if you take a look at most bike planning, and guidelines from AASHTO on how to go about this,


identifying routes likely used by bicyclists is core to this process.

in rural areas this can consist of simply picking the direct, paved road on the map that goes between to centers of population. In small towns it usually recognizes routes between schools and residental as part of safe routes to school identification and will take into consideration areas of confluence like shopping centers, grocery stores, post office, etc.Identifying bike routes in a small town of a couple thousand people is likely to be fairly straightforward.

Once routes are identified, bridges and over/underpasses need closer look soon in the process to identify 'pinch points' for immediate short term fixes prior to potentially long term, more extensive retrofits.

As a case in point and areas I'm slightly more familiar with that you may be too, bicycling needs in Northwestern lower Michigan, to look at bike routes between Empire and Frankfort, or Frankfort to Manistee, are going to be fairly straightforward.

In the Upper peninsula its going to be even more obvious- just put a wide shoulder on the paved roads between communities! Urban areas need their own cooridinated plan on the county level perhaps rather than municipality by municipality.

The problem of course is in the financing and implementing bicyclist friendly travel enhancements.

state requirements ensuring adequate shoulder widths on all repaving projects is a good way to go about this slow-term.