The website Walk Score has announced the extension of its “Bike Score” rankings for neighborhoods and places to 25 cities. The ratings seek to educate riders on how bikeable their city, neighborhood or block is based on a specific set of criteria, using an easily digestible scoring system that ranks bikeability on a scale of 1 to 100.
Heat maps show the most bikeable areas in green, and least bikeable in dark red. Boulder, Colorado, currently comes out on top with 86 points, followed by Minneapolis (79), and Fort Collins, Colorado (78). Rounding out the top five are Ann Arbor, Michigan (76) and Eugene, Oregon and Tempe, Arizona, both tied with 75.
Minneapolis’s high ranking seems to raise the most eyebrows, according to Walk Score’s Josh Herst: “People are really shocked because it’s so cold there. But it really started with the glaciers, when all the lakes were carved out. A long time ago, the city connected trails and they became great for bikes. It now has great infrastructure, and a lot of people are biking.”
(via Co.Exist)
Photo: Cyclists cruise the bike paths in Minneapolis. (Star Tribune)