Top cities for bicycling named

by Tom Olsen

In its November 2001 edition, Bicycling magazine has selected its top North American cities for bicycling. Indianapolis didn't make the list.

In the population range between 200 to 500 thousand, the ratings were (#1) Denver, (#2) Madison, Wisconsin, and (#3) Tucson, Arizona. In the Indy size range of 0.5 to 1 million, the ratings were (#1) Seattle, (#2) Austin, and (#3) San Francisco. For cities with more than 1 million population, the best was Montreal, followed by Chicago and San Diego. Rating "honorable mention" were Philadelphia, Vancouver (British Columbia), Toronto and Minneapolis.

The best bicycling city in North America, and number one overall was Portland, Oregon. Strong urban planning there "doesn't imprison city cyclists with strip-mall suburbs," according to the editors. In the past three years, Portland has added 56 miles of bikeways, bringing their totals to 142 miles of bike lanes, 26 miles of bike "boulevards," and 53 miles of paths. Funding is set and another 58 miles of bike facilities are under construction in Portland.

Among Indy's direct competitors, Seattle's on-street traffic counts showed a 67 percent increase from 1990 to 2000 in downtown cyclists. About 8 percent of the entire Seattle population bikes or walks to work and apparently some neighborhoods top 20 percent. (According to U.S. Census data, a comparable figure for Indy is approximately 1 percent.) Although Seattle's alternative transportation master planning dates back 30 years, now, according to the Bicycling editors, "completion of the network is in sight -- land access deals with railroad and utility companies are complete, and funding for path construction is falling into place."

At left, a cyclist travels Seattle's Burke-Gilman Trail.