{"id":176987,"date":"2020-02-24T13:51:05","date_gmt":"2020-02-24T13:51:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/?p=176987"},"modified":"2020-02-24T13:59:58","modified_gmt":"2020-02-24T13:59:58","slug":"how-to-measure-a-citys-bike-friendliness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2020\/02\/24\/how-to-measure-a-citys-bike-friendliness\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Measure a City\u2019s Bike-Friendliness"},"content":{"rendered":"

What makes a city bicycle-friendly? Is it just the amount of safe bicycle paths available or are there other criteria, some of which even cyclists have not considered? The Berlin-based insurance company COYA may have developed the most comprehensive standards used to judge a city\u2019s \u2018cyclability\u2019.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Why an insurance company? As the company explains on its website<\/a>, \u201cAt Coya, cycling is in our DNA. As digital insurance specialists and committed bikers ourselves, we firmly believe that cyclists should be free to get from A to B, without having to worry about road quality, safety or bicycle theft.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

To construct its Global Bicycle Cities Index 2019, which judged 90 cities worldwide, COYA used no fewer than 16 criteria, beginning with the one you wouldn\u2019t think was that important (but, of course, it is): the weather. They calculated each city\u2019s \u201cWeather Score\u201d by taking into account the total annual hours of sunshine, average annual precipitation (in millimetres), and the number of days below 0\u00b0C and over 30\u00b0C.<\/p>\n

The top city for good cycling weather was not much of a surprise: Melbourne, Australia (though the second-placed was a surprise, Bristol, UK). And which city has the worst weather for cycling? Bangkok, Thailand. Too hot, I guess.<\/p>\n

Another unexpected criterion was bicycle usage in per cents. But, as COYA explains, the percentage of a city\u2019s population using bicycles in everyday life \u201cis a huge indication of the overall cycling conditions\u201d. Tel Aviv, Israel, scored best with 9 %, followed by the French city of Nice (8 %). The lowest scorer here was Tbilisi, Georgia, with 0.03 %, and Mexico City a close second, at 0.08%. Prague was 78th, with a mere 1 %. Maybe it\u2019s because of the weather?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Of course, safety features prominently in COYA\u2019s algorithm with three criteria measured: fatalities, accidents and bicycle thefts, all per 100,000 cyclists. Regarding fatalities, one city had a perfect score of zero fatalities: Stuttgart, Germany. The deadliest city was Johannesburg, South Africa, with a whopping 7.43.<\/p>\n

To score bicycle thefts, COYA used a weighted average to compensate for the low rates of crimes actually reported in countries where crime is prevalent but underreported. Therefore, they included several subcategories such as the homicide rate, which is the crime most reported worldwide.<\/p>\n

Long story short: Don\u2019t leave your bikes unattended in Johannesburg, S\u00e3o Paulo or Bogot\u00e1. Sleep easy in Singapore, Seoul and Hong Kong. Prague was ranked an excellent 11th in this important statistic for cyclists. Overall, the safest cities for cyclists were Stuttgart, Melbourne and Sidney; the least safe were Johannesburg and the Colombian cities of Medell\u00edn and Cali.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Cycling in Medell\u00edn can be dangerous.\u00a0\u00a9 imagebroker\/Oliver Gerhard \/ imageBROKER \/ Profimedia<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

So, it\u2019s quite puzzling that the city that had the most bicycle shops per 100,000 cyclists was Johannesburg, the least safe cycling city on the index with the highest number of cycling fatalities and bike thefts \u2013 by far. Maybe it\u2019s just because there is always a need to replace a stolen bike or to have a place to sell one to! Beijing has the fewest shops, a measly 0.2 per 100,000 cyclists.<\/p>\n

One other unusual criterion stands out: the number of bicycle sharing and rental stations per 100,000 cyclists. \u201cConsidering that the sharing economy is a billion-dollar industry, we wanted to include information about the boom in bike-sharing,\u201d COYA explains. Bordeaux, Antwerp and Bern led that area last year; Bogot\u00e1, Lagos and Cairo brought up the rear. Prague was ranked 63rd.<\/p>\n

In addition to safety, weather, and bike-sharing, COYA also ranked several infrastructure criteria such as Specialized Roads & Road Quality and Investment & Infrastructure Quality as well as special events hosted by a city to promote cycling as a transport alternative such as No Car Day. In other words, the company appears to have left no stone unturned to come up with a credible and reliable measure of the world\u2019s cycling paradises.<\/p>\n

Overall, the best cities for cycling were Utrecht, The Netherlands; Munster, Germany; and Antwerp, Belgium. The worst were Lagos, Medell\u00edn and Bangkok. Now you know where not to go on a cycling holiday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What makes a city bicycle-friendly? Is it just the amount of safe bicycle paths available or are there other criteria, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":176989,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[330],"tags":[3844,3938],"global-categories":[3366],"class_list":["post-176987","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-urban-cycling","tag-coya","tag-global-bicycle-cities-index-2019","global-categories-cycling"],"yoast_head":"\nHow to Measure a City\u2019s Bike-Friendliness - \u0160koda We Love Cycling<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"What makes a city bicycle-friendly? 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