{"id":38563,"date":"2018-09-19T14:04:11","date_gmt":"2018-09-19T21:04:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/?p=38563"},"modified":"2020-05-22T12:58:12","modified_gmt":"2020-05-22T19:58:12","slug":"heres-how-the-most-bike-friendly-cities-earned-their-rank","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/cycle\/heres-how-the-most-bike-friendly-cities-earned-their-rank","title":{"rendered":"How the Most Bike-Friendly Cities in the U.S. Earned Their Rank"},"content":{"rendered":"

Whether I\u2019m running to the local co-op market to buy groceries, checking out a book from the library or meeting up with friends at the wine bar, chances are I\u2019m going to ride my bike. That\u2019s because I am fortunate to live in a centrally located neighborhood within a network of bike trails and bike-friendly streets.<\/span><\/p>\n

But for the most part, cities in the United States are not built for bikes. They are built for cars. In Reno, Nevada\u2014where I live\u2014as soon as you exit the downtown and midtown neighborhoods, the streets get larger and busier. Strip malls were built one after the other for miles. But there is a grassroots movement to make Reno more bike friendly. At a recent <\/span>meetup<\/span><\/a> of cyclists in Reno, locals shared news about an <\/span>infill bike park <\/span><\/a>on a former golf course, a <\/span>bicycle pick-up service for compost<\/span><\/a>, and <\/span>new arteries that were about to get a \u201croad diet\u201d<\/span><\/a>\u2014a colloquial way of saying construction crews would transform four vehicle lanes into two with bike paths.<\/span><\/p>\n

Bike-centric conversations like this are happening all over the country, as communities prioritize cycling to improve the quality of life for their residents and as\u00a0<\/span>citizens demand <\/span><\/a>a shift from car culture to bike and pedestrian culture. Reno, like a lot of auto-centric American cities, has a long way to go. <\/span>The Places for Bikes\u2019 City Ratings,<\/span><\/a> published last May, scored Reno a low 1.6 out of 5 points. The grassroots energy at the meeting felt good, but how does a city like Reno convince more people to get out of their cars and onto bikes? <\/span><\/p>\n

Places for Bikes, a department under the People for Bikes umbrella, used <\/span>data<\/span><\/a> to score cities across the United States based on five factors: the number of people riding bikes, how safe it is to ride bikes, the network of bike trails and bike-friendly streets, how far that network reaches and finally, how quickly the community is improving its biking infrastructure. In Fort Collins, Colorado\u2014ranked number one on the city ratings\u2019 list\u2014<\/span>bicycling has been a priority at city hall since the 1990s,<\/span><\/a> when the city adopted a transportation and bicycle master plan. Meanwhile, in Wausau, Wisconsin\u2014number two on the list\u2014the shift to becoming a bike-friendly city has been more of a <\/span>recent push over the last decade by city leaders<\/span><\/a>, said Aaron Ruff, a public health educator who is on a <\/span>committee<\/span><\/a> of health, planning and transportation officials to make Wausau bike friendly.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWausau was an old paper mill community,\u201d said Ruff. \u201cA lot of industrial jobs faded away, and the community was like, \u2018How do we create a place where people want to live and raise a family?\u2019 The discussion became about quality of life.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Biking has put Wausau on the map for young residents, like Ruff, who is 29. (The city\u2019s second-place standing on the People for Bikes list has also given them a bit of publicity, said Ruff.) A city with <\/span>39,000 residents<\/span><\/a>\u2014more live in the greater metropolitan area\u2014Wausau is built on a grid and it\u2019s flat. More than 600 custom-made signs direct cyclists across a 105-mile network of routes spread across this metro region in north-central Wisconsin. The infrastructure\u2014from bike lanes to pedestrian- and bike-only tunnels and overpasses\u2014makes people feel safe on their bikes, said Ruff. <\/span>In 2017, the Wausau parks department opened a mountain bike park<\/span><\/a> right in town, kitty-corner from the local middle school and high school. Even in the middle of Wisconsin\u2019s bitter winters, residents ride fat bikes on groomed trails. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the cool things about Wausau is there is so much momentum for all types of biking,\u201d said Ruff. \u201cTo me, it\u2019s one of those things\u2014if you build it, they will come. If you start building and creating places for people to be active, they\u2019re going to do it. Any time a city puts in a bike lane or a multiuse path, you\u2019re creating an opportunity for people to be active.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In Reno, the last person to speak at the bike meetup was Gary Sjoquist. An inductee to the <\/span>Mountain Bike Hall of Fame<\/span><\/a>, Sjoquist says he is the bike industry\u2019s first full-time bike advocate. (His advocacy work is paid for by Quality Bicycle Products.) For 20 years, Sjoquist\u2019s message has been consistent: Expand opportunities to ride bikes and the bike industry will grow. He travels across the country to spread the word about biking\u2019s benefits to a variety of groups, from community leaders to state and federal representatives to high school students.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe community has to step up and start to exert some influence,\u201d said Sjoquist. \u201cThe taxpayers and the residents and the citizens have to say they want to live this way. And we\u2019re seeing that around the country. It\u2019s a slow evolution, but it is happening.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

After the meetup, I called Sjoquist to ask him more about what makes a city bike friendly. He outlined a few qualities that bike-friendly cities like Fort Collins, Wausau and Minneapolis\u2014his hometown\u2014have in common.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Cities’ Politicians Have Made Bicycling a Priority<\/b><\/p>\n

Not every city has the same amount of resources needed to build bike lanes. But what bike-friendly cities have in common are their priorities. The more cycling advocates who attend public meetings and elect officials who run on a bike-friendly platform, the more likely it is that the city will start to devote resources to creating more safe places to ride bikes, said Sjoquist.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt starts at the community level, when people are able to influence how the community will change,\u201d said Sjoquist. \u201cResidents, citizens are becoming much more vocal and much more proactive in helping make decisions about how the community is going to evolve.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Electing community leaders who are running on a bike-friendly platform is key to making cycling a political priority, said Sjoquist. Once they get elected, they are in a position to take it one step further and actually implement and find funding to create lanes and bike parking. <\/span>Fort Collins<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>Wausau<\/span><\/a> and <\/span>Minneapolis<\/span><\/a> all have guiding documents outlining plans to expand and develop bicycle infrastructure, making it easier for people to ride their bikes and ride bikes farther. <\/span><\/p>\n

Biking Is Everywhere<\/b><\/p>\n

When he visits a new city, one of the first places Sjoquist looks for bikes is at the airport. \u201cWhat is the bicycle access from the airport into a city?\u201d he asks. It\u2019s important not only for people who are traveling to and from the airport, but also for people who work there. \u201cThere are tons of jobs at airports,\u201d said Solquist. \u201cIf people could ride their bikes to the airport, it would relieve a lot of parking and traffic congestion.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

But the litmus test is downtown. \u201cIf I\u2019m going to meetings or running around in a downtown area, do I see a lot of cyclists?\u201d said Sjoquist. \u201cAnother thing I look at is bike parking. If you are in an urban area, are there areas on the street level, in front of businesses, devoted to bicycle parking? For me, that is a telltale sign.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Bike Paths Make a Big Difference<\/b><\/p>\n

In Minneapolis, where Sjoquist lives and rides his bike regularly, city planners took advantage of the railway lines to build bike trails into the city from the suburbs. \u201cWe literally had America\u2019s first bicycle freeway\u2014the Cedar Lake Trail\u2014which is two, divided, eight-foot-wide bike paths,\u201d said Sjoquist. \u201cThey are directional. If you\u2019re going out of town, you\u2019re on one trail, if you\u2019re going in town, you\u2019re on the other. And then there was a third trail for pedestrians and hikers.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Signage Is Also Everywhere<\/b><\/p>\n

One of the big projects in Wausau that helped build momentum for bicycling was signage, said Ruff. Wausau had invested in new infrastructure, but without signs telling people where to go, the bike network felt disjointed. \u00a0\u201cWe had a lot of good infrastructure, like a beautiful new bike-ped bridge that went over the Wisconsin River, but [the bike paths] weren\u2019t connected,\u201d said Ruff. <\/span><\/p>\n

Now, more than 600 color-coded and numbered signs dot the entire Wausau metropolitan area, giving cyclists intuitive information that helps them know where to go. \u201cIt\u2019s basically like a subway system,\u201d said Ruff. \u201cEvery route has a unique number and a unique color.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

A Commitment to Making Cycling the Go-To Choice<\/b><\/p>\n

\u201cIn so many places around the country, you can see where you\u2019d like to get [to], but you can\u2019t get there by bicycle safely,\u201d said Sjoquist. Bike-friendly cities have solved this gap. They built safe routes for people to ride bikes, which has fostered a culture that will hopefully change people\u2019s daily habits. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAs proud as we are as bike advocates of where we are, we\u2019ve only really scratched the surface and we have so far to go,\u201d said Sjoquist. \u201cBut I think the future is bright.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

See the Places for Bikes city ratings<\/path><\/svg><\/a><\/span><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Editor\u2019s note: People for Bikes has been a nonprofit partner of REI since 2003. An REI contribution totaling more than $1 million has helped support People for Bikes\u2019 efforts over the years.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Whether I\u2019m running to the local co-op market to buy groceries, checking out a book from the library or meeting up with friends at the wine bar, chances are I\u2019m going to ride my bike. That\u2019s because I am fortunate to live in a centrally located neighborhood within a network of bike trails and bike-friendly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":38678,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[1621,1127,1617,727,1056,1618,1540,692,1220,1616],"internal-tag":[1680],"class_list":["post-38563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cycle","tag-bike-friendly-cities","tag-cycling","tag-fort-collins","tag-latest-posts","tag-midwest","tag-minneapolis","tag-mountain-west","tag-news","tag-people-for-bikes","tag-wausau","internal-tag-pre-redirect-cycling"],"parsely":{"version":"1.1.0","canonical_url":"https:\/\/rei.com\/blog\/cycle\/heres-how-the-most-bike-friendly-cities-earned-their-rank","smart_links":{"inbound":0,"outbound":0},"traffic_boost_suggestions_count":0,"meta":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","headline":"How the Most Bike-Friendly Cities in the U.S. Earned Their Rank","url":"http:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/cycle\/heres-how-the-most-bike-friendly-cities-earned-their-rank","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"http:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/cycle\/heres-how-the-most-bike-friendly-cities-earned-their-rank"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2018\/09\/bikefriendly_hero.jpg?resize=150%2C150","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2018\/09\/bikefriendly_hero.jpg?fit=2000%2C1333"},"articleSection":"Cycle","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Michelle Flandreau"}],"creator":["Michelle Flandreau"],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Uncommon Path \u2013 An REI Co-op Publication","logo":""},"keywords":["bike-friendly cities","cycling","fort collins","latest posts","midwest","minneapolis","mountain west","news","people for bikes","wausau"],"dateCreated":"2018-09-19T21:04:11Z","datePublished":"2018-09-19T21:04:11Z","dateModified":"2020-05-22T19:58:12Z"},"rendered":"