Economically, it makes little sense. But for the sake of fitness and overall mobility around a city, it makes perfect sense.

The city of Long Beach wants to be one of the best bicycle cities in the nation and has put a large effort into building lots of bicycle paths. I truely believe bicycle paths are the if-you-build-it-they-will-come kind of creations. Who doesn't like riding bicycles? Reasons why people don't like riding bikes is the traffic, the road hazards, etc. Few people are incapable of having fun on a bike.

In any case, once you've tried dedicated bicycle paths, it's kind of a bummer to go back to stopping at red lights, watching out for morons in cars, and sucking on exhaust fumes.

But yeah. It's a tough thing to sell to cities that have limited budgets. The city of Irvine, CA has a huge budget. They have a large business sector, tons of well to do homeowners as a tax base, they even have their own dedicated Police Force with a multitude of services from car patrol, to SWAT teams, helicopter squad, animals services, accident investigators, etc. Yup. Their rich compared to other cities. I lived there from 1986-1991 and I really loved the organized planning by the city and the stalwarth protection of their police. I live in Mission Viejo now and I have it pretty good too. But most cities around me are more dedicated to automobile traffic control than providing bicyclists with a proper venue for safe riding.