Once was that American cities competed to look more like Detroit,
with gleaming lanes of highway stretching as far as the eye could see.
Any more, it’s a race to imitate Copenhagen, the Danish capital where 36
percent of residents commute to work via bicycle.
So it seems, at least, when looking at today’s announcement by the League of American Bicyclists of the latest — and largest — round of official Bicycle Friendly Communities
in the U.S. Some of the cities on the list will come as no surprise:
Portland, San Francisco, and Chicago are here, as is Missoula, Mont.,
where 7 percent of residents bike to work, versus the 0.6 percent
national average. But so are cities like Baltimore, Cincinnati, and
Cottonwood, Ariz. Twenty-five more cities applied for bicycle-friendly
status, but were denied.
