What’s Your City’s Bike Score?
Recently, Walk Score released its top 10 Most Bike-Friendly Cities in the United States. If you’re a cyclist looking for a bike-friendly place to live, you might want to consider one of these cities:
#1 Portland (Bike Score 70)
#2 San Francisco (Bike Score 70)
#3 Denver (Bike Score 70)
#4 Philadelphia (Bike Score 68)
#5 Boston (Bike Score 68)
#6 Washinton D.C. (Bike Score 65)
#7 Seattle (Bike Score 64)
#8 Tucson (Bike Score 64)
#9 New York (Bike Score 62)
#10 Chicago (Bike Score 62)
Walk Score measures bike accessibility based on four criteria to determine the city’s Bike Score: The number of bike lanes, the hilliness of the city, destinations and road connectivity, and commuting mode share, which basically looks at how many other cyclists use their bicycles to get around the area. They award each city with a score from 1 to 100 on each of these four criteria, and the average is the Bike Score.
On their website, Walk Score allows visitors to search their own city to see how walkable the city is and that city’s Bike Score. Walk Score’s goal is to promote walk-, bike-, and transit-friendly cities. Obviously, there are limitations to this rating system and how the data can be applied, but it’s a neat way to see how bike-friendly your city already is, or to search for a more bike-friendly place to move.
What’s your city’s Bike Score?