How PeopleForBikes Rates Cities for Biking — and How to Find Your City's Score

Updated

PeopleForBikes rates cities through its City Ratings program, scoring each city on a 0–100 scale based on the quality and connectivity of its bike network. The program covers more than 3,000 cities across the U.S. and internationally, and tracks each city's score and progress over time. To find your city's score, use the City Ratings lookup on peopleforbikes.org — the site invites visitors to "find out how your city scores today."

What City Ratings Measures

City Ratings is built around two ideas the organization emphasizes: quality and connectivity of a city's bike network. In practice, that means a high score reflects not just how much bike infrastructure exists, but how good it is and how well it links together into a usable network.

Dimension What it reflects
Quality How good a city's bike infrastructure is
Connectivity How well the network links up so riders can actually get around
Score A 0–100 rating per city
Coverage 3,000+ cities, U.S. and international
Trend Scores tracked over time to show progress

A related tool, the Bicycle Network Analysis (BNA), measures how easy it is to get around by bicycle in cities nationwide and includes a comprehensive inventory of U.S. bike infrastructure. City Ratings and the BNA sit alongside each other as part of the organization's infrastructure work.

How to Look Up Your City's Score

  1. Go to peopleforbikes.org.
  2. Navigate to the City Ratings program (it appears under the Infrastructure pillar on the site).
  3. Use the lookup to search for your city.
  4. Review the city's 0–100 score and its progress over time.

Expected result: you'll see where your city stands on the scale and whether its score has been rising or flat. Because the program ranks cities annually, checking back each year shows the trend rather than a single snapshot.

Common snags

  • Small or unincorporated places may not appear. The program covers 3,000+ cities, but that is still a subset of all communities — if your town isn't listed, look for the nearest rated city or check the BNA inventory for local infrastructure data.
  • International coverage is partial. The program includes international cities, but the emphasis is on the U.S., so non-U.S. results may be sparser.
  • A score is a network measure, not a ride review. A low score doesn't mean riding there is unpleasant everywhere; it reflects network quality and connectivity across the city.

What the Scores Are Used For

City Ratings is one of several programs under PeopleForBikes' Infrastructure pillar, which aims to accelerate construction of safe, fun, and connected places to ride. The annual rankings — such as the "Best Places to Bike" lists — highlight top-scoring cities and the policies behind them. For example, the organization has published stories on how pro-bike policies transformed Cambridge, Massachusetts into a top city for biking, and on research linking better bike infrastructure to saved lives.

If you want to go beyond a single score, the site's Research + Data section offers academic research and reports on bike-industry topics, and the Resource Marketplace provides market intelligence resources.