This week is Bike Week L.A., and so there's no better time to fan the flames of how bikeable the city really is.
While sponsors of the week's events are getting their plan on to create six full days of bike-related funtimes, Walk Score is here to rain on their parade -- L.A. did not make their list of the top ten most bikeable large cities in the country.
The website based its rankings on four major components: Bike lanes; hills; destinations and road connectivity; and bike commuting mode share. Perhaps not surprisingly, Portland topped the list, followed by San Francisco and then Denver.
However, the list was only for cities with 500,000 residents or more. In a separate list that included 100 U.S. cities of varying sizes, Santa Monica ranked 5th and Pasadena came in 13th. In that same list, Los Angeles proudly came in 58th.
The site notes that in some areas of the country, cycling is hugely on the rise, depending on how much effort is being put into making it that way by city leaders:
Across the U.S. bicycle commuting grew 47% between 2000 and 2011. However, in cities that are making investments in bicycle infrastructure and education...bicycle commuting has grown 80% over the same period.
L.A. has been adding new bike lanes throughout the city...and also doing an awesome job of blocking them off.
