Originally Posted by Brian Ratliff

Different people have different thresholds of risk, for cycling or for cross country traveling. Let's call them "risk bins". The first bin are the (in the cycling world) hardcore cyclists who will ride regardless of road conditions. These people ride with no infrastructure. People from the second bin see the first bin people riding and take up riding themselves. They learn vehicular cycling methods but don't see them as a be-all and end-all of cycling. They advocate for infrastructure accommodation. The city gives them a little, and the third bin people are willing to come out. These people, along with the second bin people advocate for more infrastructure, allowing people in the fourth risk bin to venture out. And so on.

This is how you solve the problem of which came first: the riders or the bike lanes. The answer is it is more complex. Not all cyclists have the same risk thresholds, and their are pioneers and then there are the people who follow the pioneers. In the cross-country travel analogy, Lewis and Clark were pioneers for a route to the west coast from the east. They cut their own trails. Then came the traders who were willing to take risks who expanded the trails, then the traders who were less willing to take risks who turned these trails to roads. Only then did we get the first "civilian" travelers. Just a trickle at first. Then as roads got better, more people follow. Fast forward a couple hundred years and we now have interstates and literally anyone can travel from one side of the country to the other with minimal risk.