Steering in the right direction

San Antonio rides into first place in ranking of best Uber customers in the U.S.

San Antonio Uber riders are driving up the city's friendly rep.

Courtesy of Uber

Hey, San Antonio. Give yourself a pat on the back. A new study shows riders in San Antonio are the best Uber customers in the country.

Uber just released rankings of the cities with the best-rated and worst-rated passengers, as judged by how many stars (with five stars being the best) its drivers give riders in cities across the country.

We know that San Antonio tops the nice list and that New York City tops the naughty list. What we don’t know, though, is precisely what drives the drivers’ assessments. Are San Antonio riders particularly great tippers? Are New York City riders unbearably rude?

Perhaps San Antonio’s stellar showing in the study has something to do with the city’s welcoming nature. Readers of Travel + Leisure named Alamo City the fifth friendliest U.S. city in 2017.

“More than a few survey respondents who moved to San Antonio from other cities said they’re still amazed, even after decades, how friendly the Texas town is. San Antonio ‘takes prides in being friendly,’ another explained. They even brag about it,” Travel + Leisure observed.

Here’s Uber’s list of the 10 cities with the best-rated drivers:

San Antonio
St. Louis
Nashville
Salt Lake City
Kansas City
Sacramento, California
Tampa Bay, Florida
Charlotte, North Carolina
Las Vegas
Portland, Oregon

And here’s Uber’s list of the 10 cities with the worst-rated riders:

New York City
Seattle
Washington, D.C.
Boston
Minneapolis-St. Paul
San Francisco
Philadelphia
Los Angeles
Baltimore
Chicago

Uber released the city rankings in conjunction with the rollout of a new app feature. Now, all Uber users can access a breakdown of their average rating in the Uber app’s new privacy center. You can see how many drivers awarded you five stars, how many handed out just a single star, and everything in between.

“We hope that by giving users a peek into how their rating is calculated, we can help encourage positive experiences between riders and drivers on every trip,” Zach Singleton, head of privacy and equity products at Uber, says in a statement.

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share the road

Texas is one of the worst places in the nation to ride a bike

Photo by Danist Soh on Unsplash

If you've ridden your bicycle in San Antonio, you already know how true this is.

In what will come as no surprise to cyclists around San Antonio, the state of Texas is not a good place for bicycle riding. According to a new report of the "Most Cycling-Friendly States in the U.S.," Texas comes in at No. 47 — meaning that only three other states are worse.

The report, from Philadelphia personal injury law firm KaplunMarx, examines all 50 states based on six metrics: Air quality index, the number of cyclist deaths per one million residents, bike routes per square mile, local government actions supporting cycling, federal funding for cycling projects, and bicycle laws.

Texas musters a mere 31 points out of 100 for its "cycling friendly score."

The most cycling friendly state in the U.S.: Minnesota, which earned 84 points to claim the title.

According to the report's findings, there have been 15 local government actions per capita in Texas that integrate pedestrians and cyclists in transportation projects. Texas has a 41 air quality index value, and there are approximately 1.2 bike routes per 1,000 square miles in the state.

On cyclist deaths, Texas does a little better, with three cyclist deaths per one million residents in Texas — about nine percent lower than the national average.

According to KaplunMarx founding partner Ted Kaplun, there is an average of 857 cyclist fatalities in the U.S. every year. He adds that every measure or community effort to improve cyclist-friendliness is beneficial for all Americans.

"It's crucial for all states to continually assess and enhance their cycling provisions, learning from both high-ranking peers and their own experiences," he says.

Top-ranking Minnesota has only one cyclist death per one million state residents. It also has about 27.2 bike routes per 1,000 square miles.

After Minnesota, the remaining top five best states for cyclists are Massachusetts (No. 2), Rhode Island (No. 3), Washington (No. 4), and Iowa (No. 5).

At the bottom of the list are Nevada (No. 48), Arizona (No. 49), and Utah (No. 50) — all of which performed far worse than Texas to be declared the three least cycling-friendly states.

The entire country still has areas for improvement when it comes to creating a safer environment for cyclists, regardless of where each state landed on the list, according to Kaplun.

"With over 53 million Americans riding bicycles regularly, the importance of cycling-friendly infrastructure and safety measures cannot be overstated," said Kaplun in the report. "This isn't just about rankings – it's about enhancing the quality of life, promoting sustainable transportation, and most crucially, saving lives."

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