We all know that Seattle is one of the top bicycling cities in the US, usually ranked near the top with the likes of Portland, Boulder and Minneapolis on the lists for “best 10 cities for bicyclists.”
But how do Seattle's neighboring cities rank?
The Cascade Bicycle Club set out to determine that and published its results in a six-page publication — Puget Sound Bicycle Scorecard — released this week.
The top city was Kirkland, followed closely by Redmond and Renton. Bringing up the bottom of the list were Federal Way and Shoreline.
New effort
The researchers at Cascade produced a report card last year to see if Seattle was on track with its Bicycle Master Plan and how residents viewed the city's efforts (the city received “B”, reports the Cascade blog).
Turning its attention to other large cities in the region this year, Cascade was impressed with the progress that some of them are making to support bicycling.
Complete Streets
For instance, half of the 10 cities support Complete Streets through an ordinance or resolution. Two others are working on such an ordinance to make their city streets more accessible to bicycles and pedestrians.
They wrote in the conclusion:
“Overall, we were impressed with the number of cities that have these types of provisions in place, and we look forward to working with each city to develop, improve and implement relevant plans and policies.”
Ranking
The bike advocates at Cascade evaluated the 10 largest cities in the central Puget Sound, excluding Seattle. In most cases, they used the results of questionaires sent to the appropriate city departments regarding their bicycling plans, policies, services and data collection.
The 10 cities, in order of how they ranked on the Scorecard:
Kirkland
Redmond and Renton (tied)
Everett and Tacoma (tied)
Bellevue and Auburn (tied)
Kent
Federal Way
Shoreline
Kirkland was the only city to score in each of the 11 categories; Redmond and Renton scored in 10.
Higher bike use
Interestingly, Cascade says that it found that cities with a higher ranking also tended to have higher rates of bicycle commuting and lower crash rates than cities with fewer plans and policies in place. Redmond scored the highest with 1.5% of commute trips made by bicycle, compared to .03% for Kent.
Two cities were touted by Cascade for having the most bicycle routes planned: Bellevue, 164 miles, and Tacoma, 165 miles. Bellevue and Tacoma also were among cities with stand-alone bicycle plans; the others were Kent, Kirkland and Renton.
Bike parking plan
Cascade also gave props to Renton for its bicycle parking ordinance, which is outlined in the report.
This Scorecard will be issued every two years by Cascade. It's a useful document and we look forward to seeing how the cities progress in making the whole Puget Sound region more bicycle friendly.
Photo above from 2010 Bike to Work Day rest stop in Bellevue
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