FEATURES

Economic Benefit of Cycling in Minnesota...

Wednesday, 29 March 2017 23:10

Despite its cold winters, Minnesota — and the Twin Cities in particular — has long been recognized as one of the country’s biking-est places.

By Josephine Marcotty (startribune.com - March 28, 2017)

For many Minnesotans cycling is nothing more than a Sunday frolic, but a new report finds that the state’s bike industry produces $780 million in annual economic activity, 5,519 jobs and millions of dollars in health care savings because of reduced obesity, diabetes and heart disease.

And get this: Fully 13.6 percent of Twin Cities residents commute by bike, at least once in a while.

Those are the results of the first major investigation into the health and economic effects of the state’s bicycling industry, commissioned by the Minnesota...

Department of Transportation (MnDOT) to help measure the financial return on taxpayers’ investment in biking infrastructure. “This will help us understand how biking contributes to the health and vitality of communities,” said Sara Dunlap, a MnDOT planner.

Despite its cold winters, Minnesota — and the Twin Cities in particular — has long been recognized as one of the country’s biking-est places. Minneapolis leads the nation in the concentration of bike lanes and paths (5.8 per square mile), the number of regular commuters (4 percent, according to the U.S. census), and has the second-lowest biking fatality rate among the top 50 largest cities. READ MORE