyatt, executive director of the Iowa Bicycle Coalition. “Pella also has a pretty substantial trail system leading out of town.”

That trail, the Volksweg Trail, is a 17-mile asphalt path that extends from town to Lake Red Rock, Iowa’s largest lake. Aside from the miles connecting the trail to town though, Pella hasn’t invested in the infrastructure that might set it apart as a bicycling destination. Chris Van Gent, who owns the sole bike shop in town — Iowa Bike Co. — believes relatively inexpensive investments like wayfinding signs, sharrows and crucially, more much-needed bike parking, would help boost ridership.

“Protected bike lanes don’t really make sense here,” said Van Gent, adding that the bike “advertising” that comes with some of the low-cost fixes does. “People would bike more and shop more if there was bike parking.”

In 2018, Pella launched a bike share system in partnership with VeoRide, which despite being profitable and working well, was pulled by the national micromobility company in 2020. In large part, Pella scores well because the town has grown around its downtown core and is evenly dispersed with clusters of essential services, retail shops and residences. Unlike many other small towns in rural America, Pella’s main street is also distinct from the highway, leaving a series of connected, low-stress streets intact. 

Iowa is also home to RAGBRAI, Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa, an epic seven-day bicycling adventure that changes routes every year. The longest, largest and oldest bicycle touring event in the world, it’s an Iowa institution that has a real effect on the whole state. For many, the race is the reason people start biking in the first place.

“It can be a real financial generator, with 20,000-plus bicyclists rolling through,” said Wyatt. “It’s created this opportunity for rural Iowa to see bicycling as an economic generator.”

Pella is blessed with a setup that naturally makes it a great place for riding bikes. With some smart investments and political willpower, it could easily become a true bike town, thriving economically and benefitting from safer streets in the process.

With a population of 47,302, San Luis Obispo, or SLO, is the largest city on this list. Located in California’s Central Coast region, the city is just under 13 square miles. Its relatively small size coupled with the temperate climate makes SLO a great place to bicycle, whether you're going to work, recreating or running errands. Around town, you’re as likely to see a mountain biker as you are two kids on the back of their parent’s cargo bike.

“It’s a dynamic community and we have a major university in California Polytechnic State,” said Rick Ellison, executive director of Bike SLO County. “College towns bring a certain energy that’s good for the whole bicycling community.”

The city is also phenomenally progressive when it comes to roadway safety, consistently improving bike lanes, planning for a safe, complete network and promoting bikes as a way to address climate change. 

“The city recognizes that the key to getting more people on bikes is to have effective and safe infrastructure,” said Ellison, noting that greenways, neighborhood networks, bike lanes and traffic calming efforts all play into that vision. “Our leadership believes that San Luis Obispo can be the leader when it comes to climate action by making bikes part of the solution.”

Last year, SLO was featured in our Advocacy Academy series, “Lessons from the Best Biking Cities.” In the episode, we learn from SLO Active Transportation Manager Adam Fukushima about the city’s 75-mile-plus bike network and how climate action funds are allocated for bike improvements.

How does your city rank? Check out our 2021 City Ratings and learn how to improve your score.

From 2020 to 2021, the Minnesota capital’s City Rating score increased significantly. Here’s why.

At first glance, St. Paul, Minnesota, doesn’t seem like a particularly impressive city when it comes to bicycling. With a 2021 City Ratings score of 46, the midwestern capital falls just below the threshold of a score that translates to high ridership, improved safety and considerable access. However, St. Paul residents who responded to our Community Survey, a major component of every city’s overall score, believe St. Paul is a great place for biking.

Why the gap? Well, the community score accounts for residents’ insights regarding how often people ride, how safe they feel, how well the local network serves them and if they’re aware of nearby bicycle resources. In a place with a strong bike culture, like St. Paul, respondents might skew in favor of those who ride the most (those who don’t ride at all aren’t likely to respond to a survey about biking), as well as those who ride recreationally (our scores account for the transportation experience). Add in new, highly visible infrastructure and St. Paul’s efforts to take a Complete Streets and Vision Zero approach, and folks may not realize how much better bicycling in the city could be.

Still, St. Paul is among the top 10 large U.S. cities for bicycling and the most improved compared to 2020. Championing bicycling in St. Paul’s is Mayor Melvin Carter and his Chief Resilience Officer Russ Stark, who’ve made a dedicated bike network a top priority. The city’s overall bike plan, adopted in 2015, lays out an eventual 346-mile network, although the city is currently at 207 miles with no set timeline for completion. And like just about every place in America, St. Paul has work to do when it comes to making transportation more equitable. Luckily, its diversity is well-represented amongst city officials, going a long way to help people feel like their viewpoints are being represented and advanced.

There are two major factors that led to St. Paul’s 2021 score bump, one of them being a series of infrastructure improvements that came to fruition in 2020. Those include critical improvements to the city’s downtown area and a significantly improved network by way of several brand new Regional Trails, the term the Twin Cities uses to describe bikeways that link neighborhoods throughout the metro area. The second, relatively easy action St. Paul made was to lower its default speed limits, switching from 30 to 20 mph on residential streets and 25 mph downtown. 

“It was important to us as owners of the rights of way that the speed limits we post be reflective of the speed limits we want people to drive,” said Reuben Collins, transportation planner and engineer with the city. “The first step in getting people to drive slower is setting the expectation that you want people to drive slower.”

Excessive speed is a chief cause of crashes and fatalities on U.S. roadways yet the issue doesn’t often get the national attention it deserves. More than 10,000 people are killed in speed-related collisions each year (the number of which has increased during the pandemic), a statistic that’s in line with alcohol-related crashes. Lowering speed limits is a matter of life and death: A person hit by a car traveling 35 mph is three times as likely to die as someone hit at 25 mph. When 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, St. Paul saw an opportunity.

Due to the fluid movement between St. Paul and Minneapolis, whose adjacent borders are separated only by the Mississippi River, it made sense for the cities to coordinate lowered speed limits and a “20 is Plenty” educational campaign. From the beginning, both municipalities agreed that increased enforcement was not the desired method, deciding it wouldn't be sustainable, effective or equitable. The changes were primarily communicated through a public awareness video (available in Hmong, Spanish and Somali), press releases and newspaper articles that emphasized safety.

Not wanting to post signs on every single residential street, the Twin Cities collaborated on a strategy to target key areas. Utilizing relatively inexpensive lawn signage, stickers and “gateway signs” at various entry points to each city, St. Paul and Minneapolis were able to communicate that a residential speed limit of 20 mph was now in effect. In the end, St. Paul still installed or changed more than 725 speed limit signs on city-owned streets (Minneapolis’ number was more than double). 

“The fact that Minneapolis and St. Paul moved together with the same program, implementing it at the same time — I think it made the system stronger, more resilient to criticism and easier for the public to understand,” said Collins, noting that the cities leaned heavily on NACTO guidance. “The response has been universal applause that lowered street limits is a good thing.”

It’s certainly good for bicycling. In 2020, St. Paul’s Bicycle Network Analysis (BNA) score, a key factor in determining our City Rankings, was nine. The infrastructure improvements completed last year, combined with the citywide speed limit changes, bumped St. Paul's BNA score to 42. It’s a dramatic increase and only adds to PeopleForBikes’ position that slow streets are safe streets.

St. Paul’s network map in 2020 (left) and 2021 (right). Lowering speed limits on residential streets transformed the city from majority high-stress thoroughfares, represented in red, to low-stress ones, colored blue.

There is a growing trend to reduce speed limits on residential streets within and outside of the United States. Despite residential speed limits being relatively high across most of Canada, Edmonton and Calgary reduced them late last year, resulting in stronger BNA scores. Still, speed limit reductions can be useless without larger design changes. Memphis, Tennessee, also lowered its residential speed limits to 25 mph but resulted in a BNA rise of just six points due to other network limitations — a good example of how speed limits might help, but must also be combined with other infrastructure improvements. 

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