Case Study
City Ratings
A complex, data-centric site ranking bikeability in cities around the globe
Project Brief
Project Overview
To support its mission of making biking better for everyone, PeopleForBikes needed a platform capable of translating mobility data into actionable insight. THOR Digital developed the City Ratings platform to highlight the scoring system developed by PeopleForBikes that measures the quality of each city's bike network. It considers a wide range of factors like protected lanes, speed limits, safe crossings, and slow, shared streets.
THOR built a data pipeline that normalizes the data into visualizations like:
- Bar graphs for each data point, per city and how each city ranks in relation to other cities
- Time-series line graphs that contextualize each city's bikeability against peer cities over time
- Heatmaps that show block-level bikeability in each city
- Geolocated project locations that display where new bike infrastructure is getting built
The platform also functions as a powerful storytelling tool. Rich editorial content, curated city collections, and educational resources illustrate how top-performing cities achieve safer cycling environments. Clear explanations of methodologies provide practical guidance for city managers and advocates working to improve local infrastructure.
City Ratings empowers communities worldwide with the information needed to advocate for better policies, smarter infrastructure investments, and more accessible bicycling networks.
Key Achievements
- Scaled the platform from 510 cities at launch (2020) to 2,500+ cities globally in 2026.
- Served ~200K users upon relaunch last year, with an sustained average of ~50K users monthly
- Built a robust data architecture capable of processing and visualizing complex mobility datasets.
- Created intuitive city comparison tools using a mix of visualizations including heatmaps, line graphs and charts.
- Integrated advocacy storytelling with data through editorial collections and case studies.
- Enabled policymakers and advocates to identify proven infrastructure strategies for safer cycling.
- Expanded the platform from U.S.-focused coverage to a global bicycling benchmark.
- Leveraged analytics and user feedback to continuously refine UX and content strategy.
