Improve Your City's Score

Your city can improve its bike network and overall City Ratings score by making an intentional effort to address the following six SPRINT principles:

Safe Speeds

Protected Bike Lanes

Reallocated Space

Intersection Treatments

Network Connections

Trusted Data

The SPRINT principles enable your city to change high-stress streets into low-stress streets, providing safe and comfortable routes for bicyclists of all ages and abilities.

Sprint Framework

A slow shared street in Denver, CO. (Source: PeopleForBikes)

Safe Speeds

When travel speeds are low, bikes and cars can safely mix. As travel speeds increase, each mobility mode should have a separate, designated space on the road. Cities can improve their City Ratings score by reducing speed limits on residential streets to 25 mph or less, and by reducing speeds on busier roads in conjunction with other safety measures. Traffic calming features are important to ensure drivers follow the posted speed limit.

Resources

NACTO, Traffic Calming
PeopleForBikes, Slow Streets are Safe Streets
NACTO, City Limits: Setting Safe Speed Limits on Urban Streets
Smart Growth America, Why Safety and Vehicle Speed Are Incompatible Goals for Street Design
US Department of Transportation, National Roadway Safety Strategy

High Stress vs Low Stress

Protected Bike Lanes
Reallocated Space
Intersection Treatments

Source image left (public domain): https://www.rawpixel.com/image/6043443/bicycle-lane-free-public-domain-cc0-photo | Source Image Right, PeopleForBikes: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mJntxCKMGb5YfeYr6z3JxJrA_GHIIsLL/view?usp=share_link

Protected Bike Lanes

Although the street on the left has a bike lane, it remains high-stress because the road is large and provides no vertical separation between cars and bikes. The street on the right has a two-way protected bike lane that separates people bicycling from people driving using flex posts and concrete barriers.

Lessons From The Best Biking Cities

Lessons From the Best Biking Cities

Austin, TX

In Austin, Texas, a more than 400-mile bike network is being built in record time. As of September of this year, 215 miles of the all ages and abilities network are complete, connecting protected bike lanes, neighborhood bikeways and urban trails. Impressively, the Texas capital has been able to cut down the time on its network buildout by a whopping two-thirds, building more than 100 miles in the last two years alone. Watch to learn more about how Austin achieved such an impressive milestone.

Lessons From the Best Biking Cities

Berkeley, CA

Berkeley, California, a university town with roughly 121,000 people, is a true, 15-minute city, with most essential services within walking or biking distance. But Berkeley didn't become a great place to bicycle overnight. To learn more about Berkeley's evolution, as well as the ways in which the city has garnered political willpower and reimagined traffic enforcement to make biking more inclusive, we spoke with Mayor Jesse Arreguín.

Lessons From the Best Biking Cities

Copenhagen, DE

Today's bike-friendly Copenhagen is the product of more than 50 years of dedicated investment and hard work, a far cry from the city famous for its cars and traffic jams in the 1960's. The city became quieter and cleaner, even as it added residents and jobs. Today, more than half of people in Copenhagen commute by bike daily.

Lessons From the Best Biking Cities

Montreal, QB

The Canadian city of Montreal has a long history of activism for bicycle infrastructure. In fact, it was among the first Canadian cities to install bicycle lanes and today, there are more than 1,000 kilometers of bike lanes in the greater Montreal area, roughly 40% of which are segregated from cars. Over the years, Montreal has consistently updated and expanded its network, prioritizing bicycling in all seasons and normalizing it as an everyday mode of transportation.

Lessons From the Best Biking Cities

New Orleans, LA

In 2018, New Orleans didn't even have a bike plan. Today, the city has committed to building 75 new bike miles by the end of 2021. What New Orleans has been able to accomplish in the last three years is impressive, tripling the pace of its network buildout with an emphasis on network and transit connectivity. Particularly noteworthy is the work that's been done in the west bank neighborhood of Algiers, where 11 new bike miles were implemented along with the repaving of roadways, new transit stops, and pedestrian crosswalks.

Lessons From the Best Biking Cities

New York, NY

For decades, protected bike lanes were a missing tool in the American toolbox. That changed in 2007, when New York City began building protected bike lanes at a rapid pace, helping jumpstart a wave of U.S. innovation. Today, 480 miles of protected bike lanes contribute to the 1,200-mile network used by more than 800,000 residents on a regular basis. Prioritizing connections, building out bike share, and making space for everyone are key components of New York City's success.

Lessons From the Best Biking Cities

Provincetown, MA

Provincetown, Massachusetts, on the northern tip of Cape Cod, scored high in our U.S. City Ratings program. With a population of just under 3,000 people and five bike shops, development is dense in Provincetown and no highways bisect it—getting from one end of town to the other is about a seven-minute bike ride. Although small, Provincetown offers some big lessons when it comes to bicycling.

Lessons From the Best Biking Cities

San Luis Obispo, CA

San Luis Obispo earned top place in our 2020 City Ratings program, beating out more than 500 other U.S. cities. It was immediately clear that San Luis Obispo's success in bicycling didn't happen overnight. A consistent dedication to investing in their bike network over the last 20 years provided the foundation for bicycling to grow.

Lessons From the Best Biking Cities

Sevilla, ES

Between 2005 and 2010, the city of Sevilla, Spain created a 120 kilometer network of protected bike lanes - removing 5,000 parking spaces along the way. Sevilla's efforts resulted in a cycling network that forever changed the landscape of the city, and came at a fiscal bargain for city leaders.

Lessons From the Best Biking Cities

Washington, DC

Today, more than 17,000 people ride their bikes regularly to work in Washington, DC, more than three times the number of people riding compared to 2007. In 2010, the American capitol piloted the country's first modern bikeshare program and started building an ambitious network of protected bike lanes.