Magazine Names Cleveland Among The Nation's Best Cities For Bicycling

CLEVELAND, OH -- Bicycling magazine has ranked Cleveland the 41st best bicycling city in the nation. At 41, Cleveland is in between Columbia, Missouri one notch above and Miami, Florida. in the 42nd position. The list names what it deems to be the nation's 50 best cities for bicycling, with Cleveland being one of three Ohio cities to make the cut. Cincinnati and Columbus made the list at 36 and 39 respectivley.

The magazine touts recent ambitious municipal efforts at making the city more bike-friendly.

"For almost 100 years, from 1860 to 1954, a streetcar system spanning 236 miles carried Cleveland residents throughout the city and into surrounding suburbs. At its peak in 1946, the system carried 493 million passengers. But as cars took over American roads in the 1950s, Cleveland paved over its streetcar tracks and added travel lanes. Today, many of those roads are little traveled, and ripe for repurposing.

Enter the Midway, an innovative plan to add miles of protected bike lanes on Cleveland’s wide thoroughfares, where streetcars previously ran. Initially developed by the advocacy group Bike Cleveland, the city applied for and won a $92,000 planning grant, and is currently working toward implementing the first leg of the proposed protected bike lane network. For an up-close look at how such large-scale bike infrastructure projects can revitalize a city’s core, staffers from the mayor’s office and engineering department traveled to Indianapolis, where the Cultural Trail boosted downtown real estate by $1 billion," the magazine wrote.

Beyond those high-profile projects, enhancements to on-street infrastructure designed for bicycles was also highly praised by the magazine. However, the magazine did make mention of an awkward moment when the city painted a backwards buffered bike lane on West 25th.

"Since passing a complete streets ordinance in 2012, Cleveland has been expanding its bike network at an impressive rate, averaging a dozen miles of new bike lanes per year. But in some cases, a failure to vet projects with local bike advocates has resulted in embarrassing mistakes. On West 25th Street, the city painted a backwards buffered bike lane, putting the six-foot buffer between the bike lane and curb, instead of between bike and car traffic."

There are signs throughout Cleveland and many of its surrounding suburbs of efforts to promote bicycling, including the addition of bike lanes in the inner-ring suburb of Lakewood. The Bike Rack offers bike rentals in downtown Cleveland and a bike sharing program called UHBikes expanded bike rental availability this past summer in time for the Republican National Convention.

The city's mass transit system, RTA features bike racks on most of their buses to encourage bike riding among bus riders.

Read the full article and methodology by clicking here.

Following is the full list of the top 50 cities for bicycling, according to the magazine that bears the activity's name:

1. Chicago, IL
2. San Francisco, CA
3. Portland, OR
4. New York, NY
5. Seattle, WA
6. Minneapolis, MN
7. Austin, TX
8. Cambridge, MA
9. Washington, D.C.
10. Boulder, CO
11. Denver, CO
12. Fort Collins, CO
13. Indianapolis, IN
14. Salt Lake City, UT
15. Philadelphia, PA
16. Madison, WI
17. Boston, MA
18. Eugene, OR
19. New Orleans, LA
20. Pittsburgh, PA
21. Oakland, CA
22. Tempe, AZ
23. Tucson, AZ
24. Los Angeles, CA
25. Arlington, VA
26. San Jose, CA
27. Boise, ID
28. Long Beach, CA
29. Gainesville, FL
30. Chattanooga, TN
31. Louisville, KY
32. Saint Paul, MN
33. Grant Rapids, MI
34. Alexandria, VA
35. Albuquerque, NM
36. Cincinnati, OH
37. Sacramento, CA
38. Tallahassee, FL
39. Columbus, OH
40. Miami, FL
41. Cleveland, OH
42. Columbia, MO
43. Atlanta, GA
44. Lincoln, NE
45. Tampa, FL
46. Milwaukee, WI
47. Salem, Ore.
48. Scottsdale, AZ
49. Thousand Oaks, CA
50. Detroit, MI

Story written by Tony Cantu

Photo by Rick Uldricks/Patch