Our culture loves giving out frivolous awards: Oscars, Grammys, Nobels…
[“We’re all sooo impressed, Einstein.”]
…but no accolade is as pointless as People For Bikes’s “Best City” rankings, and apparently this year America’s “Best Large City for Biking” is…
Brooklyn?!?
Setting aside how much trouble America is in if Brooklyn represents the best bicycling we have to offer, there’s also the even more troubling fact that BROOKLYN IS NOT A CITY. Yes, it’s true, it was once its own city, back in 1898, and it’s even true that when you were a kid you probably had a crotchety uncle who still thought of it that way, and who called Manhattan “New York.” But now it’s 2025, it’s not a city, even if it does have a basketball team, and therefore this is all a load of crap:
PeopleForBikes’ 2025 City Ratings rank the bikeability of nearly 3,000 cities across the U.S. and around the world. For the first time, this year’s ratings divide New York City into its five boroughs, recognizing the local-level work being done to improve bicycling. Three boroughs landed in the top 10 best large U.S. cities for biking for 2025: Manhattan took the #10 spot with a score of 51 (out of a possible 100), Queens came in at #4 with a score of 63, and Brooklyn took this year’s #1 spot with a score of 73, narrowly surpassing last year’s top-scoring large city, Minneapolis.
What he hell kind of gerrymandering is this? You don’t get to carve a city up into five separate cities just because you feel like it. Also, two of the “cities” (Staten Island and the Bronx) aren’t even mentioned here, presumably because they’re not good enough. Yet the same goddamn Department of Transportation is responsible for all of these places! Shouldn’t this reflect badly on them, and the city as a whole, including those hoity-toity Brooklynites? Let’s say my house is a stop on the local garden tour. I’ve got five flower beds. One is nice, two are kind of okay, and two are just patches of dirt and dried dogshit. Do I deserve a ribbon for being the best gardener in town? Of course I don’t! That award should rightfully go to my neighbor who diligently cultivates his entire garden, the smug bastard.
Yet instead we’re acting like watering only one of your flower beds is a good thing:
So how did Brooklyn become the best large U.S. city for biking? An impressive network of safe and connected places to ride. New York City as a whole is home to 1,550 miles of bike lanes, bike paths, and neighborhood greenways, making it North America’s largest bicycle network. Brooklyn specifically has more miles of bike lanes than any other borough.
Here’s that lazy gardener, by the way, phoning it in at the Five Boro Bike Tour:
To be fair, Brooklyn does have a few things going for it that the other boroughs do not. For example, there’s that 25mph speed limit:
In addition to an impressive network of dedicated bike infrastructure, Brooklyn’s borough-wide residential speed limit of just 25 mph also makes its streets low-stress and safe for bicyclists according to PeopleForBikes’ Bicycle Network Analysis, the data-driven program behind City Ratings.
Wait a minute. THAT’S THE SPEED LIMIT EVERYWHERE IN THE CITY, including here in the Bronx. Yet we’re not even a wildcard:
Hey, we’ve got bike lanes too! It’s just that they’re mostly used for washing cars:
That may not impress People for Bikes, but I bet it would get the International Detailing Association’s attention:
I don’t know if they have “Best Detailing City” rankings, but we’re a shoo-in to win the photo contest:
All I’m saying is that a city is like a bike lock, and it’s only as strong as its weakest link. It’s not like a team time trial in the Tour de France, where you get to drop a few guys because they base your finishing time on the fifth rider to cross the line.
Maybe the Harlem River Greenway project will help push us up in the rankings next year:
That’s gonna make a helluva car wash.