Top 13 Cities in the World for Bicyclists
November 3, 2021 8:03 PM Subscribe
Provincetown is very walkable, so no surprise there.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 8:21 PM on November 3, 2021
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 8:21 PM on November 3, 2021
Their ranking of Canadian cities seems way off, so I wonder if their methodology actually measures what they think it measures.
posted by ssg at 8:33 PM on November 3, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by ssg at 8:33 PM on November 3, 2021 [2 favorites]
Year round Chicago biker here. It’s flat, which is a big plus. Bike lanes are pretty good, compared to what they used to be, and to what you’ll find elsewhere in the US. But man, I’m still jealous of the places where it’s better.
On the other hand, my Dutch colleague at work is a cheater with an e-bike, while I do it the old fashioned way for 8 miles each way to work. Maybe they’re all faking it.
posted by notoriety public at 8:36 PM on November 3, 2021 [1 favorite]
On the other hand, my Dutch colleague at work is a cheater with an e-bike, while I do it the old fashioned way for 8 miles each way to work. Maybe they’re all faking it.
posted by notoriety public at 8:36 PM on November 3, 2021 [1 favorite]
Looking at the data a little closer here, I think they are way off. For example, Vancouver has more than triple the cycling mode share (i.e. more than three times as many cycle commuters per capita) as Calgary, but somehow Vancouver has a rating of 47 and Calgary 59. If people aren't actually biking in the cities they say are great for biking, then something has gone quite wrong. Looking at their methodology, I think their measurement system is heavily biased towards suburbia, which is not actually great for cycling.
posted by ssg at 8:44 PM on November 3, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by ssg at 8:44 PM on November 3, 2021 [4 favorites]
Missoula is where adventurecycling.org is headquartered. Where is the actual list? I'd like to complain with Boulder, CO being there, while also complaining about how low on the list it's found.
posted by alex_skazat at 8:45 PM on November 3, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by alex_skazat at 8:45 PM on November 3, 2021 [1 favorite]
The nearest one of these is a thousand miles from me, which is way too far to bike (at least until spring).
posted by aubilenon at 8:52 PM on November 3, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by aubilenon at 8:52 PM on November 3, 2021 [1 favorite]
If people aren't actually biking in the cities they say are great for biking, then something has gone quite wrong.
Yes, but if people are biking in cities they say aren’t as good for biking, there are multiple potential reasons for that. I would imagine that it’s significantly more expensive and inconvenient to own a car in Vancouver than in Calgary, for example. Or, places with large numbers of very poor working people (or, potentially, undocumented immigrants) who can’t afford (or can’t get) driver’s licenses, let alone vehicles and insurance, also tend to have higher bicycle ridership rates, regardless of (and often in spite of the lack of) infrastructure.
posted by eviemath at 9:00 PM on November 3, 2021
Yes, but if people are biking in cities they say aren’t as good for biking, there are multiple potential reasons for that. I would imagine that it’s significantly more expensive and inconvenient to own a car in Vancouver than in Calgary, for example. Or, places with large numbers of very poor working people (or, potentially, undocumented immigrants) who can’t afford (or can’t get) driver’s licenses, let alone vehicles and insurance, also tend to have higher bicycle ridership rates, regardless of (and often in spite of the lack of) infrastructure.
posted by eviemath at 9:00 PM on November 3, 2021
https://cityratings.peopleforbikes.org/ is, I think, the original data. Apologies if I missed it in the article.
Boulder's great... if you're going east/west. They've consistentlyrefused to do anything had extensive, drawn out studies on real bike transportation with separated infrastructure. We'll see if the new bike route from Longmont to Boulder becomes a reality. They'll just need to find $26M...
posted by SunSnork at 9:05 PM on November 3, 2021 [8 favorites]
Boulder's great... if you're going east/west. They've consistently
posted by SunSnork at 9:05 PM on November 3, 2021 [8 favorites]
Tucson is 38th. Not bad, should be better, but I think the condition of our roads is not helping. The state cut shared funding to localities (hey, gotta keep cutting taxes, gotta find the money somewhere for that) and a lot of maintenance is just now getting started since the city and county are now issuing debt to repair the roads. This has historically been a very bike friendly city, lots of bike lanes, bike boulevards, and the Loop.
posted by azpenguin at 9:36 PM on November 3, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by azpenguin at 9:36 PM on November 3, 2021 [1 favorite]
The rankings for Australian cities don't make a lot of sense - only some parts of them seem to have been analysed. That said, having lived in both Alice and Canberra, they are pretty cycle-able. It helps to be pretty flat.
posted by jjderooy at 10:10 PM on November 3, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by jjderooy at 10:10 PM on November 3, 2021 [1 favorite]
Sydney cyclist here. I thought the Australian list seemed about right. Though yes, it seems to have been done at a local council level? Liverpool, Ryde, Parramatta are listed separately despite being parts of Sydney.
Disappointingly, Wollongong is way down the list, despite preparing to host the UCI cycling world championship in a few years. People have been making fun of that bid, for good reason.
posted by other barry at 10:23 PM on November 3, 2021
Disappointingly, Wollongong is way down the list, despite preparing to host the UCI cycling world championship in a few years. People have been making fun of that bid, for good reason.
posted by other barry at 10:23 PM on November 3, 2021
Ah yes, if you click on a location's name to go to the page showing the details, you can see that Australia is apparent listed at the local council level. Sydney is actually Sydney City council covering only the CBD - which is why it's able to get such a relatively high score, due to the famously cycling-friendly mayor Clover Moore. Ryde, Sydney, has a bad score, accurately reflecting the terrible state of cycling infrastructure in most Sydney suburbs.
posted by other barry at 10:31 PM on November 3, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by other barry at 10:31 PM on November 3, 2021 [3 favorites]
The list only includes cities from 12 countries. :(
posted by Literaryhero at 10:42 PM on November 3, 2021
posted by Literaryhero at 10:42 PM on November 3, 2021
The list only includes cities from 12 countries
People for Bikes is a North American organization so not so strange. Part of the point of lists like this is to give focus to communities that have made investments in infrastructure, and inspire other communities to do better and join peer municipalities. Calgary for instance has made efforts, and even hosted a Winter Cycling Congress a couple years ago.
Really the community that one should look to for inspiration is Seville. In just a few years modal share has skyrocketed thanks to intensive infrastructure investment.
posted by St. Oops at 10:50 PM on November 3, 2021 [2 favorites]
People for Bikes is a North American organization so not so strange. Part of the point of lists like this is to give focus to communities that have made investments in infrastructure, and inspire other communities to do better and join peer municipalities. Calgary for instance has made efforts, and even hosted a Winter Cycling Congress a couple years ago.
Really the community that one should look to for inspiration is Seville. In just a few years modal share has skyrocketed thanks to intensive infrastructure investment.
posted by St. Oops at 10:50 PM on November 3, 2021 [2 favorites]
Looking at the data a little closer here, I think they are way off. For example, Vancouver has more than triple the cycling mode share (i.e. more than three times as many cycle commuters per capita) as Calgary, but somehow Vancouver has a rating of 47 and Calgary 59. If people aren't actually biking in the cities they say are great for biking, then something has gone quite wrong. Looking at their methodology, I think their measurement system is heavily biased towards suburbia, which is not actually great for cycling.
Yeah, their methodology is garbage, unfortunately. It starts with OpenStreetMap data, which is wildly inconsistent and incomplete; not wrong, just misleading. (Similar to Wikipedia, where an algorithmic approach would rank Harley Quinn as a more important fictional character in the history of human literature than Gilgamesh.)
Even if there was uniform data, that can be problematic. What's a bike lane, for instance? I've seen sidewalks along busy roads, crossing big box store driveways every 10 feet classed as a low-stress best-available bike path because it was made of asphalt instead of concrete and made a foot wider.
So it's using limited, biased data to see whether people can access destinations (these destinations are also probably from limited data, although the US has better national data sources than other places). And then their methodology is to class these places into either "low stress" or "high stress". Which sounds like a solid, uncompromising approach -- we accept nothing less than low stress facilities. But it actually colours dozens of shades of grey into a single white.
Here's an example. Here are two Street View locations; Place A and Place B. Place A is in Calgary, at the intersection of two roads classed as "low stress"; in reality barely-paved industrial roads with heavy truck traffic and nobody to find your body afterward. Place B is in Vancouver, at the intersection of two roads classed as "high stress"; quiet streets in a comically idyllic inner-city suburb; the only stress a cyclist would feel here is if they wanted to get a mortgage.
I honestly have no idea how these have been misclassified so badly -- the only thing I can guess at is that perhaps the city wide speed limit in Calgary of 40 km/h makes anything less than a freeway "low stress" and the city wide speed limit in Vancouver of 50 km/h makes anything more than a dedicated lane "high stress". Which, like, slower speed limits does make cycling safer, but it shouldn't be a citywide cheat code. Particularly since there is no effort given to actually enforcing them.
And it's problematic because not only is it wildly misleading, but Calgary could spend tens of millions of dollars on bicycling infrastructure and not improve it's score an iota, while Vancouver is almost a hopeless case -- except for the fact that in the real world it has better, more usable cycling infrastructure than Calgary and way more cyclists.
The community survey component is also potentially problematic internationally -- are they actually surveying people in Turkish, Danish, Norwegian, French, or are they just sampling the subset of English speaking users in those cities (the English speaking part of Montreal is denser and has better bike infrastructure - just because the English inner suburbs are all different cities where the French ones aren't).
posted by Superilla at 10:54 PM on November 3, 2021 [11 favorites]
Yeah, their methodology is garbage, unfortunately. It starts with OpenStreetMap data, which is wildly inconsistent and incomplete; not wrong, just misleading. (Similar to Wikipedia, where an algorithmic approach would rank Harley Quinn as a more important fictional character in the history of human literature than Gilgamesh.)
Even if there was uniform data, that can be problematic. What's a bike lane, for instance? I've seen sidewalks along busy roads, crossing big box store driveways every 10 feet classed as a low-stress best-available bike path because it was made of asphalt instead of concrete and made a foot wider.
So it's using limited, biased data to see whether people can access destinations (these destinations are also probably from limited data, although the US has better national data sources than other places). And then their methodology is to class these places into either "low stress" or "high stress". Which sounds like a solid, uncompromising approach -- we accept nothing less than low stress facilities. But it actually colours dozens of shades of grey into a single white.
Here's an example. Here are two Street View locations; Place A and Place B. Place A is in Calgary, at the intersection of two roads classed as "low stress"; in reality barely-paved industrial roads with heavy truck traffic and nobody to find your body afterward. Place B is in Vancouver, at the intersection of two roads classed as "high stress"; quiet streets in a comically idyllic inner-city suburb; the only stress a cyclist would feel here is if they wanted to get a mortgage.
I honestly have no idea how these have been misclassified so badly -- the only thing I can guess at is that perhaps the city wide speed limit in Calgary of 40 km/h makes anything less than a freeway "low stress" and the city wide speed limit in Vancouver of 50 km/h makes anything more than a dedicated lane "high stress". Which, like, slower speed limits does make cycling safer, but it shouldn't be a citywide cheat code. Particularly since there is no effort given to actually enforcing them.
And it's problematic because not only is it wildly misleading, but Calgary could spend tens of millions of dollars on bicycling infrastructure and not improve it's score an iota, while Vancouver is almost a hopeless case -- except for the fact that in the real world it has better, more usable cycling infrastructure than Calgary and way more cyclists.
The community survey component is also potentially problematic internationally -- are they actually surveying people in Turkish, Danish, Norwegian, French, or are they just sampling the subset of English speaking users in those cities (the English speaking part of Montreal is denser and has better bike infrastructure - just because the English inner suburbs are all different cities where the French ones aren't).
posted by Superilla at 10:54 PM on November 3, 2021 [11 favorites]
Austin has made huge positive changes in the past five years, a very nice surprise. The fact that the city actually took lanes from the streets and gave them to cyclists/pedestrians is just a really great thing, I'd never have guessed it.
There is a tremendous amount of hostility from people in cars and trucks, even buses, without these dedicated lanes it was taking a huge risk to drive on the street.* And by dedicated I mean not just lines painted on the road but instead putting in these plastic route markers every four feet or so.
*Nowhere near as bad as San Antone -- my god. I had a mechanic in San Antone I really trusted, I thought one day to toss my bike in the back of the pickup, bop around town while he worked on my truck. It's was unbelievable. Truly remarkable.
One thing which the city of Austin turns a blind eye to is the rain drainage systems, huge, deep, wide open death traps if you happen to drift into one of them -- voice of experience here. I never noticed them until I got caught in one of them but the people who put new handlebars on my bike and getting it all squared away know all about them; the hear the horror stories, they set twisted bikes back right. I cannot but help wondering how many people just never ride again. Torn rotatar cuff -- ripped it right off the bone -- bunch of broken bones in my face, big-time concussion, legs and arms a big bloody mess. Had I not been wearing eye protection I'd have lost my left eye.
Only other cities I really have experience in is one week in downtown Chicago (be careful) and a week in Boulder, which was amazing -- it is a gorgeous place, truly bicycle friendly, it was high summer so it was all a big smile, but I could not but think of the fact of winter, snow, ice, death, ET CET. But is is sweet in the summer.
posted by dancestoblue at 11:04 PM on November 3, 2021 [3 favorites]
There is a tremendous amount of hostility from people in cars and trucks, even buses, without these dedicated lanes it was taking a huge risk to drive on the street.* And by dedicated I mean not just lines painted on the road but instead putting in these plastic route markers every four feet or so.
*Nowhere near as bad as San Antone -- my god. I had a mechanic in San Antone I really trusted, I thought one day to toss my bike in the back of the pickup, bop around town while he worked on my truck. It's was unbelievable. Truly remarkable.
One thing which the city of Austin turns a blind eye to is the rain drainage systems, huge, deep, wide open death traps if you happen to drift into one of them -- voice of experience here. I never noticed them until I got caught in one of them but the people who put new handlebars on my bike and getting it all squared away know all about them; the hear the horror stories, they set twisted bikes back right. I cannot but help wondering how many people just never ride again. Torn rotatar cuff -- ripped it right off the bone -- bunch of broken bones in my face, big-time concussion, legs and arms a big bloody mess. Had I not been wearing eye protection I'd have lost my left eye.
Only other cities I really have experience in is one week in downtown Chicago (be careful) and a week in Boulder, which was amazing -- it is a gorgeous place, truly bicycle friendly, it was high summer so it was all a big smile, but I could not but think of the fact of winter, snow, ice, death, ET CET. But is is sweet in the summer.
posted by dancestoblue at 11:04 PM on November 3, 2021 [3 favorites]
Yeah, something has gone really wrong if Longueuil is Canada's #2 cycling city. It's an off-island suburb of Montreal best known for a large mall and for everpresent highway traffic announcements on AM radio. The last time I biked there, I asked a motorist at a traffic light for directions to the bridge back to Montreal, and was pointed towards a freeway on-ramp.
posted by vasi at 11:12 PM on November 3, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by vasi at 11:12 PM on November 3, 2021 [2 favorites]
Peopleforbikes, laudable thought they seem to be, analyzes only seven hundred and some cities, of which almost all are in the US. It looks as though they are expanding their rankings, but I'm not sure I'd take the exact individual rank of any city completely seriously on a global scale.
Their stress rankings are really interesting. For instance, if you click through to the data for Minneapolis, the map shows that they consider much of South to be stress-free and almost all of North to be high stress. (I wish you could go street-by-street.) I was expecting my neighborhood in South to be bad, because we're bad in almost everything else (poorer, more polluted, more neglect by the city, etc) but I guess because you have to pass through our neighborhood to get to richer and whiter areas our bike access is okay. North is gentrifying in general, but Northeast has been more industrial and it's true that biking there feels less safe; North, the rapidly gentrifying and historically Black part of town, is laid out a lot like South and could in theory have the same kind of bike infrastructure, but it just doesn't because racism, and I suppose it will in ten years once the gentrification process is complete, also because racism.
posted by Frowner at 11:54 PM on November 3, 2021 [2 favorites]
Their stress rankings are really interesting. For instance, if you click through to the data for Minneapolis, the map shows that they consider much of South to be stress-free and almost all of North to be high stress. (I wish you could go street-by-street.) I was expecting my neighborhood in South to be bad, because we're bad in almost everything else (poorer, more polluted, more neglect by the city, etc) but I guess because you have to pass through our neighborhood to get to richer and whiter areas our bike access is okay. North is gentrifying in general, but Northeast has been more industrial and it's true that biking there feels less safe; North, the rapidly gentrifying and historically Black part of town, is laid out a lot like South and could in theory have the same kind of bike infrastructure, but it just doesn't because racism, and I suppose it will in ten years once the gentrification process is complete, also because racism.
posted by Frowner at 11:54 PM on November 3, 2021 [2 favorites]
City of Missoula > Biking in Missoula > Interactive Missoula Bicycle Map, and download the free MyCityBikes Missoula app for your phone.
posted by cenoxo at 12:18 AM on November 4, 2021
posted by cenoxo at 12:18 AM on November 4, 2021
I looked at Amsterdam which I know well and the stress maps show biking along the river IJ to be high-stress. Sure, there is a lot of car traffic but the bike lane there is completely separated and really calm and safe and scenic. Take a look for yourself.
Much more stressful is the streets in the historic city center where there are no bike lanes and you have to constantly avoid tourists and taxis.
It seems to me that bike rating should also take into account ancillary bike infrastructure: designated crossing lights for bikes, bike tunnels, safe bike racks and bike garages etc.
I'm sure the biking cities in the US are nice but do they have fietstraats? These are roads here where there are no bike lanes; The entire road is for bikes and, yes, cars are allowed to use it too but as "guests". This past year a big road near me was converted into a fietsstraat so cycle lanes were taken away.
posted by vacapinta at 2:45 AM on November 4, 2021 [7 favorites]
Much more stressful is the streets in the historic city center where there are no bike lanes and you have to constantly avoid tourists and taxis.
It seems to me that bike rating should also take into account ancillary bike infrastructure: designated crossing lights for bikes, bike tunnels, safe bike racks and bike garages etc.
I'm sure the biking cities in the US are nice but do they have fietstraats? These are roads here where there are no bike lanes; The entire road is for bikes and, yes, cars are allowed to use it too but as "guests". This past year a big road near me was converted into a fietsstraat so cycle lanes were taken away.
posted by vacapinta at 2:45 AM on November 4, 2021 [7 favorites]
Those fietstraats are fantastic. I spent two months riding those roads in Holland last year. Coming back to big city Germany (ranked 11 on this list) was … a disappointment.
This year I spent a lot of time in Poland (not high up on this list) and at least one small city was nearly on-par with the Netherlands for biking infrastructure (minus the huge cycle parking garages etc.), which came as a pleasant surprise. Small cities and towns don’t often get noticed when it comes to these rankings, but, what’s nice when they do build out good bicycling infrastructure: everything is a short ride away. That in itself is an advantage over Amsterdam, Copenhagen and co.
posted by romanb at 3:02 AM on November 4, 2021 [1 favorite]
This year I spent a lot of time in Poland (not high up on this list) and at least one small city was nearly on-par with the Netherlands for biking infrastructure (minus the huge cycle parking garages etc.), which came as a pleasant surprise. Small cities and towns don’t often get noticed when it comes to these rankings, but, what’s nice when they do build out good bicycling infrastructure: everything is a short ride away. That in itself is an advantage over Amsterdam, Copenhagen and co.
posted by romanb at 3:02 AM on November 4, 2021 [1 favorite]
I've been a cyclist in Chicago for over 15 years now, commuting downtown 3-5 times a week from different north and northwest side neighborhoods. The low ranking for Chicago is absolutely spot on. That high stress map is exactly how my 9.5mi each way bike commute feels, save for the few miles in the middle on the 606. Sure there are more bike lanes now, but each alderman or neighborhood seems to have total authority over them existing or not, so there's no NETWORK. It's just a patchwork of paint on asphalt, rarely protected from traffic, and when it is called "protected" it's those useless flexiposts that cars can just run right over. The Lake Front Trail is great, but you have to cross a literal highway to get to it. This week a cyclist was killed when hit by a driver who was approaching an onramp to said highway.
So when you compare the few extra miles of bike lanes we've gotten in the last 10 years with the proliferation of ride share, increase in delivery trucks, and increase in vehicle traffic and reckless driving, I don't think cyclists in Chicago are any better off than they were a decade ago.
Oh, and notoriety public? This:
On the other hand, my Dutch colleague at work is a cheater with an e-bike, while I do it the old fashioned way for 8 miles each way to work. Maybe they’re all faking it.
May have been a joke but it's a shitty thing to say. E-bikes have the potential to significantly expand the number of people who consider cycling for transportation, and should not even jokingly be called cheating. Tuesday I commuted to work by bike for the first time in a while (WFH due to COVID for a year and a half) and I kinda bonked on the way home. Didn't eat enough for lunch and out of shape and there was a headwind. I was struggling. And you know what? It felt DANGEROUS. I didn't feel like I could call on my legs to speed up and quickly get out of trouble or around an obstacle in the bike lane as cars whizzed by me. I literally got home and started looking at e-bikes. Ten years ago I co-founded a fixed gear bike club, but I'm middle aged now and just want to get to work and damn if someone is going to call that "cheating."
Sorry for the overreaction but to me it ties into this idea that biking should be hard and that it's inherently dangerous (versus it's that way because we make it so) and that's exactly the mindset that has Chicago ranking 698th on this list. That's the mindset that drivers have that it's on us to be careful, because we're the ones making the choice to ride and whoopsie if they hit us, well we knew it was dangerous.
People have got to learn that we need to plan for the most vulnerable in our society, and by doing so we make it better for everyone. Cyclist safety is a microcosm for all traffic safety, not a special interest. Old people, disabled people, poor people, people with kids -- instead of calling them cheaters if we actually build a society where they have full access to all the benefits of our communities, we'll all be better off.
posted by misskaz at 5:02 AM on November 4, 2021 [26 favorites]
So when you compare the few extra miles of bike lanes we've gotten in the last 10 years with the proliferation of ride share, increase in delivery trucks, and increase in vehicle traffic and reckless driving, I don't think cyclists in Chicago are any better off than they were a decade ago.
Oh, and notoriety public? This:
On the other hand, my Dutch colleague at work is a cheater with an e-bike, while I do it the old fashioned way for 8 miles each way to work. Maybe they’re all faking it.
May have been a joke but it's a shitty thing to say. E-bikes have the potential to significantly expand the number of people who consider cycling for transportation, and should not even jokingly be called cheating. Tuesday I commuted to work by bike for the first time in a while (WFH due to COVID for a year and a half) and I kinda bonked on the way home. Didn't eat enough for lunch and out of shape and there was a headwind. I was struggling. And you know what? It felt DANGEROUS. I didn't feel like I could call on my legs to speed up and quickly get out of trouble or around an obstacle in the bike lane as cars whizzed by me. I literally got home and started looking at e-bikes. Ten years ago I co-founded a fixed gear bike club, but I'm middle aged now and just want to get to work and damn if someone is going to call that "cheating."
Sorry for the overreaction but to me it ties into this idea that biking should be hard and that it's inherently dangerous (versus it's that way because we make it so) and that's exactly the mindset that has Chicago ranking 698th on this list. That's the mindset that drivers have that it's on us to be careful, because we're the ones making the choice to ride and whoopsie if they hit us, well we knew it was dangerous.
People have got to learn that we need to plan for the most vulnerable in our society, and by doing so we make it better for everyone. Cyclist safety is a microcosm for all traffic safety, not a special interest. Old people, disabled people, poor people, people with kids -- instead of calling them cheaters if we actually build a society where they have full access to all the benefits of our communities, we'll all be better off.
posted by misskaz at 5:02 AM on November 4, 2021 [26 favorites]
I've been to Copenhagen and I've been to Missoula. They might be theoretically comparable, but in reality, they're not
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 5:13 AM on November 4, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 5:13 AM on November 4, 2021 [2 favorites]
Washington DC gets a 45 out of 100 for access to recreation/parks and their "stress" map is entirely lit red along the Potomac ... I guess they've never heard of the C&O Canal?
Or Rock Creek Park? Or the Mall?
posted by Press Butt.on to Check at 5:23 AM on November 4, 2021 [1 favorite]
Or Rock Creek Park? Or the Mall?
posted by Press Butt.on to Check at 5:23 AM on November 4, 2021 [1 favorite]
very poor working people (or, potentially, undocumented immigrants) who can’t afford (or can’t get) driver’s licenses, let alone vehicles and insurance
I'd love to be corrected, but experience suggests that these people are commuting viatransit the bus or on foot. Less chance of theft, run-ins with law enforcement, and death.
posted by Freelance Demiurge at 5:23 AM on November 4, 2021
I'd love to be corrected, but experience suggests that these people are commuting via
posted by Freelance Demiurge at 5:23 AM on November 4, 2021
Looking at Ottawa, they've ranked as high stress a huge swath of the riverfront because there are high speed roads there. But there are also really nice, highly separated, bike lanes along the river that cover the same area. So it seems like they're dinging Ottawa for having bike lanes that aren't part of heavily trafficked arterial streets but instead run parallel to them in beautiful park settings that only rarely cross busy streets and then have safe, lit crossings to do it at when they must. That's just wrong.
posted by jacquilynne at 5:30 AM on November 4, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by jacquilynne at 5:30 AM on November 4, 2021 [4 favorites]
I'd love to be corrected, but experience suggests that these people are commuting via transit the bus or on foot. Less chance of theft, run-ins with law enforcement, and death.
Some are, but this significantly limits opportunities to places where they can get to by bus and on foot. A bicycle shifts those limits to such a large extent that the introduction of the bicycle can be noted in human genetic history.
The average annual cost of car ownership is $8,000, give or take. The average annual cost of bicycle commuting (speaking as a daily bike commuter in the before times) is not even a tenth of that. Making the built environment more welcoming for bicycle transport would do wonders for the economic conditions of people who can't afford a car.
posted by gauche at 5:35 AM on November 4, 2021 [5 favorites]
Some are, but this significantly limits opportunities to places where they can get to by bus and on foot. A bicycle shifts those limits to such a large extent that the introduction of the bicycle can be noted in human genetic history.
The average annual cost of car ownership is $8,000, give or take. The average annual cost of bicycle commuting (speaking as a daily bike commuter in the before times) is not even a tenth of that. Making the built environment more welcoming for bicycle transport would do wonders for the economic conditions of people who can't afford a car.
posted by gauche at 5:35 AM on November 4, 2021 [5 favorites]
That's just wrong.
Agree, the more I look the more they seem to be completely unaware of actual trail systems. Cumberland, Maryland — the meeting point of the Great Allegeny Passage and the C&O — gets a 4 for recreation.
posted by Press Butt.on to Check at 5:35 AM on November 4, 2021
Agree, the more I look the more they seem to be completely unaware of actual trail systems. Cumberland, Maryland — the meeting point of the Great Allegeny Passage and the C&O — gets a 4 for recreation.
posted by Press Butt.on to Check at 5:35 AM on November 4, 2021
Here is a direct link to the actual list.
I was pleasantly surprised the list includes some other dutch cities except Amsterdam. I get why that place is always in the headlines, but Amsterdam is a terrible place for cycling.
posted by trotz dem alten drachen at 6:55 AM on November 4, 2021 [2 favorites]
I was pleasantly surprised the list includes some other dutch cities except Amsterdam. I get why that place is always in the headlines, but Amsterdam is a terrible place for cycling.
posted by trotz dem alten drachen at 6:55 AM on November 4, 2021 [2 favorites]
Perhaps things have changed but my (too brief) time in Berkeley a couple years ago was marred by abysmal road quality. I guess cities get complacent when the weather isn’t constantly trying to murder their roads.
W/r/t ebikes, I am all for them as a potentially huge driver of improved quality of life for everybody…but I also feel extremely smug/satisfied when I torch one on my old-fashioned* human-powered model.
* By which I mean my carbon-frame road bike that might very well have been more expensive than the ebike I passed but whatever it counts.
posted by sinfony at 6:57 AM on November 4, 2021
W/r/t ebikes, I am all for them as a potentially huge driver of improved quality of life for everybody…but I also feel extremely smug/satisfied when I torch one on my old-fashioned* human-powered model.
* By which I mean my carbon-frame road bike that might very well have been more expensive than the ebike I passed but whatever it counts.
posted by sinfony at 6:57 AM on November 4, 2021
I suspect Stockholm didn't make the list because its score was multiplied by the proportion of the year when the bike lanes aren't covered with treacherous ice, dragging it down from “excellent” to “meh”.
posted by acb at 7:00 AM on November 4, 2021
posted by acb at 7:00 AM on November 4, 2021
The list only includes cities from 12 countriesPeople for Bikes is a North American organization so not so strange.
People for Bikes is clear about the limits of their research, but the title of this post is 'Top 13 Cities in the World for Bicyclists' which is why I - and probably others - were disappointed after clicking through, being in one of the c. 180 countries not covered.
posted by Busy Old Fool at 7:21 AM on November 4, 2021 [2 favorites]
I also live and ride in Austin, and while the city has been making a lot of visible changes ostensibly to improve cycling, I'm not impressed by the quality of its efforts. The City of Austin is progressive, or wants to be seen as progressive, and promoting cycling is part of that, but a lot of the new cycling infrastructure is poorly thought through. There was the notorious recent example of a bike lane that straddles a curb. (It has since been fixed, but still is less than great). I am convinced that Austin's bike facilities are designed by people who do not ride bikes, and the main reason for them is to receive some kind of federal matching funds rather than to promote cycling—I don't know if this is really the case. I also wonder if something similar is happening in other cities.
posted by adamrice at 7:23 AM on November 4, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by adamrice at 7:23 AM on November 4, 2021 [2 favorites]
Surprised not to see any cities in Switzerland. Zug, especially, is lovely for biking. I could do all my shopping by bike! Even had a trailer, for groceries. The street was safe, drivers used to cyclists. And the trails were awesome. And lots of people biked.
posted by Goofyy at 7:48 AM on November 4, 2021
posted by Goofyy at 7:48 AM on November 4, 2021
I love me some P-town but IIRC it has no bike lanes thru downtown (the non-touristy part) and not even sidewalks on the narrow streets -- I felt unsafe walking there. And it's too crowded to bike through the tourist strip during season. I never biked the trails but ya know, lots of parks have multi-use paths. Even Tuscon has a better city-wide biking network. So what...
based on an analysis of data from OpenStreetMap
Ah, so this is an bikeability analysis of towns with German tourists.
posted by credulous at 8:07 AM on November 4, 2021 [3 favorites]
based on an analysis of data from OpenStreetMap
Ah, so this is an bikeability analysis of towns with German tourists.
posted by credulous at 8:07 AM on November 4, 2021 [3 favorites]
we are number 6?!?! SCANDAL!!
looking at the scores, our lowest network score at 72 is "Access to major shopping centers", and I don't really know what that means as we don't have many large malls (especially not the US sized ones) and the ones I can recall are pretty close and easy to get to by bike (FRB Center, Fisketorvet, Fields for example). It makes me wonder what "access to" is measuring - whether or not there is a bike lane within 5m of the location? Whether there is dedicated bike parking? (answers are all "yes" by the way)
posted by alchemist at 8:59 AM on November 4, 2021
looking at the scores, our lowest network score at 72 is "Access to major shopping centers", and I don't really know what that means as we don't have many large malls (especially not the US sized ones) and the ones I can recall are pretty close and easy to get to by bike (FRB Center, Fisketorvet, Fields for example). It makes me wonder what "access to" is measuring - whether or not there is a bike lane within 5m of the location? Whether there is dedicated bike parking? (answers are all "yes" by the way)
posted by alchemist at 8:59 AM on November 4, 2021
I'm a Dutch geographical analyst and avid cyclist living in the US for now.
Their Bicycle Network Analysis website has a lot more detail than their main presentation. For the analysts among us, here's the methodology. This is a huge effort!
Collecting and analyzing this amount of data takes years. That's why I'd cut them some slack for all the errors you and I found. There's always room for improvement.
Almost by definition, any one of the 60+ Dutch cities with a hospital scores 81+, even if 95% of their inhabitants think cycling there is the worst. Sorry Copenhagen :p
I sent them a message to offer my help gathering data.
posted by Psychnic at 11:13 AM on November 4, 2021 [8 favorites]
Their Bicycle Network Analysis website has a lot more detail than their main presentation. For the analysts among us, here's the methodology. This is a huge effort!
Collecting and analyzing this amount of data takes years. That's why I'd cut them some slack for all the errors you and I found. There's always room for improvement.
Almost by definition, any one of the 60+ Dutch cities with a hospital scores 81+, even if 95% of their inhabitants think cycling there is the worst. Sorry Copenhagen :p
I sent them a message to offer my help gathering data.
posted by Psychnic at 11:13 AM on November 4, 2021 [8 favorites]
but I'm middle aged now and just want to get to work and damn if someone is going to call that "cheating."
Thank you. I broke a tibial plateau a few years back, and my e-bike is the only thing keeping me on two wheels. Went out for a group ride a while back and we had a big hill climb. I purposely dialed it back so that I wouldn't be charging up the hill, and I still got a "Hey, the e-bike made it up!" comment...
posted by hwyengr at 11:27 AM on November 4, 2021 [3 favorites]
Thank you. I broke a tibial plateau a few years back, and my e-bike is the only thing keeping me on two wheels. Went out for a group ride a while back and we had a big hill climb. I purposely dialed it back so that I wouldn't be charging up the hill, and I still got a "Hey, the e-bike made it up!" comment...
posted by hwyengr at 11:27 AM on November 4, 2021 [3 favorites]
SunSnork: " Apologies if I missed it in the article."
I don't think it WAS in the article. The article was a re-post of a magazine article, and no one thought to actually edit it to add links. There are few things on the internet as irritating to me as a web page that refuses to include a link to the content the page is discussing.
posted by caution live frogs at 12:12 PM on November 4, 2021 [1 favorite]
I don't think it WAS in the article. The article was a re-post of a magazine article, and no one thought to actually edit it to add links. There are few things on the internet as irritating to me as a web page that refuses to include a link to the content the page is discussing.
posted by caution live frogs at 12:12 PM on November 4, 2021 [1 favorite]
I'm personally surprised to see Minneapolis ranked quite low in terms of their "bike stress analysis" (which is not explained, it took a hunt through several links before I found the source article). Seems that they are calling my quiet residential neighborhood "high stress" because there are no dedicated bike lanes. The streets are too narrow for bike lanes. The streets are also relatively low traffic. We ride in the neighborhood all the time, as do a ton of other people. But I guess our area sucks? I'm a half mile from the bike path network that threads through the entire metro area, but that counts for nothing in this analysis.
posted by caution live frogs at 12:30 PM on November 4, 2021
posted by caution live frogs at 12:30 PM on November 4, 2021
Collecting and analyzing this amount of data takes years. That's why I'd cut them some slack for all the errors you and I found. There's always room for improvement.
Sure, but if the data and methodology is so bad that the results clearly aren't reliable, then they shouldn't even publish it. This isn't a matter of errors, but is fundamental to their approach, which simply doesn't look like it works.
posted by ssg at 3:04 PM on November 4, 2021 [1 favorite]
Sure, but if the data and methodology is so bad that the results clearly aren't reliable, then they shouldn't even publish it. This isn't a matter of errors, but is fundamental to their approach, which simply doesn't look like it works.
posted by ssg at 3:04 PM on November 4, 2021 [1 favorite]
ssg, On the hyperlocal scale (sub-neighborhood) you can see the model fall apart. That scale is not the point of the presentation. Instead, it is probably meant as an useful tool for bike advocates to show that a connected network of infrastructure is attainable, even in the suburban disconnected-neighborhood model.
Usually GIS analysis works best when aggregating results. A good analyst knows the limitations of the data and the method, and isn't afraid to be upfront about it. In the methodology link above, they show that they know. There's no point in making the errors in your analysis the centerpiece of your presentation.
posted by Psychnic at 5:14 PM on November 4, 2021
Usually GIS analysis works best when aggregating results. A good analyst knows the limitations of the data and the method, and isn't afraid to be upfront about it. In the methodology link above, they show that they know. There's no point in making the errors in your analysis the centerpiece of your presentation.
posted by Psychnic at 5:14 PM on November 4, 2021
It's clear from their maps that they are systematically categorizing suburban areas with little to no specific bike infrastructure as good for cycling, while calling denser urban neighbourhoods with significant cycling infrastructure bad for cycling. That's not a problem on a hyperlocal scale, that's a problem with their entire methodology. This is not a useful tool, because it is not giving useful information about how cyclist actually travel through cities and what cyclists have been pretty clear is good cycling infrastructure.
posted by ssg at 5:21 PM on November 4, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by ssg at 5:21 PM on November 4, 2021 [2 favorites]
Boulder's great... if you're going east/west. They've consistently refused to do anything had extensive, drawn out studies on real bike transportation with separated infrastructure. We'll see if the new bike route from Longmont to Boulder becomes a reality. They'll just need to find $26M...
I sure hope so SunSnork, 'cause cyclists keep dying.. I don't blame the driver for this one, but it's a baaaaaad place to ride a bike, and this route of theirs was an ordinary one that had done for years. But still: sucks.
I was living off of 28th/Highway 26 which is also a N-S artery, with a painted bike lane. Popular to get out of town, and to Lyons. But the speed limit is 50mph, it was ~mile each way top the nearest light, and I had to make a left turn to get into town. Six years living there car-free, and I'm still amazed I didn't get into an accident. There was a hit and run by a drunk driver that killed a cyclist at the street just south of where I lived.
Anyways, Boulder's great. For a city in the US they have done, and continue to do a phenomenal job with bike infrastructure. There's room for improvement, but I don't know what to do if cars don't change their own attitude about cyclists on the road.
posted by alex_skazat at 5:23 PM on November 4, 2021 [1 favorite]
I sure hope so SunSnork, 'cause cyclists keep dying.. I don't blame the driver for this one, but it's a baaaaaad place to ride a bike, and this route of theirs was an ordinary one that had done for years. But still: sucks.
I was living off of 28th/Highway 26 which is also a N-S artery, with a painted bike lane. Popular to get out of town, and to Lyons. But the speed limit is 50mph, it was ~mile each way top the nearest light, and I had to make a left turn to get into town. Six years living there car-free, and I'm still amazed I didn't get into an accident. There was a hit and run by a drunk driver that killed a cyclist at the street just south of where I lived.
Anyways, Boulder's great. For a city in the US they have done, and continue to do a phenomenal job with bike infrastructure. There's room for improvement, but I don't know what to do if cars don't change their own attitude about cyclists on the road.
posted by alex_skazat at 5:23 PM on November 4, 2021 [1 favorite]
As someone who just spent five days riding around Tucson, I was thrilled to see all the new fully separated bike paths around town. Huge improvement over the street lanes.
posted by computech_apolloniajames at 3:45 AM on November 5, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by computech_apolloniajames at 3:45 AM on November 5, 2021 [1 favorite]
I too argue with the methodology. What makes me suspect is seeing Rotterdam and Barcelona get the same rating. This makes no sense at all.
When I look at the stress maps I see that all the city center of Barcelona is red but there is lots of blue out in the suburban hills. Is that the reason?
Meanwhile Rotterdam has lots of big car roads criss-crossing the city and these are red...but they also have a blue line next to them because (for example the Willemsbrug) they have a completely separated (even behind guard rails) bicycle lane. So is Rotterdam getting dinged for highways that nobody bikes on?
posted by vacapinta at 4:22 AM on November 5, 2021
When I look at the stress maps I see that all the city center of Barcelona is red but there is lots of blue out in the suburban hills. Is that the reason?
Meanwhile Rotterdam has lots of big car roads criss-crossing the city and these are red...but they also have a blue line next to them because (for example the Willemsbrug) they have a completely separated (even behind guard rails) bicycle lane. So is Rotterdam getting dinged for highways that nobody bikes on?
posted by vacapinta at 4:22 AM on November 5, 2021
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