Access Across America: Biking 2024

Abstract

Accessibility is the ease of reaching valued destinations. It can be measured for a wide array of transportation modes, to different types of destinations, and at different times of day. There are a variety of ways to define accessibility, but the number of destinations reachable within a given travel time is the most comprehensible and transparent as well as the most directly comparable across cities.

This study estimates the accessibility to jobs by bicycle for each of the United States' 8.2 million census blocks and analyzes these data in the 50 largest (by population) metropolitan areas. Travel times by biking are calculated using detailed roadway networks classified by their Level of Traffic Stress (LTS), which correspond to which type of riders would use those roadways for travel by bike. Rankings are determined by a weighted average of job accessibility; a higher weight is given to closer jobs, as jobs closer to origins are more easily reached, and are thus more valuable, than those further away. Jobs reachable within ten minutes are weighted most heavily, and jobs are given decreasing weights as travel time increases up to 60 minutes.

This report presents detailed accessibility values for each metropolitan area, as well as block-level maps which illustrate the spatial patterns of accessibility within each area for medium-stress cycling.

Year-over-year changes in accessibility by bike are provided for each area. The 2024 reporting year reflects increasing job growth in many areas, as well as changes in bike infrastructure cities have made, leading to generally higher accessibility by bicycle across large urban areas.