Best Cycling Cities Index

It’s possibly no great surprise that a Copenhagen-based urban planning agency might conclude that Copenhagen is the world’s best cycling city — in fact, it’s the second year in a row that the Danish capital took the title, ending Amsterdam’s run in the top spot.

The agency in question? Copenhagenize. Granted, the annual list does look at a slew of bike-centric metrics, including the availability of bike-share programs, bike lanes, pollution and the like.

That said, European cities are dominant, and massively so, with 18 of them taking spots in the top 20. Copenhagen is tops, but there’s room for Utrecht, Strasbourg, Bordeaux, Munich, Antwerp, Vienna and more.

What you won’t see much of is cities outside Europe.

First, at number nine, we have Tokyo — and then, way down at number 20, Montréal, the only city in North America to appear on the list. The index’s authors single out the Plateau neighborhood as particularly successful, while warning that the city might face competition from elsewhere in the Americas in the years to come. (“Why isn’t the bike share system open year round?”)

Though on that score: Donald Trump’s proposed budget would cut funding for the TIGER program (Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery), which provides money for cycling infrastructure and paths.

So perhaps don’t count on the U.S. appearing on the list any time soon.

Meet your guide

Diane Rommel

Diane Rommel has written for The Wall Street Journal, Outside, Marie Claire, Cosmopolitan, Travel + Leisure, Wallpaper and Afar, as well as The Cut, Buzzfeed, Huffington Post and McSweeney’s. She once drove from London to Mongolia, via Siberia.