Thursday, October 16, 2008

Bicycle friendly states

Last Auguest, the League of American Bicyclists published their lists of bicycle friendly states. Washington ranked number 1, Oregon was number 4, and California came in at number 7. Ranking dead last is West Virginia because of their "low bicycle usage rates and high cyclist crash and fatality rates," according to LAB director Andy Clarke.

Bill Schneider at New West looks in more detail at the rankings of states in the Western United States in "Making States Bicycle Friendly."

Jason and Mishka bike touring through Santa Cruz, California

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Here in Georgia (#49) we say "BOO-YAH" to West Virginia ;-).

We are ranked way low, but there is still some mighty nice riding in Georgia. The City of Roswell has scored well and Decatur is good as well. Outside of a few pockets however, Atlanta's sprawl keeps the automobile on the throne. Outside of the cities, cycling isn't even in the backseat.

Anonymous said...

Hartwell, Ga is a biking town... considering it's a small town and has the usual number of fast drivers and car-oriented roads.

And actually, in the neighboring towns, I've had good luck biking, so I wouldn't automatically call the rural areas unfriendly to biking.

Anonymous said...

Margaret, I'm glad to hear that. I'll be happy to stand corrected.