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Plano rides high on new survey of best U.S. cities for bicyclists

Plano is among the top cities for cycling.

Photo courtesy of Hill Country Galleria

While the pandemic continues to limit much of how people live, the Dallas area's abundance of trails have managed to keep things wide open for cyclists. This element and more, according to a new study by SmartAsset, is why one Dallas 'burb — Plano — is one of the top 25 most bike-friendly cities in the nation.

In order to designate which cities in the country are the most bike-friendly, SmartAsset examined 100 of the largest cities via the following five metrics:

Bike score. This is a measure of how suitable a city is for biking on a scale of 0 to 100. Data comes from walkscore.com.
Percentage of commuters who bike to work. Data comes from the Census Bureau’s 2018 1-year American Community Survey.
Bicyclist fatalities per 100,000 residents. Data comes from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) Motor Vehicle Crash Data Querying and Reporting and is for the five-year period from 2014-2018. This figure is measured at the county level.
Miles of protected bike lanes. Data comes from PeopleForBikes.org.
Income after housing costs. This is the median household income minus median annual housing costs. Data comes from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2018 1-Year American Community Survey.

Each city in the study was ranked for each metric, with the bike score and five-year bicyclists fatalities per 100,000 residents receiving a double weight, and then they were assigned an overall score. A zero went to cities that weren’t particularly bike-friendly, and a 100 went to the best of the bunch.

Plano rode into the No. 17 spot with an overall score of of 62.26. Only 0.4 percent of its residents bike to work and there are zero miles of protected bike lanes, but Plano has a low fatalities score (.60) and the “income after housing costs” metric is the second highest in the study at $74,976. (San Francisco ranks No. 1 with $87,728.)

Austin tied with Plano at No. 17 in the study’s rankings. Its 19.1 miles of protected bike lanes dwarfed that of Portland, Oregon (5.3 miles) — the one city that scored a 100 in the study, earning the top spot — but it ranked much lower than its Pacific Northwestern companion when it came to how suitable the city is for biking (54.0 to 82.4), the percentage of commuters who bike to work (1.4 percent to Portland's 5.3 percent) and the bicyclists fatalities per 100,000 residents (1.04 to .48).

Plano came in at one point higher than Austin when measured on how suitable the city is for biking.

No other Texas cities made the list.

Plano and Austin may not yet be operating at the bike-friendly heights of the top cities in the study — Portland, Oregon; Minneapolis; Seattle; St. Paul; and Boston round out the top five — but you can definitely hop on your bike and take to both city’s roads with confidence.

let loose dallas

Dallas earns a slot on new list of America's most fun cities

Photo by Mark Patterson on Unsplash

Dallas is a fun place to be, the study says.

Dallas' fun entertainment and nightlife scenes have helped the city improve in WalletHub's just-released ranking of the most fun American cities in 2025. Dallas now stands tall as the 26th most fun U.S. city this year.

WalletHub's "Most Fun Cities in America (2025)" study compared 182 U.S. cities across 65 metrics — spanning from the number of sports venues, music venues, and shopping centers per capita to the average cost for a restaurant meal — to determine how "fun" each city is. The metrics were split among three main categories: entertainment and recreation, nightlife and parties, and cost.

Las Vegas, Nevada continued its multi-year streak as the No. 1 most fun American city.

Across the three key dimensions, Dallas scored the highest for its nightlife and parties rank (No. 23), but its entertainment and recreation ranks (No. 35) and costs (No. 99) still have room for improvement. But overall, Dallas' level of "fun" is far higher than most U.S. cities.

Dallas' current "fun" status is five places higher than its 2024 rank as the No. 31 most fun American city.

Elsewhere in North Texas, Fort Worth ranked as the 60th most fun American city, while Arlington (No. 71) and Plano (No. 78) lagged farther behind.

Texas' most fun cities
Houston overtook Austin as the 6th most fun city in America and the No. 1 most fun Texas city for 2025. Austin, which ranked No. 6 last year, dropped two spots and now ranks No. 8 on the list.

Three more Texas cities that appeared in the top 100 include: San Antonio (No. 23), El Paso (No. 62), and Corpus Christi (No. 94).

"The decision of where to live could save or cost you a lot of money and fun, so it’s fair to wonder what makes a fun city," the report's author wrote. "In a city with enough variety, you won’t have to compromise with your friends, family, or even yourself about the next fun activity to do alone or together."

Surprisingly, both Chicago and New York City dropped out of the top 10 most fun American cities. Chicago now ranks as No. 11, and New York City ranks 14th on the list.

WalletHub's top 10 most fun U.S. cities in 2025 are:

No. 1 – Las Vegas, Nevada
No. 2 – Orlando, Florida
No. 3 – Miami, Florida
No. 4 – Atlanta, Georgia
No. 5 – New Orleans, Louisiana
No. 6 – Houston, Texas
No. 7 – San Francisco, California
No. 8 – Austin, Texas
No. 9 – Portland, Oregon
No. 10 – Cincinnati, Ohio

rankings wallethub dallas