November 14, 2025
2 min learn
World Research Reveals Finest Cities for Strolling and Biking
Knowledge from 11,587 cities present that, rain or shine, some locations are simply higher for bikes and pedestrians
Eve Lu; Supply: “World Well being and Local weather Advantages from Strolling and Biking Infrastructure,” by Adam Millard Ball et al., in Proceedings of the Nationwide Academy of Sciences USA, Vol. 122; June 9, 2025 (information)
In some cities, cyclists and pedestrians appear as uncommon as unicorns. And in others, comparable to Wageningen within the Netherlands—the world’s high biking metropolis, in accordance with a current research—they’re as quite a few as bees in a hive.
The authors of the research, which was printed within the Proceedings of the Nationwide Academy of Sciences USA, used information from Google to find out strolling and biking charges in 11,587 cities in 121 international locations, a far bigger pattern dimension than in any earlier analysis. Maybe unsurprisingly, they discovered that cities with plenty of cyclists and pedestrians are typically dense and stuffed with bike lanes.
The authors additionally discovered that increased fuel costs meaningfully enhance nationwide strolling and biking charges. “You want carrots and sticks,” says John Pucher, an emeritus city transportation researcher at Rutgers College, who was not concerned within the research. “You want incentives for biking and strolling [combined with] disincentives to automobile use.”
On supporting science journalism
When you’re having fun with this text, take into account supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By buying a subscription you might be serving to to make sure the way forward for impactful tales concerning the discoveries and concepts shaping our world as we speak.
Cities’ steep terrain can discourage biking. However the research confirmed that local weather—even frosty winters, scorching summers and ample precipitation—is just not a serious barrier to excessive strolling and biking charges. In truth, a number of the world’s most bike-friendly cities are windy and wet, Pucher says.
Eve Lu; Supply: “World Well being and Local weather Advantages from Strolling and Biking Infrastructure,” by Adam Millard Ball et al., in Proceedings of the Nationwide Academy of Sciences USA, Vol. 122; June 9, 2025 (information)
Strolling could be a necessity reasonably than a alternative. Carole Turley Voulgaris, an city planning researcher at Harvard College, who was not concerned within the research, suspects that poverty drives excessive strolling charges in international locations comparable to Haiti, and he or she notes that automobile possession offers an financial enhance to low-income households.
Nonetheless, a car-free life-style has broader perks. The research’s authors estimate that if each metropolis had a motorcycle community like Copenhagen’s, personal car emissions would fall 6 %, and annual well being advantages would whole $435 billion, partly due to diminished heart problems.
In addition to Copenhagen, different “success tales,” in accordance with the research’s authors, embody Osaka, Japan, the place slow-moving automobiles coexist with walkers and bikers on slender streets, and Nairobi, Kenya, which commits no less than 20 % of its transportation funds to nonmotorized journey.
Within the U.S., as of the previous decade solely about 1 % of journeys have been taken by bicycle, in distinction to twenty-eight % within the Netherlands. “It’s not that Dutch persons are genetically predisposed to biking; it’s that the majority Dutch cities have actually good infrastructure for biking,” says research lead writer Adam Millard-Ball, an city planner on the College of California, Los Angeles. “If it have been faster and secure to stroll or bike to their children’ college or to the shop or to work, then Individuals would do this simply as a lot as anybody else.”
It’s Time to Stand Up for Science
When you loved this text, I’d prefer to ask on your help. Scientific American has served as an advocate for science and business for 180 years, and proper now often is the most crucial second in that two-century historical past.
I’ve been a Scientific American subscriber since I used to be 12 years outdated, and it helped form the way in which I have a look at the world. SciAm at all times educates and delights me, and conjures up a way of awe for our huge, stunning universe. I hope it does that for you, too.
When you subscribe to Scientific American, you assist be sure that our protection is centered on significant analysis and discovery; that we’ve the sources to report on the selections that threaten labs throughout the U.S.; and that we help each budding and dealing scientists at a time when the worth of science itself too usually goes unrecognized.
In return, you get important information, charming podcasts, sensible infographics, can’t-miss newsletters, must-watch movies, difficult video games, and the science world’s finest writing and reporting. You’ll be able to even reward somebody a subscription.
There has by no means been a extra necessary time for us to face up and present why science issues. I hope you’ll help us in that mission.
