League of American Cyclists rank the US States.....
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Not surprisingly Alabama is at the bottom... Too many fat, stupid, and lazy people in this state. Alot of us here are working pretty hard to get new laws passed (3ft law in the works right now), but it's pretty difficult when even cops buzz and harrass cyclists.
Very interesting link.
I prefer riding in N.Y. to riding in N.J., because access to rural roads is better. Bergen is extremely suburbanized (I know, not a word, but you know what I mean). Rockland, Orange, upper Westchester, Putnam and Dutchess are much more rural (also hillier). NW N.J. can be very nice, however.
Most of the LAB criteria don't affect me on most of my rides. The drivers in NE N.J/S.E. NY are pretty accommodating (if aggressive at times), so I don't have much experience with the laws/enforcement. The few interactions I've had with NY laws/police (two accidents with cars) have been positive. No experience with N.J. laws/enforcement. Policies/programs - I assume related to infrastructure and education. Infrastructure doesn't matter to me (there are plenty of low traffic roads to ride on), and education is experiential (there are lots of cyclists, lots of drivers, lots of cyclist/driver interactions - most of us seem to learn to get along with eachother). Not sure what "evaluation and planning" encompass.
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I prefer riding in N.Y. to riding in N.J., because access to rural roads is better. Bergen is extremely suburbanized (I know, not a word, but you know what I mean). Rockland, Orange, upper Westchester, Putnam and Dutchess are much more rural (also hillier). NW N.J. can be very nice, however.
Most of the LAB criteria don't affect me on most of my rides. The drivers in NE N.J/S.E. NY are pretty accommodating (if aggressive at times), so I don't have much experience with the laws/enforcement. The few interactions I've had with NY laws/police (two accidents with cars) have been positive. No experience with N.J. laws/enforcement. Policies/programs - I assume related to infrastructure and education. Infrastructure doesn't matter to me (there are plenty of low traffic roads to ride on), and education is experiential (there are lots of cyclists, lots of drivers, lots of cyclist/driver interactions - most of us seem to learn to get along with eachother). Not sure what "evaluation and planning" encompass.
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391 Posts
Fund this, spend public money on that, spend legislation time (and $$$) passing X laws. No thanks, I'm happy with CA being where it is. There are bigger things we can spend money on.
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7,006 Posts
I'm the opposite. Having lived in both NJ and NY I prefer NJ, but that's probably because I was born and raised in Hunterdon County where it's completely rural and shares the PA landscape since it's only five miles east of the Delaware River. I'm not surprised that FL is in the bottom half since that state's drivers are insane and discourteous. Miami was the worst, but Jacksonville was a close second place. I am surprised, though, that MI made it into the top 20. I've ridden two tours in that state, and its roads suck. They are not maintained anywhere close to how they should be.
Notice that many of the top bicycle friendly communities are also tend to be the green tree hugging (and probably liberal or progressive) communities. I wonder if this has anything to do with their tolerance of cyclists?
And Alabama... well do i need to go into details here???
And Alabama... well do i need to go into details here???
lol you cracked me up with this. Go go Alabama!!
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Based on the maps, I think it's more because the top 10 states have the most programs, policies, education, and encouragement.
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68 Posts
I love cycling and always like bike lanes but sometimes it is tooooo much. Locally they painted the local bike lanes green, just think of the maintenance costs to keep it nice, simple white lines would have been perfect and ideal. The initial cost of these green lanes was posted in the local paper, utter waste for a very limited number of cyclists. The public was outraged and protested at city hall, this is not positive for us cyclists. They could of probably added 30 miles of new regular bike lanes with same money. Instead we got 2 miles of green paint, just stupid.
People are emotional, and cyclists provide easy bunching bag, when in fact those protesters should be mad at the corruption of the leadership of the city, the very leadership they voted into office in the first place.
Oh wait, most never bothered to vote the ballots. So my reasoning above will be retorted by these protesters with "but but we never voted for the those guys"..
And I will say "you guys never voted, period".
So we're back to punching it out on the cyclists. I guess a bike lane painted in green (wasteful as it is) could put a city into bankruptcy huh.
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1,231 Posts
I can tell you that outside of Chicago...Illinois is NOT cycling friendly in the slightest (for us roadies). Sure, there are plenty of trails for off road cycling but the second you want to take to the pavement...forget it. Next to no cycling lanes, few paved trails and and an ocean of pissed off, militant drivers is what you get to look forward to...
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I live in WA as well, and -having lived in both-think it's laughable that WA tops OR.
No way in Hell.
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Where in the Great Lake State you live at? I used to live around the Greater Lansing area.
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Sounds like you rode in the burbs and not out in the country roads around Mid Michigan. I used to ride alot of the country roads around the Greater Lansing area. Roads are okay with very low traffic. The U.P. is even better since it is more sparely populated and is very scenic with all the forage.
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