The things that make cycling work anywhere comes from a society that is willing to accept the bike as a form of transportation. First the willingness to accept needs to come because when you have those plans ready to implement traffic calming techniques, more bike lanes, and more bike parking there is going to be a major fight against those things. It is a god given right that people should be able to hop in their car and drive 1 mile to get a coffee, and nothing is going to change that except economics. When it becomes too expensive for them to do that, when the gas to go get your coffee is more than the coffee itself, people will start to consider other options. Once that happens you can start thinking about calming the traffic on those 50mph street, adding bike lane, etc. This society is sick and addicted, and the problem is that our policy makers keep enabling the society to just keep doing what we are doing instead of considering other options.

I am all for due process, but when they want to implement pedestrian only zones, traffic congestion pricing, and traffic calming i think that they should just do it and anyone who complains can just change their ways or stuff it. If you go to a public hearing about these kinds of transportation planning techniques they are often very heated with people screaming at each other, and eventually NOTHING gets done. In my opinion they need to just do it to force a change, and stop worrying about pissing people off ad losing votes.

Another thing about this thread...Are we commuters because we only ride our bikes to work? Do you take your bike with you to the store, the coffee shop, the bar, the library, or anywhere other than work? Do you wear lycra to go pick up your latte? Sometimes i get the feeling that around here we have the commuter only types that outnumber those of us that take our bikes everywhere.