Eugene ranked second for best cities for cycling in America according to a recent report by Apartment Guide.
Second only to San Francisco on the list, Eugene beat out places like Seattle, Boulder, and Portland for bike friendliness. Apartment Guide Editor Brian Carberry said using existing data they found Eugene scored high across the board except in the weather category.
“Everywhere else that we looked at from a bike score, to businesses that cater to bicyclists, to biking infrastructure...safety, so number of pedestrian fatalities per capita is way down in Eugene and then just the overall number of commuters in the area that bicycles to work" he said.
Carberry says his team was able to analyze 60 cities that had comparable data. They started with 300 cities but found some cities had insufficient data, which meant they had to narrow their study.
Biycling has grown in popularity just about everywhere, especially during the pandemic, Carberry said, not only because of its environmental benefits but because of affordability and convenience.
"It's really going to push certain cities in certain areas to make more investments in infrastructure that is friendly to bicyclists whether that's adding designated bike lanes, or improving the safey of crosswalks for pedestrians and bicylists," he said. "I think these are things that cities are going to start doing, and we've already seen it in some places across the country."
