How many people ride bikes in Minneapolis and St. Paul compared to Chicago?

By On November 4, 2010 · 14 Comments

I applied for a job on Tuesday in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area (Twin Cities).

I had heard that more people, as a percentage of all commuters, commute by bike in Minneapolis and St. Paul than in Chicago and many other cities. If you’ve been reading Steven can plan for a while, you know that I visited Minneapolis in September 2009 and rented a bike for 24 hours.

I used the American FactFinder to get the details. And now I know what I heard is true.

Chicago Minneapolis St. Paul
Workers over 16 1,230,809 190,814 131,798
Ride bikes to work 12,755 6,770 1,567
Bike mode share 1.04% 3.55% 1.19%

Permalink to data results. Data from the 2006-2008 3-year American Community Survey estimates, table B08301.

Knowing these figures led me to question the nothing that Chicago is a bicycle-friendly city. If it’s so friendly to riding a bicycle, how come there aren’t more people riding their bikes to work?

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One of my ideas: There are many trails criss-crossing Hennepin and Ramsey Counties that go to and through major neighborhoods and employment centers. These are essentially bike highways without the threat of a automobiles.

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  • Cecily Walker

    I’m considering applying for a job in St. Paul, and while I can find a lot of information about biking in Minneapolis, information about St. Paul seems lacking. If you get the job in the area, or have other opportunities to visit there, I’d love to hear your impressions of what riding in St. Paul is like, and how it compares to Minneapolis.

    • http://www.stevevance.net/planning Steven Vance

      When I visited Minneapolis, I thought St. Paul was the area right across the river. But it’s a bit further away and I never made it. No matter – trails in St. Paul and Ramsey County still connect with those along the Mississippi River and into Minneapolis and Hennepin County.

    • Guest

      Minneapolis and St. Paul do border each other, but the downtown areas are some distance apart. But cycling conditions are essentially equivalent between the two. There are some specific routes in Minneapolis (like the Greenway shown above) that are better than what you find in St. Paul, but overall they’re comparable.

      • http://www.stevevance.net/planning Steven Vance

        When I was writing this article I noticed that the two cities are in two different counties. That means four different entities managing bikeways for a single metropolis. The area may benefit from regional bike trail management to ensure network connectivity and that service/infrastructure is distributed equitably.

        • http://westnorth.com/ Payton

          The Twin Cities has one of the most powerful regional governments in the country, and Met Council’s purview includes both trail planning and managing fiscal inequities:
          http://www.metrocouncil.org/parks/index.htm

          • http://www.stevevance.net/planning Steven Vance

            I’m glad I know this now.

            I want to take another trip to Minneapolis but meet more people this time to get a better sense of the significance of their trail network.

            Look at this photo of a MPLS trail showing two one-way paths, and a two-way pedestrian path.

          • Brun37

            Come any time in the summer – check out http://www.biketcbc.org/. There are tons of organized rides nearly every day all across the Twin Cities metro area. These are the people you’d want to meet.

            Also – check out Target HQ in Minneapolis. With large bike storage facilities and shower rooms, on a nice day you’ll see many employees taking advantage of the trails to bike to work.

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