tjspiel

To be fair to the article, the fact that the trails don't connect is the last reason they mention. It's not the only one.

I don't live in Colorado Springs so take this with a grain of salt. I think the commuter culture we have in Minneapolis has a lot to do with the MUPs/Greenways and less to do with bike lanes and shared lanes. I think people for the most part are OK with riding on neighborhood streets with or without bike lanes but any kind of major thoroughfare makes people skittish.

If you have trails that can get you all the way across town, from North to South and East to West, that is a tremendous asset. Just because you or I might be comfortable mixing it up with traffic, doesn't mean that it doesn't make a lot of potential bike commuters nervous.

I should add too that here most painted bike lanes are pretty much useless from late December into March while the separate bike infrastructure is often plowed better than the streets.

An interesting study would be to determine the number of additional bike commuters for every $100,000 spent on trails add vs the same money spent on bike lanes. Frankly if it weren't for the fact that over 1/2 of my commute is on a trail, I wouldn't do it in the winter.