Still, the projects take time, and as of the publishing of these ranking, the city only has one mile of protected bike lanes established. Chip Skinner, who works for the city’s department of transportation, says that Gainesville is trying to change that. Since 2016, the city has installed 1.25 miles of protected bike lanes and 8.43 miles of lanes with buffers. “We’re both trying to find better ways to use curb parking and ramping up enforcement,” he says, adding that the city has added a dedicated phone line where people can report cars illegally parked in the bike lane at any time. The city is also putting in non-slip grates over bridge joints—something cyclists have asked for for years. Boulder’s protected bike lanes got off to a rocky start, when, in 2015, the city capitulated to the car lobby and removed several blocks of protected lanes on Folsom Avenue. “We timed all 300 traffic signals for 23 miles per hour,” says Chang. And, while there’s momentum to add bike lanes in the city itself, as soon as you hit county roadways, the bike friendliness evaporates. In 2017, Des Moines announced a $33 million dollar downtown overhaul aimed at slowing traffic and making facilities safer for cyclists and pedestrians, which energized activists and cycling residents in Iowa’s capital city. Gaps in the network were being closed, and residents seemed to support multi-modal transit. So what does that have to do with biking? Indianapolis has added three more miles of protected bike lanes in the past two years, plus 12 miles of off-road pathways, and has big plans for tripling the miles of protected lanes over the next 10-15 years. A local sales tax hike is granting $1.5 million for bike lanes and trails improvements. Like many other Midwestern cities, Milwaukee is sprawling, so transportation engineers know bike lanes alone won’t fix their city’s low ridership rates. But with the city’s adoption of Vision Zero, that premise has shifted. One of the city’s recent big projects is the Anacostia River Trail, a four-mile section of trail that connects to 26 more miles of trail in Maryland. We were forced to dock some points from Tempe since it’s one of several cities that has removed protected bike lanes. If Long Beach sticks to its ambitions 2017 plan, we expect to see it moving up the ranks in coming years. One way to quickly grow your city’s bikability? “One thing we’ve been really good at is getting grants,” says Kelley Yemen, the director of Philadelphia’s Complete Streets program, which works to make roads safer for bicyclists and pedestrians. “It’s also hard to be distracted for long while driving in the city,” he adds. You can tell that Fort Collins has built a successful low-stress network because its proportion of bike commuters—and that of female bike commuters—is almost double that of the top two cities. There have been road diets too, though the public reception has been mixed. Cambridge has also successfully navigated several road diets, which lowered speed limits and improved safety in areas that have previously been problematic. Finally, things are changing, says Tom Francis, Deputy Director of MassBike. In 2017, 23 cyclists were killed in traffic accidents, up five deaths from 2016. From building bike lanes to boosting bike share to installing bike-specific traffic signals and simply creating more fun places and ways to ride, here's our ranking of the 50 cities that are doing the most to make urban riding awesome. At least for now, the cost of living is low, and young families are flocking to the city, giving it an energetic and fun vibe. Things are, however, still better than they were a decade ago. Around town, painted bike lanes are popping up, especially near the entrances and exits of the area’s many off-street pathways. Girves suggested to the official that they go experience the streets as cyclists—and actually see and feel how the design could be improved. “In 2014 we were building five miles of protected bike lanes a year. For a more detailed look on how we ranked each city, go here. Whether you prefer to discover While that should be an awesome, exciting announcement, Maus and others in the advocacy space will celebrate once they see construction beginning. Hippie Eugene has always been bike friendly—especially with all those college kids zipping around. If you're lucky enough to be in Colorado this summer, here are ten legendary bike rides to get you rolling. While these are great, concrete steps, Tampa Bay’s main bike network still needs work. One of those projects is Guadalupe Avenue, one of the busiest streets in the city. A few new on-street facilities have been installed, too, including a 2.5-mile bikeway from downtown to the University of Utah. The goal, Russo says, is to catch up in bike friendliness with San Francisco, though Oakland has a long way to go. I’m glad to hear that you can catch some Catfish in Fort Collins, and there are plenty more fisheries that offer up great Catfishing opportunities. Crested Butte. Here are Colorado's 10 best ghost towns, from remote, abandoned mining communities to former mining hubs where people still live. Overshadowed by the mountain biking mecca of Crested Butte, riders are starting to catch on that Hartman Rocks in Gunnison, not only has some of the most unique riding in the state, but also no crowds. That translates to miles and miles of off-street pathways going through and between these green spaces. The most bike-friendly small towns are typically… Very few bike lanes in the country are being built with the attention to detail that engineers in Seattle are using. Right now, the city has 50 intersections that are allowing bike to go first, using the pedestrian signals, while cars wait. Seattle is going through a major growth spurt, with 60,000 new jobs added downtown between 2010 and 2017. In 2017, the city purposely focused on adding new Divvy stations to underserved neighborhoods, especially in Chicago’s South and West sides. These things are making Des Moines a safer place to commute by bike, and the city is certainly laying the groundwork to build a better network. In 2013, a local DOT official asked Girves for feedback on a project. This Tricycle Bookstore Showcases Black Literature, What Ghost Bikes Tell Us About Who Dies on a Bike, This Cyclist Quit Smoking and Started Riding Daily, Help This Washington, D.C. Cyclist With Cirrhosis, Raequan Wilson Wants to Make Cycling Safer for POC, NWA Will Give You a Bike and $10K to Move There, AC Shilton and the Bicycling Magazine Editors. However, some pilot project buffered lanes were taken out after motorist outcry, which Radvillas says was a real bummer—especially in a city with relatively light traffic and little parking trouble. Now, schools have commuter lounges where teachers can change out of their bike clothes, and priority bike and carpool parking. And the city is currently in the midst of completing $15 million dollars worth of resurfacing and reconstruction projects, including $1 million just for protected bike lanes. Though she adds that throughout the city there are some missing links. “We’re going to try putting up posts for protection, but they seem to be working well without them,” says Rolf Eisinger, the bike and pedestrian coordinator for the city. In part, that’s because it’s the highest density city in the state of Arizona. He adds that folks on the south side of the city—a traditionally underserved area—have a particularly treacherous route into the city with few safe route options. In the best hidden towns in Colorado we go off the tourist path to find some unique and fun towns to visit and with little tourist crowds. Minneapolis won this competition back in 2010, and it’s always near the top. “The projects that are left are pretty challenging; we’ve done all the low hanging fruit,” says Kemp. The goal is to see exactly how effective 3-foot laws are, and to come up with innovative ways to make bikes safer against side swipes. First, the city’s historic streets are pencil-thin, and when they’re not, they turn into major thoroughfares with heavy volume and high speeds. But then came a series of budget blows. Why L.A. Is the Worst Bike City in America, How Bikes Won the Traffic War in New York City. However, “it’s not even close to finished. According to the U.S. Census, just one percent of Chicago’s women are getting to work by bike. Still, the city has a better basic network than a lot of other places in the country, with more then 200 miles of bike lanes, plus a relatively low fatality rate, and a pretty robust bike culture. First and last mile bike commuting, where you ride to or from the bus stop, helps cut down on car traffic around transit stops. Even better: “Cycling initiatives in the city are developed and led by people who cycle," says White. “Right now, things are still pretty car-centric,” says Katie Smith Deolloz, executive director of Bike Austin. This is, in part, due to several high-profile crashes that have happened just outside the city limits. But it has a stubbornly high fatality rate for a city its size (five deaths for every 10,000 bike commuters, on average), and some bike lanes are subpar. Despite much of Southern California being totally car-dependent, folks in Long Beach are embracing bike projects, and Mowry says there’s been relatively little pushback against road diets (removing a car lane to give more space to bikes). Best-known as a winter ski area, Keystone is a full-service town year-round. He says the Arlington is also adding buffers to existing bike lanes to try and make routes more comfortable to all. Chattanooga is a great bike town for recreation. 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The city is working to develop its recreational cycling opportunities, by building an 18 mile shared-use path in a 4,000 acre urban park, and the construction of the Louisville Loop, a 100-mile off-street pathway around the city. Unfortunately, the political will to get that done is somewhat lacking. “Our protected bike lane mileage has gone through the roof,” says Ted Wright, director of the Bicycle and Greenway Program for the City of New York. Finally, the city has three, yes, three bike share programs, including one that offers adult trikes and side-by-side bikes for riders with disabilities. Eight to 80 friendliness (how accessible the city is to riders of all ages) came next out of 30 points.