Originally Posted by buzzman

and surely you realize that California is not New England nor is it the Northwest. How would you describe a typical American city? Are Los Angeles and San Francisco identical in terms of their needs for cyclists? They're both cities in CA but my experiences riding a bike in those two cities is as different as riding in New York City and West Palm Beach.

I've noticed when you refer to typical American cities you seem to be referencing Sun Belt or Southwestern or particularly Southern California cities. when you say "most of the rest of the nation" you seem to be talking about Southern CA. Wouldn't you say that Chicago has more in common with New York City than with Los Angeles in terms of transportation infrastructure? So is Chicago also atypical? You've also in previous threads told me Boston was atypical because it was a "trolley" city.

Now here's what's interesting to me about New York City. It has a population of roughly 9 million people in an area that a good cyclist could ride from end to end of in an hour or so. Almost 1/25 of the entire US population lives or works in New York City. So what happens in New York effects an enormous share of the general population and what presently constitutes a very large number of cyclists and potentially a much larger number.

If cycling becomes a mainstay of NYC transportation, and it looks very much like it will, then it will effect America and every other American city. Although some of the infrastructure models will undoubtedly be duplicated in other cities more importantly it will be evidence that bicycling can affect both transportation and quality of life issues in densely packed urban centers.

You claimed in another thread that cities are not "designed" by people that in a sense they are designed by market forces. NYC has a Bicycle Plan woven into a very distinct design plan of an overall transportation and urban design plan. It has a new and quite radical head of the DOT, who is a daily bike commuter in the city. Her influence and the administrative team she has surrounded herself with are making rapid changes to accommodate a larger modal share of cyclists. A coalition of cycling, pedestrian and neighborhood groups are likewise involved. Do you honestly think that the changes in NYC will not impact almost every other large urban center in America? That these changes will be considered "atypical" and not appropriate in any way to other cities?