By Sharon Simonson
A greater proportion of people bike to work in Berkeley than in any other American city with a population of 100,000 or more, according to new calculations from the U.S. Census Bureau.
Work commuters in San Francisco and Oakland are also among the most likely to turn to pedal power compared to their peers in other large American cities.
To commemorate Bike to Work Week from May 16 to May 20, the bureau ranked the top 20 U.S. cities based on what percentage of their workforce ride a bike to work. Not quite one in 10 Berkeley workers ride bicycles to their jobs. That compares to about 5 percent of workers in San Francisco and slightly less in the East Bay’s Oakland. No South Bay city made the Top 20 list.
College towns appear most prominently in the ranking: Boulder, Colo., famous for its outdoor recreation culture and University of Colorado, placed second with about 9 percent of workers biking to their jobs. Cambridge, Mass., home to Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, ranked third. Madison, Wis., home to the flagship campus of the University of Wisconsin system, and Ann Arbor, Mich., home to University of Michigan, rank 7 and 8 respectively. And of course Berkeley is home to the University of California, Berkeley.
Gainesville, Fla., home to the University of Florida with approximately 50,000 students, is also on the list, as is College Station, Texas, home to Texas A&M University, where enrollment approaches 60,000. Tempe, a Phoenix suburb and home to Arizona State University, and Tucson, Arizona, home to the University of Arizona, also appear.