Atlanta gains ground as a city for bicycles

PeopleForBikes gave the City of Atlanta a score of 33 in its 2026 ratings, released on June 17. This is up from just 23 in 2020.

The Boulder, Co.-based organization also declared Atlanta as one of the eight cities to watch.

An adage applies to the latest ranking: “What gets measured gets improved.”

Time and time again, we’ve seen how national rankings can serve as a catalyst form making tangible improvements in our community. One of the most visible rankings is the Trust for Public Land’s ParkScore ranking, where Atlanta has gone from 49th in 2021 among the nation’s 100 largest cities to 18 in 2026.

PeopleForBikes evaluated 3,019 communities in the United States, grading them on how well their bike networks connect people to their destinations. Of those, 555 communities scored 50 or higher, the threshold that People for Bikes considers a city’s bicycle network to support easy, accessible riding.

Out of the 3,019 large, medium and small North American cities, Atlanta ranked No. 1,501; in the United States, Atlanta’s rank was 1,308; and in Georgia, it was 28th.

Rebecca Serna, executive director of Propel, the Atlanta-based bicycle and pedestrian advocacy nonprofit, believes Atlanta’s score should be higher given the city’s investment in bicycle transportation infrastructure.

“The report uses incomplete data,” Serna wrote in an email. “Atlanta is better than the 28th most bikeable city in Georgia. Even so, it’s a reminder of how far Atlanta has to go beyond the Beltline to create a city where people can ‘circulate freely, healthily, and joyfully.’”

That’s a quote from the 2025 Copenhagenize Index of the 100 most bikeable cities. Atlanta didn’t make that list.

That report states that “cycling represents one aspect of mobility.” A city’s quality of life depends on how people experience their urban environment every day. “Behind every data point lies but a simple question: Is this a city where people can circulate freely, healthily, and joyfully?”

Serna has seen real progress in Atlanta becoming a better bicycle city, but said there is still much room for improvement.

“Atlanta needs to complete a connected network of physically separated lanes for bikes, scooters, and other small wheels (including people using wheelchairs who are often forced to use them when sidewalks are missing or cracked) — filling in the gaps in the current partial (but growing) network,” Serna wrote.

From Serna’s perspective, Atlanta should continue to partner with the Georgia Department of Transportation and other agencies need to believe that bicycles, scooters and other small wheels are viable ways of getting around the city and respect their role in Atlanta’s transportation ecosystem.

When it comes to the national rankings of PeopleForBikes, Serna said the city could immediately improve its score by following the recommendation of the organization. PeopleForBikes bases its city infrastructure ratings on the OpenStreetMap, but Serna said no one has updated Atlanta’s information on that map.

“Greater accuracy in OpenStreetMap data leads to a more accurate City Ratings score and can help cities determine benchmarks for success and improvement,” the PeopleForBikes report stated. “We encourage city staff, advocates, and/or policymakers to submit the City Snapshot on behalf of their city in advance of the next annual City Ratings release.”

Over the past several years, Atlanta has been investing in separated bicycle lanes, sometimes to the consternation of automobile drivers who have seen pavement be transitioned from cars to bicycles. Examples of bicycle infrastructure projects are visible all over town, and more investment is planned.

Those separate bike lanes are in addition to the Atlanta Beltline, which just connected the Westside Trail and the Eastside Trail by opening a two-mile Southside Trail – providing nearly 17 miles of seamless multipurpose trails in a happy face “U” to the city’s transportation network.

Even PeopleForBikes described Atlanta as having “one of the more compelling bike infrastructure stories in the South right now,” according to spokesperson Cody Chouinard.

A piece of personal trivia:

I was the first bicycle planner for the City of Atlanta. In the fall of 1977, I moved back to Atlanta from Boston to get my master’s in urban studies from Georgia State University.

I was awarded a 20-hour-a-week position as a graduate assistant in the city’s Department of Planning.

In Boston, my major modes of transportation were my bicycle and the streetcar. When I returned to Atlanta, I immediately realized the city lacked in bicycle infrastructure. I didn’t have a car, so I relied on my bicycle as my major mode of transportation.

I asked the city if I could do bicycle planning for my graduate assistant position. The timing was good. MARTA was in the middle of building its rail network — a massive and disruptive construction project.

At the time, Atlanta’s streets were filled with sewer grates with bars parallel to the sidewalk. Someone would be risking their lives riding a bicycle over those sewer grates because a wheel could slip in the crack, causing riders to flip and crash.

One of the not-so-funny stories was when I met with the Department of Public Works to see if they could substitute those deadly sewer grates with bicycle safe grates. The official I met with called me a “communist,” arguing that the streets belonged to cars and not bicycles. He also said that swapping out the grates would cause the city’s streets to flood.

Then I persuaded the city we should develop a system of bicycle feeder routes to the city’s MARTA stations to create greater commute options. Once we designated a bicycle route, the city agreed that we needed to swap out the dangerous sewer grates on those paths. We skillfully created bike routes to MARTA stations by using streets that had some of the most dangerous sewer grates.

It’s hard to imagine how unfriendly Atlanta was towards bicycles during the 1970s and 1980s. Drivers in cars would scream at cyclists, saying to get off the road, telling them to ride on the sidewalk, which was not permitted.

The development of the PATH Foundation, under the leadership of the late Ed McBrayer, in the 1990s, was a major step forward. But, at the time, there was real tension between the PATH Foundation, which was pushing for off-road bicycle paths, and the Atlanta Bicycle Campaign (later Atlanta Bicycle Coalition and now Propel), which was encouraging cyclists to use city streets as part of a “share-the-road” approach.

Fortunately, there is now a much better understanding that bicycle lanes on city streets and off-road trails are part of a transportation network that give people options of not depending on a car to get around.

Atlanta has evolved so much since those bicycle-unfriendly days.

I smile when I think that Angel Cabrera, Georgia Tech’s president, rides his bicycle as his main form of transportation. Unfortunately, he will be leaving Atlanta in November to become president and CEO of the Aspen Institute. But he will be leaving behind a network of bicycle lanes throughout the Georgia Tech campus.

If we want to be a city that is less dependent on cars, we will need it all. Improved sidewalks. More bike lanes and multipurpose trails. And transit, especially rail transit.