Chloe
11-09-2013, 04:47 PM
4509
by Michael Graham Richard
How does your city rank (if on the list)?This slide is from a presentation by John MacArthur at the Oregon Transportation Research and Education Consortium (http://www.otrec.us/) (OTREC). I mentioned the presentation in this article about electric bikes (http://www.treehugger.com/bikes/5-interesting-facts-about-electric-bikes.html), and I also included the slide in that post, but I felt it deserved its own article (it's not about electric bikes (http://www.treehugger.com/tag/electric-bikes/)anyway). It shows 45 large U.S. cities ranked by percentage of bicycle commuting, based on data from the U.S. Census Bureau.The main takeaway for me is how much variability there is, and how big the opportunity is to just bring the laggard cities up to the level of the best biking cities. It's kind of like figuring out what works, and then exporting that model to other cities rather than have them slowly reinvent the wheel. That's why it's so important for city planners to visit Amsterdam (http://www.treehugger.com/bikes/short-film-amsterdam-will-blow-your-mind-video.html) and Copenhagen (http://www.treehugger.com/bikes/how-copenhagen-bike-culture-inspiring-new-york-city.html).
And even the best ranked U.S. cities aren't anywhere near perfect; Portland is continuously improving and finding new ways to make biking safer and more convenient (see this post about their multi-modal set up that includes bike valets (http://www.treehugger.com/bikes/heaven-multi-modal-bike-valets-video.html), for example).
45 large U.S. cities ranked by percentage of bicycle commuting : TreeHugger (http://www.treehugger.com/bikes/45-large-us-cities-ranked-percentage-bicycle-commuting.html)
by Michael Graham Richard
How does your city rank (if on the list)?This slide is from a presentation by John MacArthur at the Oregon Transportation Research and Education Consortium (http://www.otrec.us/) (OTREC). I mentioned the presentation in this article about electric bikes (http://www.treehugger.com/bikes/5-interesting-facts-about-electric-bikes.html), and I also included the slide in that post, but I felt it deserved its own article (it's not about electric bikes (http://www.treehugger.com/tag/electric-bikes/)anyway). It shows 45 large U.S. cities ranked by percentage of bicycle commuting, based on data from the U.S. Census Bureau.The main takeaway for me is how much variability there is, and how big the opportunity is to just bring the laggard cities up to the level of the best biking cities. It's kind of like figuring out what works, and then exporting that model to other cities rather than have them slowly reinvent the wheel. That's why it's so important for city planners to visit Amsterdam (http://www.treehugger.com/bikes/short-film-amsterdam-will-blow-your-mind-video.html) and Copenhagen (http://www.treehugger.com/bikes/how-copenhagen-bike-culture-inspiring-new-york-city.html).
And even the best ranked U.S. cities aren't anywhere near perfect; Portland is continuously improving and finding new ways to make biking safer and more convenient (see this post about their multi-modal set up that includes bike valets (http://www.treehugger.com/bikes/heaven-multi-modal-bike-valets-video.html), for example).
45 large U.S. cities ranked by percentage of bicycle commuting : TreeHugger (http://www.treehugger.com/bikes/45-large-us-cities-ranked-percentage-bicycle-commuting.html)