Portland ranks fifth among best large bike cities
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Illustration: Brendan Lynch/Axios
Portland is a great place to bike after all, ranking fifth among large U.S. cities in PeopleforBikes' best places to bike list.
Why it matters: Portland's bike town image has taken a hit in recent years, with a decline in bike commuting that's been slow to recover, and a steady rate of bike fatalities.
Driving the news: Portland ranks behind Minneapolis, Seattle, San Francisco, and St. Paul, Minnesota on this year's list.
- Portland was fifth in 2023 too.
How it works: PeopleForBikes assigns cities a score based on six factors: safe automobile speeds, protected bike lanes, reallocated space for biking and walking, intersection treatments, network connections, as well as bike lane and pathway data from OpenStreetMap.
By the numbers: Portland's score out of 100 has risen steadily from 35 in 2018 to almost 59 in 2024, due to investments in bike infrastructure, adjustments to speed limits, and better use of OpenStreetMap data.
The big picture: Portland ranked 201 out of 2,579 cities worldwide.
Fun fact: PeopleforBikes includes a color-coded map identifying the most and least stressful places to ride a bike in Portland.
What's next: The Portland Clean Energy Fund announced last week it will invest $20 million over the next five years to provide rebates for at least 6,000 moderate- to low-income Portlanders to buy electric bikes.
- That would add significantly to Portland's bike population, as PBOT's 2023 bike census tallied over 22,000 people biking on one summer day.