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North America's Most Bike-Friendly Cities
Crai S. Bower July 14, 2009
Where pedals get the medals
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See our slideshow of North America's Most Bike-Friendly Cities.
The cities on our list all offer web-based resources including bike route maps and lists of bike-friendly events among other cycle-centric assets.
We took different factors into account in selecting the most bike-friendly cities: number and quality of bike paths, competing traffic and pedestrian density, total number of bikers, and a very subjective feature—the beauty of the surroundings. For example, Vancouver, B.C., offers the recreational pedaler the Seawall, a majestic trail along gorgeous English Bay, as well as numerous trails within Stanley Park, one of the world’s great urban wilderness parks. But it misses highest honors because cycling in the downtown core is a challenge due to congestion and the sheer number of cars and pedestrians.
In a city like Eugene, Ore., riding around town you may cross Paul Adkin’s path. He’s the president of GEARs (Greater Eugene Area Riders), who traded in his car for good several years ago. He says many people pepper him with questions about living carfree. “I tell them to try 'carlite' first, abandoning car travel for a week or a month.”
See our slideshow of North America's Most Bike-Friendly Cities.
Adkins cites one other obvious advantage of the two-wheeled tour. “I haven’t sat in a traffic jam in years, though we did see one the other day when we passed under the Interstate 5 bridge while floating on the Willamette River. My kids were amazed and thought the whole idea of sitting in car traffic was very funny.
On the other hand, in medium-sized college towns such as Boulder, Colo., Madison, Wis., and Austin, Texas, an entire bicycle ethos exists—hundreds of trails, great scenery and whole neighborhoods where bikes outnumber cars. More controversial are huge cities like New York—which does make the list. How, you may ask, can the Big Apple, with kamikaze taxis and dominant “me first” road rules, be considered a worthy finalist for bike-worthiness? The answer lies in the current civic efforts to add bike trails along streets and avenues, and the sheer numbers—100,000 mount bicycles every day, by far the greatest number of bike commuters of any city on the continent. To tour Central Park on a car-free Sunday should be high on any cyclist’s bucket list.
According to Stephan Shier, owner of Seattle’s Dutch Bike Company, the transition from car-crazy to cycling-centric would accelerate if the American biking community underwent a change critical paradigm shift. “Everybody in the U.S. is biking on modified racing bikes,” says Shier, whose company imports urban two-wheelers built with Scandinavian simplicity and practicality. “Thus, Americans believe they need to cycle to work or participate in a weekend trek like Lance Armstrong, wearing spandex and working up a full sweat. But in Europe bikes are the vehicles of the common man. You climb on in your regular clothes and bike away.”
See our slideshow of North America's Most Bike-Friendly Cities.
Schier says the best bike towns have a definite infrastructure in place, are flat and put a lot of effort into what he calls, “traffic calming” effects. He says Portland, in neighboring Oregon, is “at least ten years ahead of all other large American cities.” The City of Roses has also become the hub of American bike manufacturing, generating $68 million in revenue last year. The first American city to commit to a “bike-focused infrastructure,” Portland began a “Green Box” pilot program at nine intersections, creating a road map that directs cars away from bike lanes and traditional areas of bike congestion.
“Portland was a streetcar city,” says Tom Miller, Chief of Staff for Portland City Councilman (and mayoral candidate) Sam Adams. “We still have the footprint of the dense, walkable and thus, bikable city," Miller says. “Many hotels offer free bikes for guests, the city is changing one car parking spaces to bike corrals that accommodate 12 bikes, and there are plenty of great tours like the 18- to 40-mile Sauvy Island tour or the Waterfront Tour, one of the great urban greenways. You can even ride along trails all the way from the airport to downtown, 12 miles away” Miller adds.
Still, plenty of other cities are saddling up with boasts of their own. Chicago, as flat as they come, has set a goal to become North America’s top cycling city by 2015. New York City planners recently traveled to Copenhagen and Amsterdam to learn how best to move forward with New York’s cycling infrastructure. This spring, Montréal began a pilot “rent a bike” program modeled after Paris’ successful rental system.
Experiencing a city by bicycle has quickly become a favorite tourist activity, not only in cycle-crazy Portland, but in cities as diverse as San Diego and Montréal. And with alternative energy use among the most important considerations in our future, it may be time for each of us to seize our inner visionary, skip the rental car and join the two-wheeled throng exploring urban destinations from upon a saddle rather than behind a steering wheel. Spandex optional.
See our slideshow of North America's Most Bike-Friendly Cities.
