Photo by thepostalserviceWashington has once again been ranked the sixth most bikeable city in the U.S. by Bike Score, an offshoot of the popular, my-neighborhood-is-better-than-yours webite Walk Score.
Bike Score released the rankings in time for Bike to Work Week and National Bike Month. Bike Score was launched in 2012, with D.C. coming in sixth on the inaugural list of most bikeable cities.
The company explained how the cities are scored in a press release.
Bike Score provides a 0-100 rating of the bikeability of a location based on the availability of bike infrastructure (lanes and trails), the hilliness of the area, amenities and road connectivity, and the number of bike commuters. The Bike Score for a city is then calculated by applying the Bike Score algorithm block-by-block throughout the city and weighting the scores by population density. Cities with scores of 70 or higher are considered to be very bikeable, cities with scores between 50 and 69 are bikeable, and cities with scores below 50 are somewhat bikeable.
Biking in D.C. seems to become more popular by the day, as new bike lanes are constructed and Capital Bikeshare reaches new popularity. Yet even with these improvements, the city failed to rise in the rankings year. But, hey, there’s nothing we can do about the hills!
Portland came in first, just ahead of San Francisco, Denver, Philadelphia and Boston. Washington, D.C. beat Seattle, Tucson, Ariz., New York, and Chicago. Cities ranked have a population above 500,000, so please address your complaints about Minneapolis’ exclusion from the list to Bike Score.
