Philadelphia area named second best place to bike in the country

The Philadelphia area was recently named the second best place to bike in the United States.

According to ValuePenguin’s Best Cities for Biking report, out of 200 metro areas analyzed, Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington checks in only behind Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington. The study ranked areas based on 16 different data points from nine sources, including the U.S. Department of Transportation, the Census Bureau and the Trust for Public Lands. Their analysis included parkland, parkland per 1,000 residents, percent of the population who can walk to a park, length of trail, percentage of roads in poor/mediocre condition, the percentage of commuters who bike, bike-share programs, annual average bicycle death rate per million residents, bicycle usage growth from 2000 to 2014, member/affiliate member of National Association of City Transportation Officials, bicycle-friendly states, which included a look at legislation/enforcement, average days with precipitation per year, average number of days per year with temperature below 32 and above 90 degrees, fitness and recreational sports centers per 1,000 residents and sporting goods stores per 1,000 residents.

Elsewhere in the state, Pittsburgh came in at number 20, Lancaster at 27 and York-Hanover at 47. Concluding the top five were New York-Newark-Jersey City, Boise and Salt Lake City.

ValuePenguin pointed out that between 2000 and 2014, bicycle commuting in the country increased by 62 percent, according to the League of American Bicyclists, making Philadelphia a great place to ditch the car, and pedal to the office.

The site also analyzed what percentage of a city’s population were within a half of a mile of a park, which could also be considered a place to ride. Philadelphia landed in fifth.