Places for Bikes

What are City Ratings?

Created by PeopleForBikes, the nation’s largest bike advocacy organization, the PlacesForBikes City Ratings system sets a new standard in defining and measuring great places for biking. Our system:

• Is data-driven. We combine publicly available information and newly developed data sources to measure critical components of a community’s progress.
• Rewards rapid progress. We recognize hardworking cities that are implementing quick-building techniques to improve biking in their city.
• Incorporates all types of biking. By focusing on both transportation and recreation riding, we show a complete picture of how bikes fit into a given community.
• Includes cities of all sizes. We can evaluate any city while also normalizing scores so that communities of different sizes can be compared to one another.
• Uses global standards as the benchmarks of success. American cities can learn a great deal from their international peers when it comes to city design for biking + increasing participation.
• Transparent and available to everyone. All details about the formulas and calculations, as well as the actual data used are available to the public.

What does it mean for a city to earn a star?

Earning a star is no easy feat! Evaluated against global standards of excellence, the PlacesForBikes City Ratings assess bicycling’s current status and future potential based on five factors: Ridership, Safety, Network, Acceleration, and Reach. To earn a star, cities must demonstrate significant progress toward achieving those benchmarks.

Because scoring is based on many dynamic data sources, a city’s score can change year-to-year. Earning recognition one year doesn’t guarantee the same level of recognition the following year. It is incumbent on cities to keep working to improve bicycling.

Do you have the ability to rate international cities?

Yes. Because the City Ratings are data driven, we have the ability to rate any city in the world where we have access to multiple, comparable data sources.

How long until this score is updated again?

The City Ratings will be updated once per year—typically mid-year. We conduct several data collection efforts throughout the year to prepare for each year’s ratings. We plan to present updated scores each year at our PlacesForBikes Conference.

How are the PlacesForBikes City Ratings different than the Bicycle Friendly America program?

Our City Ratings complement the Bicycle Friendly America program run by the League of American Bicyclists. Our City Ratings are an annual snapshot of the work a city or town does to improve biking conditions with a focus on the outputs, or results, of a community’s efforts. Bicycle Friendly America takes a much broader approach by evaluating everything cities can and should be doing for bicycling—including establishing policies and programs that set the stage for success. Both programs help cities improve their bicycling, and participation in both is highly encouraged.

What is the PlacesForBikes program?  

PlacesForBikes is a PeopleForBikes program to develop, connect and celebrate great places to ride. We aim to accelerate local innovations that make communities better for everyone through:

• A City Ratings system. An innovative data-driven system to set and reward a new standard for great places for biking in the U.S.
• The Big Jump Project. An in-depth focus on 10 promising U.S. cities connecting them with the world’s best ideas and resources for quickly building complete bike networks.
• An annual PlacesForBikes conference. Convening hundreds of local leaders and bike industry representatives from across the U.S., this conference gives attendees the tools, ideas and strategies to achieve broader community goals through biking.
• Guidebooks for City Leaders + Retailers. We have created specific resources for City Leaders and Retailers with ideas and expertise that enables them to implement rapid changes for bikes.

The PlacesForBikes program is supported by a generous grant from the Trek Bicycle Corporation as well as contributions from other bike businesses, foundations and individuals.

What is PeopleForBikes?

Launched in 1999 as Bikes Belong, PeopleForBikes is a U.S.-based nonprofit organization that works to get more people riding bikes more often and make bicycling better for everyone across the U.S.

We accomplish our goals in three ways:

1. Supporting communities as they quickly build better places for bikes.
2. Working at the federal, state and local level to advance bike project funding and pro-bike policies.
3. Promoting the many benefits of bicycling and inspiring people to ride.

We’re 1.3 million supporters and growing…join us!

What exactly do each of the scoring categories measure?

The PlacesForBikes City Ratings score is based on five factors: Ridership, Safety, Network, Acceleration, and Reach. 

• Ridership measures how many and how often people in the community ride bikes. Data sources include American Community Survey (ACS) bike-to-work mode share, Sports Marketing Surveys recreational bicycle participation estimates, and the PlacesForBikes Community Survey self-reported ridership.
• Safety measures how safe it is to ride bikes in the community. Data sources include Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) fatality rates for all modes and bicycling, injury rates for all modes and bicycling from the PlacesForBikes City Snapshot, and perceptions of safety from the PlacesForBikes Community Survey.
• The Network score reflects the quality of the bike network. It is based on scores from the PeopleForBikes Bicycle Network Analysis (BNA) and perceptions of the local bike network from the PlacesForBikes Community Survey.
• Acceleration reflects the degree to which communities are doing all the right things to accelerate the growth of bike riding in the next three years. This score is based on evidence of ongoing investment and growth in bike infrastructure and outreach from the PlacesForBikes City Snapshot and perceptions of city support for biking from the PlacesForBikes Community Survey.
• The Reach score reflects how consistently the bike network serves all members of the community. It is based on the BNA as well as ACS demographic and bike-to-work mode share data. 

I’ve never heard of Acceleration and Reach before. Why are they important to the City Ratings?

These two new scoring categories are part of the core of the City Ratings and provide a new perspective on the progress being made in cities.

Acceleration – the speed and degree to which communities are changing – directly represents how quickly cities intend to move the needle. We measure this category separately from other factors that assess past achievements of a city (like Ridership, Safety, and Network) to showcase a city’s efforts to continuously improve and expand bicycling. We can recognize cities that are growing their bike network quickly, but maybe haven’t achieved long-term success – yet.

Reach is our first effort to measure how investments in bicycle infrastructure and participation are serving all of a community’s residents based on differences in their age, race, gender, and/or economic status. By understanding how the bicycle network functions differently or similarly between neighborhoods, we can begin to identify opportunities to address the inequalities that are present in cities.

I’ve never heard of these data sources. Where do you find this information?

The City Ratings relies on six primary sources of data:

• American Community Survey (ACS)
• Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS)
• Sports Marketing Surveys Bicycle Participation
• PlacesForBikes Bike Network Analysis (BNA)
• PlacesForBikes City Snapshot
• PlacesForBikes Community Survey

The ACS and FARS data sets are publicly available for review and download from their respective websites.

Estimates of recreation bicycling are based on an annual study conducted by Sports Marketing Surveys for the Physical Activity Council. More information about the study is available here.

The final three data sources are newly created for the specific use within the City Ratings system. PeopleForBikes works with a number of partners to facilitate the data collection on these three sources on an annual basis.

You can learn more about each of these data sources and how they were used in the City Ratings by reviewing the detailed Methodology.

Why are there no 4 or 5 star rated cities in the U.S.?

Although U.S. cities have been making significant progress during the last two decades, we still have a long way to go when measured against global standards. World-class examples of integrated bicycling in cities like Copenhagen and Amsterdam demonstrate how much more work U.S. cities have to do to compete on a global stage. Here’s a key question: Can people of all ages and bicycling experience ride safely and comfortably to all of the places in the city that they want to go? While the answer for U.S. cities is generally no, we can improve and we can accelerate our progress to compete with the world’s best bicycling cities.

Why do you set high benchmarks for recognizing success?

The City Ratings are intended to inspire and motivate cities to more quickly implement bike infrastructure solutions and programs that get people on bikes. Using global examples of excellence sets the bar where we believe American cities can go. If the benchmarks were established against only the best U.S. cities, cities closer to the top would be hard pressed to feel a sense of urgency to make necessary changes.

Also, establishing global benchmarks allows us to draw better comparisons when evaluating case studies and lessons learned from the world’s great bicycling cities.

Can you really compare New York City to Wausau, WI?

Yes. The various calculations for each of the five scoring criteria are tiered in a manner that allows for easy comparison across cities—regardless of size, geographic location, or demographic composition. This approach allows PeopleForBikes to recognize progress being made in cities, big and small, without holding cities to different standards. At the same time, cities will want to compare their scores to others of similar size, demographics and development patterns. 

Is the PlacesForBikes Community Survey a representative sample of my city/town?

Although not representative, the survey provides valuable information about how people feel about biking in their cities/towns. These perceptions are one of several inputs into the City Ratings system.

We ask everyone to share the survey as broadly as possible. The more data we receive, the better we can tell the story of bicycling locally and nationally.

What is the Bicycle Network Analysis Tool?

The new PlacesForBikes Bicycle Network Analysis (BNA) tool is one of the most exciting benefits of participating in PlacesForBikes City Ratings. It analyzes comfortable connections to key destinations in your town and measures the quality of the bike network.

Cities can download the analysis for further exploration in a geographic information system (GIS) program such as ArcMap.

This network analysis is based on the bike facilities in OpenStreetMap (OSM.) Having your bike network in OpenStreetMap has numerous benefits; maximizing the usefulness of this network analysis and getting the best possible PlacesForBikes City Rating are only two. Many cities do not yet have their full bike networks in OSM, so we encourage you to add them. Here is a guide to doing so. You can reach out to your local OSM, GIS, and/or academic communities for help.

I live in one of places rated on the website, and your evaluation is way off!

We welcome your feedback on improving the accuracy of the City Ratings system. If you feel that the representation of your community’s data is not correct or the methodology we’ve used for comparison is inaccurate in some way, we’d love to hear from you.

How many cities did you rate?

There are more than 46,000 Census Designated Places (CDP) identified by the U.S. Census. Since many of our U.S.-based data sources use these geographies as the basis of their record keeping, the City Ratings system does the same – allowing PeopleForBikes to rate any of those cities.

There are six primary sources of data used to develop the City Ratings system. If a community is accurately represented in three or more of those data sources, they receive a rating. Communities with fewer than three data sources do not have enough data to accurately assess them against the benchmarks.

What if I don’t see my city or town?

If you do not see your city or town on the website, it means that your community did not have at least three verifiable data sources used in the evaluation. It is likely that one or more of the missing data sources are the PlacesForBikes Community Survey, City Snapshot, or Bicycle Network Analysis. Each of these data sources requires local, direct participation and is conducted on an annual cycle.

Is there a cost associated with participating?

Currently there is no cost to participate in the City Ratings. A small amount of data reporting is requested from cities for the most accurate picture of your community’s progress, but is not required. Cities and towns that take an active role in data collection efforts will receive the most accurate and up-to-date results each year.

I live in a small town – will my town be rated?

Yes, the City Ratings can rate any city regardless of size, geographic location, or demographics. The most important factor in whether your town is rated depends on the number of verifiable data sources available. Please review the Get Involved section of the City Ratings website for participating that guarantee your city is evaluated.

I live in an unincorporated rural area – how can I participate?

Currently, the program is designed to rate cities and towns. If you live in an unincorporated rural area, you can rate a nearby town by filling in the town name and a zip code within the town. In the comments section, feel free to provide information about riding where you live.

How can I participate?

Communities can participate in PlacesForBikes in five ways:

1. Complete the PlacesForBikes Community Survey. Community members, city staffers, employees of bike businesses – everyone in your city – can complete this survey. Conducted each Fall, this survey assesses how people feel about biking in their city or town, and collects information about the best local places to ride. Register to be notified here.
2. Complete the PlacesForBikes City Snapshot. Every city and town can designate one city staffer to complete the City Snapshot that gathers and summarizes information on recent and planned bike improvements. This info helps determine the city’s Acceleration score—recognizing places doing the most work today to make bicycling better tomorrow. This Snapshot opens each fall with a deadline shortly after the new year.
3. Use our PlacesForBikes guidebooks. City and town leaders can read (and share) the helpful advice found in our two guidebooks. Better Bicycling, Better Business: A Guide for Retailers offers advice to help grow riding (and business) in communities. Building Better PlacesForBikes: A Guide for City Leaders focuses on helping city leaders quickly develop better bicycle infrastructure.
4. Attend the PlacesForBikes annual conference. City and town leaders as well as those in the bicycle business can attend the PlacesForBikes conference. Everyone interested in better biking is welcome to attend, though we particularly encourage community delegations of three to five leaders to attend as teams to develop unified action plans for progress back home.
5. Support complete bike networks. City, town and business leaders and individuals can work together to improve their community’s rating by supporting bold, rapid implementation of complete bicycle infrastructure networks.

What information do we need to provide to improve the accuracy of our rating?

PeopleForBikes staff gathers most of the information used in creating the City Ratings without requiring city staff to dedicate time and resources to filling out long questionnaires and surveys.

At a minimum, we do need a city staff member to complete the annual City Snapshot at the end of each year. The City Snapshot gathers data on a city’s existing bike network and planned improvements to provide a full picture of bicycling in the community.

There are other opportunities for your community to provide more accurate data with the Bicycle Network Analysis and Community Survey, but we also have mechanisms to complete these without your direct involvement.

 What if I don’t have time or resources to complete your data requests?

We recognize that your time is limited and that every moment you spend working on filling out data forms is a moment you aren’t focused on getting bike projects on the ground. We’ve intentionally taken on the burden of data collection ourselves for five of the six primary data sources. However, there are some data where your expertise and knowledge are the only places to turn. The City Snapshot will be an annual request to report on your progress from the previous year and identify what you plan to accomplish in the future. The Snapshot is designed to be easy to fill out and contain only the most necessary information needed for the City Ratings evaluation.

How can we encourage our city or town to participate?

Ask your city if they have assigned an employee to be responsible for completing the City Snapshot. This data source contains information that only city staff would have access to, and is best left to official sources for submission.

Encourage your network of co-workers, family, and friends to complete the annual Community Survey. We field this online survey each fall to understand local rider’s perceptions of progress for bikes in a community.

Are there materials I can share with my city leaders?

Anyone seeking detailed information about the PlacesForBikes program and the City Ratings can visit PlacesForBikes.org.

City and town leaders can read (and share) the helpful advice found in our two PlacesForBikes guidebooks. Better Bicycling, Better Business: A Guide for Retailers offers advice to help grow riding (and business) in communities. Building Better PlacesForBikes: A Guide for City Leaders focuses on helping city leaders quickly develop better bicycle infrastructure. Request or download a copy here.