July 05, 2023
Detroit Free Press
June 27, 2023
Matthew Dolan
Detroit cracked the top 10 of most bikeable large U.S. cities, according to a new report by an arm of a bicycle industry group.
PeopleForBikes, the U.S. bicycling industry’s trade association and a national advocacy nonprofit, announced the results of its seventh annual City Ratings, in which 1,484 cities were rated on the quality of their networks for safe and efficient bike riding.
In 2023, the top small, medium, and large U.S. cities for bicycling are: Provincetown, Mass., Davis, Calif., and Minneapolis, Minn.
In Michigan, Traverse City notched a No. 1 for all cities in the state reviewed.
Each city selected receives a score from zero to 100. If it’s less than 20, the group said that indicates a weak bike network, meaning the city lacks safe bikeways or there are gaps in the network. The highest scores — 80 to 100 — indicate that the most common places to bike in the city are accessible by safe, comfortable cycling routes that serve people of all ages and abilities.
To be sure, Detroit appears to have some work to do. For larger cities, a score of 50 is the tipping point to becoming a great place to bike. And Detroit’s 10th-place score was only 42.
The scoring system, officials said, is based on a number of factors: safe road speeds to protect bikes, secure bikelanes, reallocated space for biking and walking, safe intersection treatments, and solid links in between secured biking routes.
“A couple of negative experiences can turn a new rider off,” Rebecca Davies, PeopleForBikes’s city rating program director said in an interview Monday.
