Bike Friendly USA: Top 50 cities!

Bike Friendly cities map presented by bicycling.com, listing the top 50.

Colorado has 3 cities listed!

via bicycle.com
"There are many important things a city can do to gain our consideration for this list: segregated bike lanes, municipal bike racks and bike boulevards, to name a few. If you have those things in your town, cyclists probably have the ear of the local government—another key factor. To make our Top 50, a city must also support a vibrant and diverse bike culture, and it must have smart, savvy bike shops. If your town isn’t named below, use this as an opportunity to do something about it. Already on the list? Go out and enjoy a ride. (Note: We considered only cities with populations of 100,000 or more, and we strove for geographical diversity to avoid having a list dominated by California’s many bike-oriented cities.)

I started looking at the map and noticed most of these cities I would consider more liberal or progressive than conservative. I wanted to know if there was a correlation. So I pulled up last years election results by country. That looks like this:


Red vs Blue voting in the 2008 presidential election by county.

If you overlay the two maps you get this, which is kind of hard to pin-point what county each city is in.

But if you look at the data, matching city to county, then to the 2008 election results.
80% of the Top 50 Most Bike friendly cities voted democrat in the last presidential election.

1. Minneapolis, Hennepin(blue)
2. Portland OR, Multnomah(blue)
3. BoulderCO, Boulder(Blue)
4. Seattle, King(blue)
5. Eugene OR, Lane(blue)
6. San Francisco, San Francisco(blue)
7. Madison WI, Dane (blue)
8. New York City, Brox(blue), Brooklyn(blue), Manhattan(blue), Queens(blue), Staten Island(Red)
9. Tucson AZ, Pima (blue)
10. Chicago, Cook (blue)
11. Austin TX, Austin (red)
12. Denver CO, Denver (blue)
13. Washington DC, District of Columbia(blue)
14. Ann Arbor MI, Washtenaw (blue)
15. Phoenix/Tempe AZ, Maricopa (red)
16. Gainesville FL, Alachua (blue)
17. Albuquerque NM, Bernalillo (blue)
18. Colorado Springs CO, El Paso(red)
19. Salem OR, Marion (blue)
20. Scottsdale AZ, Maricopa (red)
21. Louisville KY, Jefferson(blue)
22. Chattanooga TN, Hamilton (red)
23. Long Beach CA, Los Angeles(blue)
24. Cary NC, Wake (Blue)
25. Milwaukee, Milwaukee (blue)
26. Boston, Suffolk (blue)
27. Philadelphia, Philadelphia(blue)
28. Pittsburgh, Allegheny(blue)
29. Charleston SC, Charleston(blue)
30. Arlington VA,Arlington(blue)
31. Sioux Falls SD, Minnehaha(blue)
32. Boise ID, Boise(red)
33. Kansas City MO, Jackson(blue)
34. Columbus OH, Franklin(blue)
35. Tulsa OK, Tulsa(red)
36. Grand Rapids MI, Kent(blue)
37. Billings MT, Yellowstone(red)
38. St. Louis, St. Louis City(blue)
39. Cleveland, Cuyahoga(blue)
40. Greensboro, NC, Guilford(blue)
41. Lexington-Fayette KY, Fayette(blue)
42. Omaha, NE, Douglas(blue)
43. Salt Lake City, Salt Lake(red)
44. Miami, Miami-Dade (blue)
45. Indianapolis, Marion(blue)
46. Fargo ND, Cass(blue)
47. Anchorage, AK, Alaska(red)
48. Baltimore, Baltimore(blue)
49. Little Rock AR, Pulaski(blue)
50. Rochester NY,Ulster(blue)