Transportation
Portland Ranks First Among Major U.S. Cities for Biking to Work
The city’s rate of cycle commuting is the highest it’s ever been.
Judging from its glut of bike blogs alone—among them Bike Portland, Urban Adventure League, Portlandize, Bicycle Kitty, Portland Pedal Power, The Simplicity of Vintage Cycles, The Sprocket Podcast, and, er, Bike Smut (NSFW-ish)—one might suspect Oregon’s weirdest city has a thing for cycling.
New numbers from the U.S. Census back up that notion. In 2014, Portland led the nation for the rate of people biking to work in major cities,* according to American Community Survey data released yesterday. Slightly more than 7 percent of the city’s commuters chose to pedal—that’s about 23,350 people, a leap of 27 percent over 2013’s estimate of roughly 18,300 commuters.