A good sign that Christchurch is starting to do OK cycle-wise internationally is when other parts of the world start to notice us – and rate us. A year ago, I told you how the annual PeopleForBikes City Ratings programme had now included our fair city in its rating system – and with not a bad score either. One year later, and we’re making some good progress…
Last year I noted how Christchurch had snuck inside the top 10% of all cities (even if I hesitate to call the thousand-odd places listed with <10,000 people “cities”…). This year, we’ve edged even further up the rankings. Our “City Rating” score has climbed from 53/100 up to 58/100 and we’re now in the top 8%.
(by the way: don’t let the apparent drop in blue rankings fool you – if you look closely you’ll see there were ~1700 cities rated last year and now ~2500 cities rated; also seven more “large” cities this year)
When you think how many additional sections of new cycleway have been added in the past year, not to mention several additional lower speed neighbourhoods, it’s probably not that surprising to see an improvement in Christchurch’s ratings.
If you want to get a sense of where that places us in the world, other “large” (i.e. >300k population) cities just above us in the ratings include Portland (Oregon) and Philadelphia (Pennsylvania). Meanwhile, we’re just above Wigan (England) and New York City.
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It’s interesting that “Australia” gets its own world region category, while Christchurch is still under “International”. Last year I mentioned that Yarra (Melbourne) and Canberra were just ahead of Christchurch in the ratings. I’m pleased to report that we are now above Canberra (55/100) in the ratings, making us the best Australasian city rated, while Melbourne’s numerous sub-cities are now somewhat rationalised into different metro areas, with the “Inner Metro” area heading their ratings at 42/100. Perhaps PfB should create an “Australasia” category instead? Then our ranking might get the attention of the Aussies…
Where to from here? Well, let’s hope that further improvements to our network might keep improving our relative scores. If you want some exemplars to aim for, I would note that sitting at scores of 65-66/100 globally are the cities of Bristol (England), Seattle (US), and Vancouver (Canada)…
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As I mentioned last year, there’s no reason why other New Zealand cities couldn’t also join in City Rating programme – you just need to apply to be considered. They’ll then add your city to their Bicycle Network Analysis and hopefully you’ll show up in next year’s City Ratings.
What do you think of Christchurch’s cycle rating? Do you agree?