Report: Minneapolis among world's most bike-friendly cities

Minneapolis' reputation as a bike-friendly town has gone global.

A new analysis from Europe puts Minneapolis among the 20 most bike-friendly cities in the world, and the best in North America.

"Minneapolis is quickly becoming the go-to city in America for building infrastructure," the consulting group Copenhagenize Design Co. writes in its third assessment of the bike-friendliness of the world's cities.

It's the only city in the U.S. to make it into the Top 20.

The analysis praised the city's "respectable bike share system" and applauded the "political will coming out of City Hall" to support biking.

America - often content with baby steps - is in desperate need of leadership cities and Minneapolis has emerged as a contender.

"Seeds have been planted and a garden is growing," the report added. "America — often content with baby steps — is in desperate need of leadership cities and Minneapolis has emerged as a contender."

Local bicycling advocate Patrick Stephenson, who organizes 30 Days of Biking, said this ranking stands out among the myriad of best-of lists.

"It emphasizes that Minneapolis is excelling at turning biking into a lifestyle," he said. "This echoes a shift from biking as recreational sport to biking as a form of transportation that provides real utility, for getting to work, for grocery shopping, for dropping your kids off at school, and more."

Stephenson also hosts Pedal Hub, a bike podcast on MPR, where he also works as a copywriter. He noted that the tone of the Minneapolis ranking "has a real backhanded compliment feel to it."

The report called Minneapolis' efforts "impressive — for America."

"That stuff is snobby and a bit of a turn-off," Stephenson adds, "but as a friend of mine said, our ridership numbers are small compared to model cities in Europe."

Aside from the friendly rivalry between U.S. cities like Minneapolis and Portland, Ore., more people are seeing the bike as an important way to make our growing cities desirable places to live.

"The bicycle makes sense in cities," writes Mikael Colville-Andersen in Wired. "With rising urbanization, our cities need modern mobility solutions, and moving around on two wheels proves time and again that it can offer results."

Correction (6:20 p.m.): The original version of this story included a misspelling of Patrick Stephenson's name. It has been updated.