50 best U.S. cities for biking? New York tops list

New York, long known for its subways and yellow taxi cabs, has doubled its number of bike commuters and now tops a list of the 50 best U.S. biking cities, followed by Chicago and Minneapolis.

The biennial ranking by Bicycling Magazine finds that biking is taking off nationwide, and not just in expected places. Many cities like New York, which moved up from seventh place in 2012, have added bike lanes and launched bike-sharing programs.

Former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg led a push that yielded 350 miles of new bike lanes, many of which were protected from traffic by concrete barriers, and encouraged cyclists to ride up Broadway or through a car-free Times Square. The city's bike-sharing program, Cit Bike, the nation's largest, has more than 96,000 subscribers.

As a result, New York doubled its number of bike commuters during the years 2008 to 2012 to 34,496, which is the largest number of any U.S. city, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. One percent of city residents bike to work.

Nationwide, the number of people commuting by bike jumped 60% during the past decade, from 488,000 in 2000 to 786,000 in the 2008-12 period, according to Census data. Although bicycling accounts for only 1% of all U.S. commuters, the share is much higher in some cities. It's 6% in Portland, nearly 5% in Minneapolis, and 4% in Washington, D.C., Seattle and San Francisco.

"Bikes are accurate and sensitive indicators of an urban area's vibrancy and livability," said Bill Strickland, editor-in-chief of Bicycling, which published the ranking in its October issue. Its list is based not only on Census data but also on the amount of bike lanes, city money spent on cycling and interviews with residents.

Many of the best biking cities are coastal, but three of the top 10 are not, and quite a few of the top 50 are in climates known to be either hot — such as Tucson, ranked #18 — or cold, such as Minnesota's Twin Cities.

Suffolk County, a Long Island suburb of New York City, ranked lowest for cyclists. Its share of bike commuters totaled only 0.2% in 2012, but it accounted for nearly 24% of cyclist facilities in the state of New York in 2008.

Here's the list of the top 50 cities for biking:

1. New York (#7 in 2012)

2. Chicago (#5 in 2012)

3. Minneapolis (#2 in 2012)

4. Portland (#1 in 2012)

5. Washington, D.C. (#4 in 2012)

6. Boulder, Colo. (#3 in '12)

7. San Francisco (#8 in '12):

8. Seattle (#10 in '12)

9. Fort Collins, Colo. (#11 in '12)

10. Cambridge, Mass. (NR in '12)

11. Austin

12. Denver

13. Madison, Wis.

14. Philadelphia

15. Eugene, Ore.

16. Boston

17. Tempe, Ariz.

18. Tucson

19. Arlington, Va.

20. Boise

21. Pittsburgh

22. New Orleans

23. Long Beach

24. San Jose

25. Indianapolis

26. Salt Lake City

27. Oakland

28. Los Angeles

29. Miami

30. Scottsdale, Ariz.

31. Alexandria, Va.

32. Sacramento

33. Thousand Oaks, Calif.

34. Chattanooga, Tenn.

35. Cincinnati

36. Milwaukee

37. Gainesville, Fla.

38. Salem, Ore.

39. Albuquerque

40. Saint Paul

41. Grand Rapids, Mich.

42. Reno

43. Louisville

44. Columbia, Mo.

45. Colorado Springs

46. Ann Arbor, Mich.

47. Omaha

48. San Antonio

49. Des Moines

50. Cleveland