Originally Posted by chriswnw

I found this entry on Wikipedia:





From this article and from what I have previously heard and read about Davis, the cycle infrastructure is extensive enough to rival that of Amsterdam. However, a modal share of 15 percent is just slightly higher than that of Portland (8 percent, where most riders ride on city streets, although many are traffic-calmed bike boulevards). Irvine, CA has "44.5 miles (71.6 km) of off-road bicycle trails and 282 miles (454 km) of on-road bicycle lanes", but my understanding is that its modal share is incredibly small. I wish I could find an exact percentage -- most of what I have heard about Irvine is anecdotal, namely former residents saying that it was almost unheard of for people to use the bike paths for commuting or errands.

I don't feel like looking up the exact ridership of Copenhagen and Amsterdam right now, but I know it is somewhere between 40-50 percent. These are also colder and rainier cities.

Irvine and Davis seem to demonstrate that "if you build it, they will come" is only true up to a certain point -- you will get diminishing returns upon your investment unless there is some other factor encouraging people to bike.

The only other factors that I can think are the expensive parking, narrow streets, high cost of car ownership, and high energy prices that you find in European cities. If oil prices permanently shoot up to $200+ in the U.S. due to global demand outstripping supply, maybe our modal share will rival that of Europe. In that case, all we really have to do is wait -- bike specific infrastructure won't be necessary then, as the roads will become more hospitable due to fewer motorists (who will in turn be forced to modify their driving habits due to more cyclists).

(As a disclaimer, I don't really align myself with either the vehicular cyclist or "built a s**t ton of specialized infrastructure" side of the debate. I take more of a minimalist stance, namely that bike boulevards combined with bike/ped shortcuts and bridge paths are the most inexpensive and cost-effective form of infrastructure, and that they aren't based upon the utopian vision that we could persuade the majority of the population to cycle without economic necessity forcing them to.)