Originally Posted by
spare_wheel
you seem to think that i disagree with the first part of what you wrote. i don't. what i disagree with is the idea that infrastructure alone can promote large increases in active transport mode share in north america.
I actually aggree with you there. All the things you mention are important. Noone I know of would think that bike paths alone will do it. After all, you can't have them everywhere, so other measures have to be taken in lots of places.
As I've mentioned before, it's more-or-less up to the municipalities to decide how much they wish to do for cyclists. In places like Odense, they've done quite a lot, and as a result, cycling has increased very much. In Copenhagen, the effort hasn't been able to follow the demand, so cycling seems to be stagnating. In other places, very little has been done. The difference between Denmark and the Netherlands is that there, it's a lot more a matter of central planning. There are places (I think Rotterdam, for instance), where conditions are less-than-optimal, but they still have to live up to certain standards.
There's one other difference. Here, we've seen a lot of greul propaganda for helmets. They don't do that in the Netherlands.