North America's Top 10 Cycling Cities
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- čas přidán 22. 06. 2024
- Everyone knows Amsterdam, Copenhagen and Paris are among the top cycling cities in the world, but today I want to talk about the beautiful places we have right here in North America.
0:00 Top cycling cities in North America
0:28 Bike Score (Walk Score)
0:59 What the top cities share
1:10 10 - Chocolate City
1:50 9 - Iowa by the sea
2:25 8 - Emerald City
3:00 7 - The Mile High City
3:33 6 - Windy City
4:00 5 - Paris of the West
4:44 4 - City of Saints
5:21 3 - Rain City
5:51 2 - Bridgetown
6:18 1 - City of Lakes
7:06 Honourable mentions
Best cycling city with the best food! Now thats the video I should have made...
Go for it! You’d be impressive to come up with an algorithm that rates such a subjective topic, especially if you used criteria that weren’t already established (stars, ranking, quantity, etc)!
Good video and surprised Toronto being mentioned, even as honouable mention. Still lots of work to do there, along with the rest. By the way, do you have a direct link to the study the data is pulled from? Cheers
I think it's worth mentioning that some of the best streets for biking are the narrow streets that were built 300+ years ago and weren't bulldozed to make room for cars. That might not be considered biking infrastructure, but they can be even safer than wider roads with bike lanes. Of course, Philadelphia has a lot to improve, but I think the narrow, old streets give it good bones to work with.
I feel similarly about us on the other side of the state. Pittsburgh often gets left off of these lists because we don't have a ton of "fully protected" bike lanes, but every time I see video from places like downtown Minneapolis I think, "I'd rather bike on some of the streets in downtown Pittsburgh with no dedicated bike infrastructure or the narrow alleyways and streets in some of the residential neighborhoods than down a 3 lane, one way road with nothing but a small curb to protect me"
If you ever do come by Minneapolis, I'd be happy to show you around.
Take him up on it. This Financial Panther guy really knows his stuff.
Thanks! I may be around in the summer. I'll let you know.
@@nicthedoor cool! I've got a bunch of ebikes you can use too!
i shouldve hit you up i was just there and didnt have a bike@@financialpanther
i just visited minneapolis this past week and it blew my mind how good the cycle infrastructure was compared to chicago. lots to learn and advocate for
Minneapolis is actually an amazing place to bike. I have biked everywhere in the city.
I was pleasantly surprised to hear Seattle! We've made a lot of progress in recent years so I'm glad it's making a real difference. The geography isn't quite like San Francisco but it is very hilly, which can be an obstacle for more casual bikers
One of the main reasons why NYC doesn't appear in the Top 10 is because NYC loses out when it comes to mode share, for the very simple reason that NYC has the best public transit in North America, by a huge margin. Couple that with bicycle theft rates so high that lock companies make special locks just for NYC, and you begin to understand that it's something of a miracle that anyone uses a bicycle in NYC, at all.
In ‘22 I road my bike across the US from San Francisco to Maine, and saw quite a few cities with lovely bike infrastructure. If I were to rank my own top 10 (which is only cities I’ve ridden a bike in, not net best)
1. Boulder/Fort Collins- Denver’s cooler siblings with nice farmers markets, thriving bike culture with many frame builders in the area.
2. San Francisco- some of the best best vistas in the world, decent bike infrastructure. Best farmers market scene I’ve encountered in the US.
3. D.C.- lots of good infrastructure, relatively flat (which some prefer, but means you get less vistas unlike SF)
4. Sacramento/Davis- Davis is a suburb outside of Sacramento that is its own bike Mecca, where students at UC Davis have universally adopted cycling as the de facto mode of transit.
5. Madison to Milwaukee- I would not have put this on my list before riding through it, but I was surprised to find many nice rail trails, line with fruiting apple trees. The balance of city to nature was great, and I learned what Midwest nice really meant, I was invited to stay with 4 different folks along the way.
6. Marin, California- just north of SF, sometimes overlooked in the Bay Area compared to is bigger siblings Oakland and San Jose, Marin has a thriving bike community, and with it good bike infrastructure. It’s also blessed with some of the best landscapes of mountains meeting the coast, it is where many car commercials are filmed. 😂
7. Anne Arbor, Michigan- much like Its Wisconsin neighbor, I was treated to Apple lined muti purpose trails, nice farmers markets, and a charming college town vibe.
8. Portland, Maine- charming red brick buildings, nice farmers market, easy to navigate infrastructure with nice ocean views. I have yet to visit Portland Or, but I’m sure it will be on my top 10 list after I go.
9. Boston- Cambridge, Ma: during lockdowns, Boston got busy building bike lanes, and while the car commuters haven’t quite embraced bike culture yet, it’s making serious strides.
10. New Haven CT. The trend of my list might be that the places I’ve found charming are university towns, there’s something about the proportion of young people that have bought into cycling that makes them more welcoming, and there seems to be a trend of nice farmers markets at university towns. 10/10 best pizza Ife had in America was here.
Longueuil ( the -gueuil part has no equivalent sound in English, ask google for pronunciation) is a suburb of Montreal that's even more gung ho about bike paths and public transit (their mayor was very enthusiastic about the REM) than Montreal itself, so I'm not surprised to see it score above Montreal. Montreal itself is certainly no slouch though, with 935 km of bike paths and plans on doubling that in the next 5 years.
I'm so glad my home city got the #1 spot it deserves! 🙌 ❤️ Closest thing to Amsterdam on this side of the planet for sure! So sad NJB choose Montreal 👀
I'm glad Toronto is down in #31. As someone who lives in Toronto, I was really hoping this isn't the best we can do. Most of my friends won't even bike here, one of them, who's a 5 minute bike ride from me on 90% bike lanes, chose to drive to my place and deal with the hassle of parking because he's "afraid of dying". I have no problem, but I do it all the time, and I think I'm very skilled at properly handling traffic. But we're still "too scary" to the majority of people I talk to.
What did you think of NJB’s coverage of Montreal?
Been so busy I've only watched the first 5 minutes 🙈
@@nicthedoor really important to watch to the end - because when it comes to cycling, the city seams to have "two faces".
@@kailahmann1823 I'll watch it asap. 😊
@@kailahmann1823I find that NJB didn't take in consideration that Montréal is still a work in progress. Of course. Montréal is still not Amsterdam! Things are moving forward, despite the car-centric opposition!
@@user-mrfrog I think, he did. And no, it isn't about "this isn't Amsterdam". It is about not having the _bare minimum_ of alternatives to driving in many parts of the city. The same bare minimum, that was never questioned in any European city I know of - not even during the car-craze of the 1960s. What Montréal has, are still "islands of walkability"; much bigger islands than many other North American cities, but still only islands in a sea of car dependency.
Would love to see a video created highlighting the worst large cities for pedestrians and bicyclists. An interesting list to use would be the one created by Smart Growth America. They listed Memphis as the #1 most deadly city for pedestrians. The data for the cities covered in the study can be found in their "Dangerous by Design 2024" PDF on their website.
We should not forgive to give props to the mayors of those cities who make things like this possible in a literal car dictatorship. I recommend everyone the podcast „The war on cars“. They had the mayor of Denver on the show as well and he is committed to change the city to make it possible for everyone to participate, not only those who are in cars.
While Toronto has some great recreational riding it kinda sucks for commuting, it's not for the timid. But there's some great new bike lanes going in with the lrt construction so it's improving. Where it shines is the off road trails. Since dragging whatever pos bikes we had in the 70's through the ravines, has turned into a grass roots handmade free mountain bike park, especially in the Don Valley. The first stunt trick ramp parks (or whatever they're called) were built by riders with shovels years before any city built place. I've seen videos on here claiming them to be the best urban trails in North America hands down.
How did NYC not make the list??? I felt so much safer biking in NYC than I do in SF (lived there 3yrs, now SF for 6 months).
My guess is Staten Island and the outer parts of the outer boroughs brining that score down. The quality of the bike lanes drops dramatically outside of affluent areas of Manhattan, Williamsburg, and Greenpoint.
@rashad123us Exactly this, NYC's bike culture may be strong but the infrastructure is seriously lacking. The only bike specific lanes I can think of not in parks are in Manhattan, Williamsburg - Greenpoint, Flushing Ave by Navy Yards, and *shudder* Queens Blvd. As a result the bike culture here is a bit lawless and every person out for themselves.
Top three: someplace I don't know anything about, someplace I've never heard of, and New York.
I moved from Minneapolis right before they really started building out their bicycle infrastructure beyond the trails, & enjoyed recreational riding, not so much for errands or commuting. I’m now in Denver where they were both similar in terms of off-street trails for recreational riding (Minneapolis had more miles with their Grand Rounds around lakes & along creeks & rivers).
The big difference for me as a car-free bicyclist is how easy it is to get around WITHOUT bicycle infrastructure for errands, & how simple it is to navigate a safe & comfortable ride for commuting. Each of these two needs are different enough from each other & from recreational riding that a single bike score doesn’t reflect the range of experiences. I have yet to explore the components of the algorithm, but I’d like to see how the cities rank for each of these 3 different uses.
I've heard from others that Vancouver needs to improve its infrastructure outside of downtown and the Broadway corridor. I only usually travel on major routes to get out of the city, but it's been an ordeal to navigate across some of the the major roads the few times I have been going between places further out.
Reportedly, Sim convinced the Park Board members to vote for removing the Stanley Park lane by promising to find funding for a full replacement in the future, despite preliminary estimates of the exorbitant cost and operational challenges to do so. It would have been so much better (and cheaper!) if they went with the partial lane option instead of removal.
Having lived there before moving to Montreal, I agree with all you’ve written. I think it typically ranks highly because of the sea wall being awesome, the central city not being amalgamated with its suburbs (so statistics aren’t weighed down by auto-centric suburbs), and it passing off “shared streets” as bicycle infrastructure. The daily cycling experience ends up being pretty mediocre.
Also it’s incredibly frustrating how reflexively anti-bikelane Vancouver politics has become, with politicians (like the new mayor) paying lip service to bikes whilst actively removing bike lanes and abandoning previously approved projects.
It's not ready for the top 10 yet, but I'm very impressed with what Victoria, BC has done in the last 5-10 years. The city is extremely bike friendly now.
I loved cycling around Victoria! The Galloping Goose and E&N trails are a delight to ride. However I wish there were more north-south protected routes in the downtown. Cycling on Douglas is less than fun.
When did you last ride there? They have turned Government, Vancouver and Cook St. largely into bike forward roads now. Vancouver especially, it's been a dedicated bike route since the 80's at least. @@mma0911
You pronounced Longueil pretty well!
But pronounced Willamette wrong sadly.
I'm surprised Minneapolis beats out Portland tbh
Edmonton might be makinging the most progress of any city in N.A., and clagary continue to make good progress.
I hope so! Would be great to have the argument "If Calgary/Edmonton can do it, so can we" in the back pocket.
Us Canadians like to think we're tough and can withstand cold temperatures but let's be honest, there's a reason only 2 Canadians make the list - the vast majority of us run for our heated cars as soon as it gets cold.
Waterloo region is pretty good
I wonder why Minneapolis doesnt have the highest modal share if it had the highest bike score. Anyone have any ideas?
Likely because bike score isn't a very good measure of what makes a place truly bikeable (it is a data problem, not really their fault)
Having lived and cycled in SF and Vancouver (and spent time on a bike in NYC, Portland, and Seattle), for me Montreal absolutely wins hands down. If MTL’s statistics aren’t at the top, I’d argue it’s almost entirely because it was amalgamated with its car dependent suburbs (unlike some of the other cities in the list like Vancouver and SF). Havent been to Minneapolis though!
Like how the thumbnail shows washington DC but it’s not in the video. DC has always been a top pick for me.
Saint Paul, MN
Bingo...ish
I've found the walk score rankings to be unrealistic, inflating non cyclable cities and vice versa. Same goes for their walkability Indies, and I think the main issue is that they don't distinguish quality of infrastructure (painted gutter vs protected lane) or continuity. I find this explains some of the surprises in the ranking.
They made these kind of walk/bike/transit scores to integrate into real estate listings or whoever might be interested to buy said data. Not exactly meant as a perfect bikeability indicator. We would need urbanist to design a better index to incorporate bike route connectivity and safety somehow.
@@GirtonOramsay France has a scoring for cycling that I find pretty good, called "baromètre des villes cyclables", and having lived in some of the cities it ranks, the scores felt rather accurate.
Pretty sure montreal beats all these cities other than maybe mineapolis
Yeah but what about the top Big Wheel cities?
Unless it's cheese wheels I want nothing to do with it.
Centre running bicycle lanes are a bad idea...
A truly insane compromise to preserve curb space for cars
The footage shown by Streetfilms/Nic is old, there are curb-high barriers along the lane now. I understand the trepidation and would not recommend it for most avenues. But the reason it works decently well on Pennsylvania Ave is because it acts as a cyclist highway to get from 15th St NW to Union Station (via LA Ave's wide sidewalk path) or east of the Capitol. There's not a lot of traffic that's turning on/off PA Ave compared to other roads by the Mall or north in Penn Quarter. Definitely not perfect, and there was an issue with taxis pulling U turns across the lanes till they put in those barriers. But I'd rather that than nothing.
How can u miss Ottawa and Victoria?
Ottawa is close! Victoria is under 200k population. But a gem!
HA! I live in Ottawa, it's trash, like it's shockingly bad
Keep your eyes peeled. Edmonton Alberta is going to be creeping up with their developing bike infrastructure 👀
Center-running bike lanes are almost always a terrible design choice. No easy turns to intersecting routes, constantfear of left-turning motor vehicles, no direct access to shops, and constantly surrounded by cars and exhaust fumes...No thanks 😅
Surprised not to see Victoria, BC. Bikeablity has exploded over the past 8ish years. Maybe it isn't big enough for the list...
It has a high bike score, able to be in the top ten, 3rd actually. However the population is only 100k.
@@nicthedoor the old geography problem. Victoria (the city) is less than 100k, but the metro region is better (just over 400k)
would love to see a video dedicated to vancouver cycling infrastructure and why the city voted itself an anti-bike mayor :(
"Iowa by the sea". As an Iowan myself, do tell...
Nevermind. Wikipedia is helpful sometimes lol.
Long Beach absolutely should not be on this list. The fact that New York doesn't make the cut seems crazy to me. Also I'd argue Seattle beats Denver in terms of bikeability.
Cambridge, MA is the top city
I'm wondering a bit about the mode shares, because all of them are still extremely low compared even to the least bike-friendly shitholes in Germany. So either the numbers are calulated in a different way or even the best of the best is still worse shit compared to German shit, which in case of Duisburg or Hagen I don't dare to imagine.
That's just how car dependant we are here in North America. It is that bad, but it's getting better.
@@nicthedoor you really don't want to get beaten by Duisburg (4 feet bi-directional bike lane with truck traffic on one side and a hedge on the other…) in anything bike related ;)
I've also read far better numbers, especially for Montreal (16%?), but maybe that was only for some boroughs or how ever they call them.
Portland has rested on its laurels, and isn’t really that great for riders of all abilities
BikeScore rankings are nonsense. The most important thing to measure when you are talking about "cities good for biking" is the existence of convenient, secure bicycle parking at both ends of your trip, and yet no one, not any channel on CZcams that even bothers to talk about urbanism, thinks about this problem to any significant extent. "Bike superhighways" are garbage. Ubiquitous, secure, east-to-use, weather-protected secure bicycle parking and storage is the key to making cities good for bicycling.
Except it isn't. It's definitely important, but bikeway quantity and quality is the best measure
I also disagree with Seattle. Seattle's the only city that I've ever been hit with a car while out riding my bike, and I've ridden in quite a few cities.
I'm a strong advocate for Calgary. One thing that I don't think their methodology includes is incidental things like:
-bike parking which I'm pretty sure is required for every commercial building here
-climate: while Calgary gets a few handfuls of days with lows below -20, our winters aren't too bad (average winter high around the freezing point), and we're dry and sunny
-quality of infrastructure. Most of Calgary's bike infrastructure is separated from the roadway
-friendliness of drivers. While I believe Calgary drivers are getting worse, they are a world better than ANY US city I've been in: stopping at a crosswalk to let pedestrians go by among other qualities
I ride my bike to the grocery store, university, the Saddledome, church, friend's houses, work, etc. Literally every task I ever need to do in Calgary, I can do pretty easily on bike. For the extremely rare time that a car is necessary (like moving or picking up several family members from the airport), I can use a Communauto carshare or rent a Uhaul.
It's interesting how we agree with the "not top 10" worthy cities on this list. Chicago is just laughable to think you can safely bike around, aside from the Lakeshore and a few neighborhoods north of the Loop. The 606 trail is just isolated from anything else. And Seattle having that Ballard gap in their premier multiuse trail doesn't give high hopes. All of their bike lanes are just so disconnected IMO.
Portland and Minneapolis aren't amazing, but they have built out solid biking networks in their own ways (neighborhood greenways vs many separate off-road bike paths) that is possible to traverse most of the city on bike.
You need more original content rather than sensationalized lists. The English Canadian liberal urbanism CZcams is tired
North America includes Mexico as well!
We all know this. It also includes Guatemala, Costa Rica, and others you didn't bother to mention. He won't mention cities just because he feels bad a country wasn't listed. If he did, he would be forced to include the #987 best bike city because he had to include every country in North America.
@@narata1541 nope, that is Central America
@@LuisEfrenCuenca people's definitions are different.
Mexico might not be in the scope of the Walk Score agency.