Access Across America: Biking 2023

Nearly half of top US cities experienced increases in biking accessibility

Access Across America: Biking 2023 provides updated post-pandemic accessibility data, ranking the 50 largest U.S. metros for connecting workers with jobs via bicycle. Transportation planners and policymakers can use these findings to better coordinate investments in bicycle facilities with the location of jobs and housing to improve job accessibility.

The changes from year to year in the local access mode of biking were more positive than auto and transit—about half of US large cities had higher average access to job opportunities via bike in 2023 than they did in 2022. Charlotte and Cincinnati deserve special mention as those cities were in the top 5 of increased access for each mode of walking, biking, and transit. In Charlotte, residents could on average reach 12% more job destinations by biking on low-stress networks, and Cincinnati showed a 7% increase.

The study incorporates traffic stress and cycling comfort in its evaluation of access to destinations by bicycle. In the methodology of the study, low-stress routes are separated bike lanes and paths. Medium-stress routes include all bike infrastructure—including on-street unprotected bike lanes, certain shared lanes, and bicyclists mixing with traffic on some non-arterial streets.

The cities that make up the top 10 biking accessibility ranks for both the low-stress and medium-stress categories are mostly the same, with a few differences. Cities with large, high-density urban cores show up in both lists, reflecting the influence of land-use on bicycle access to destinations. Total employment within a metropolitan area is not necessarily a good predictor of bicycle access to jobs; for instance, the Boston metropolitan area is ranked 10th largest by total employment, but it ranks 3rd by access to jobs on low-stress bicycle networks. Conversely, Dallas ranks 4th by total employment, but 22nd and 23rd, respectively, by access to jobs on medium-stress and low-stress bike networks.

For the average-length bike commute, the Twin Cities continued to rank 12th nationally by low- and medium-stress bike access to jobs. But similar to other top metro areas for access to jobs by bike on medium-stress networks, Minneapolis dropped from 2022 by 2%. Economic changes of job numbers also were a contributor. On average, Twin Cities workers using medium-stress bicycle facilities can reach approximately 38,221 jobs within 30 minutes by bike.

The overall number of bicycle commuters, though only 0.5% of all commute trips, has increased nearly 22% since 2010.