154 Cities Earn Marks in Updated Bike Score Rankings

Walk Score released an updated ranking of the best cities for biking—including Bike Scores for a total of 154 U.S. cities—in time for Bike to Work Week and National Bike Month.

2 minute read

May 17, 2015, 1:00 PM PDT

By James Brasuell @CasualBrasuell


Bike Commuting

Richard Masoner / Cyclelicious / flickr

"Minneapolis is the most bikeable city in the U.S., according to the latest ranking by Walk Score," reports a post on Redfin by Rachel Musiker (Walk Score is a Redfin company). Musiker adds: "With a Bike Score of 81.3, Minneapolis has a strong lead over San Francisco (75.1) and Portland (72.0)."

Walk Score updated the Bike Score rankings to commemorate Bike to Work Week and National Bike Month, which concluded on May 15. The rankings mentioned above are for cities with a population of greater 300,000. Several college towns, led by Cambridge, Massachusetts and Davis, California, actually have higher Bike Scores. Walk Score now provides Bike Scores for 154 cities in total.

The post includes several angles of insight into the rankings, including a point about infrastructure.

"Thanks to investments in infrastructure such as protected bike lanes and networks of bike paths, several cities saw big increases in their Bike Scores since the 2013 ranking. On average, cities that ranked in the top 20 saw an increase of more than two Bike Score points. Chicago’s Bike Score increased by almost nine full points, from 61.5 in 2013 to 70.2 today. In the past two years, the Chicago Department of Transportation has launched and grown the Divvy bike share system and expanded its on-street bike network to include more than 225 miles of bike lanes and routes. Expect the city’s score to climb in the next five years as Mayor Emanuel’s Chicago Streets for Cycling Plan 2020 includes completion of a 645-mile network of on-street bikeways by 2020."

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