biking facilities in Columbia are awesome in comparison to major US cities

The Alliance for Biking and Walking recently released their 2012 Benchmarking report.  At nearly 300 pages, it's a hefty read, but there's a wealth of information in here on a variety of measures that convey the state of biking and walking in the United States-- both by state as well as in major cities.

One interesting diagram charts out miles of bicycle facilities (defined as bike lanes, multi-use paths, and signed bicycle routes) per square mile in major US cities.  San Francisco and Austin top the chart.  San Francisco has 263 miles of bicycle facilities for a ratio of 5.6, while Austin has 1,345 miles for a ratio of 4.5.  (See page 98 - 99 of the report.  Link above.)

Let’s assume Columbia’s area is 27.7 square miles (which is what Wikipedia says, so it must be true).  I know Columbia has a few bike lanes, and some signed bicycle routes (though one of those is Route 29, something I cannot wrap my head around), but I can’t seem to find the mileage of these facilities, so let’s skip them for now to make this quick and dirty.

Assuming 94 miles of pathways, Columbia has a ratio of 3.4, well above the average of American cities (1.8), well above Baltimore’s ratio is (1.1), and equal to DC’s ratio of 3.4.  DC is ranked tenth in the country among large US cities, and we are freakin' equal to that.

Well, damn.

(And actually we might score a little higher due to leaving out other less easily counted bicycle facilities.)

I mean, we all know the pathways are a great resource we have but laying the numbers out is interesting, especially considering the number of trips that are considered bikeable-- man, we are in a good place.  Sure, critics could say that 94 miles of trailways doesn't mean they go where we want them too, but heck, the same could be said of bike lanes in the comparison cities when we're talking raw numbers.

Bring on the bikeshare.