>> I live in Minneapolis and this flaggergasted me.
Minneapolis has always ranked as one of the top bike friendly cities in the country. The ironic part is most lists also include Madison, WI and Chicago IL, both midwestern cities who have year round commuters.
But I agree, I have no idea why so many southern states have so many anti-biking cities.
I suspect that bike-friendliness correlates with transit-friendliness. Most cyclists are proponents of transit diversity and multi-modal transport.
And conservative states are more hostile to funding transit because it requires government subsidies (vs. "investment" in parking and roads). There are plenty of small- to medium- conservative cities that don't even have any kind of bus service.
Madison has many bike lanes that are separated from other vehicle traffic. That helps biker confidence by quite a bit. Of course, there are a also a lot of bike/bus only lanes, and the buses tend to be just as aggressive to bikers as other drivers are (and as buses are to other drivers).
Minneapolis has always ranked as one of the top bike friendly cities in the country. The ironic part is most lists also include Madison, WI and Chicago IL, both midwestern cities who have year round commuters.
But I agree, I have no idea why so many southern states have so many anti-biking cities.