In this week’s SimplyMap report, we set out to find which cities have the highest percentages of people who use their bike as their mode of transportation to work in the US. Let’s get started!

1. Create a new Ranking Report by selecting “New Ranking” at the top of Simply Map:

2. Select the variable to rank. Follow this path to find the % Employment, Bicycle to Work, 2014 variable: Census Data » People and Households » Employment » Travel to Work » Mode. Image below for reference.

3. Open the Locations panel and choose USA as your geography. Close out the Locations panel to generate your report. Use the “Analyze data by” tool to select cities.

Because our variable is using a percentage, the ranking report may produce results skewed towards cities with a smaller population. To address this, we can quickly apply a data filter to only show cities with a population greater than 50,000.

Favorite the variable titled, # Population (Pop). This can be found here: Census Data » People and Households » Age » Total. Return to your report, and select Create New Filter from the Data Filters Dropdown towards the top right. Follow the steps below to create and apply the filter:

1. Scroll down on the variables dropdown to the Favorites list. Select # Population (Pop)
2. Set the second dropdown to be “is greater than”.
3. Enter 50,000 into the value field.
4. Name the filter
5. Save

Once applied, your new report will be generated to show only cities that have a population greater than 50,000. Cities that don’t meet this criteria will be displayed with a strikethrough. To hide this, click on Display Options > Filtered Locations > Hide to see your final list.

Davis, CA takes home the distinction of having the most bike to work commuters in the United States. A little research on Wikipedia reveals that Davis, CA’s motto is: Most Bicycle Friendly Town in the World. Our results here seem to prove that motto (at least in the US)!

Stay tuned for more SimplyMap reports and tips!