For the sizes of the cities, they seem on the small side. Are smaller, sub-million population cities, typically supporting higher use rates?

Blatant Madison, WI boosterism follows:

I live a long block from a Madison, WI bike path, probably one of the top 5 or so used paths in Madison, from the SW close-in suburbs that connects to UW-Madison and the Downtown Capitol core, continuing on to the near East side. The usage per day on this path must be 2-5 thousand people a day on average and I’m being conservative. It’s being used before dawn to well after dark. The path also is used to walk pets, joggers/runner/skaters and to provide a doddering Badger Fan a route into and back to Camp Randall for football games (and a refreshing chance for drunk fans to start to sober up, before they put keys into an ignition, with plenty of secluded spots to upchuck should the need arise. This was built on the grade of a Rail Road to Illinois that was abandoned with the tracks now lifted up.

We have Madison girdled with bike paths, and the City and the UW keep them quite well (plowed early, dependably, in most weather (lots easier to quickly push snow from a little 8-10 ft. wide asphalt bike path with a little vehicle. Bikes and people don’t pack the snow into ice like what happens to the car roads.

This is a constant process and we also recently adopted some of the best ideas of marking the streets to make the bike territory on a multi-use street and intersections clear, and therefore avoid bikes riding on busy sidewalks (the most dangerous place to ride in my opinion) and crashing into pedestrians, jaywalkers and brain dead students. They will grow out of it.

Bike paths have turned out to be a real boon to our congested, parking starved city core. Bike paths are cheap to build and very cheap to maintain.

And we certainly need the relief the bikers provide for core parking, as its like Black Water trains our Madison Parking Police, and they show no mercy to the violator, much to the delight of a few local towing companies… WARNING the UW Parking Droids make Madison’s mercenaries look like Mother Teresa by comparison! You have been warned!

Also, I’d guess that about 50 percent of local riders are females, except in the worst of the winter weather. This is mostly because of the many UW students and staffers plus the downtown workers.

If there was enough cheap, close-to-work parking it would likely be otherwise. Many parkers car commute in until parking gets a little bit scarce, then park, haul a bike from the bike rack and finish the commute on two wheels, a great adaption to the environment, and it allows many a fast free way to snarf lunch or deliver small packages in the parking locked city center or UW campus.

You can also do something similar: with many Madison City Busses, but they can only hold two bikes in the front rack, so you might have to wait at prime times… Earning some browny points at work to have a bit flex hours for your schedule can help here a lot, by just avoiding the peak hours for the bus system.

Come and check Madison out in April to October for a great bike riding tour. Some of the city paths connect now to far-flung parks and scenic areas:

South to Northern Illinois (w/tunnels). Connects eventually to a big Illinois bike trail.

North to the Baraboo Bluffs and Devils Lake, this is mostly on sleepy farm roads and can use a free Ferry Crossing to cross the mighty the Wisconsin River. Amazing views and great Wildlife in the Devils Lake State Park, plenty of Rattle Snakes too, I got pictures… Would it be that I could still climb those quartzite boulder trails.

West all the way out to Blue Mounds State Park, at the edge of the non-glaciated region, a more steeply sloped area for those who like to stand up on their pedals yet. Madison is hilly, but of the Glacial Gravel piled-up sort.

Finally, recently We have an easterly path to Waukesha, and I suspect it will soon (~2-3years) reach the Western suburbs of Milwaukee (Brookfield, Wauwatosa and West Allis). This is a long ride for most in a single day, but doable for many in a two-three day trip (depending on fitness and your discipline to ride pat some very neat stops.

Many B&B’s and other lodging and stuff to visit on the route, including just a bit South of the path is Ten Chimneys an amazing paid tour of the best of eclectic living from 1920-1940 rated number one attraction of this sort in the state and along with one of Wisconsin’s best restaurants: The Union House very nearby to 10 Chimneys, to the East.

We have also completed and planned bike paths following the shores of the 5 local lakes that empty into the Rock River. Including some changes to allow running and biking competitions to occur simultaneously on the lakes in the city of Madison.

My guess is that Madison and Dane County leads Wisconsin in bike paths, but other areas are working quite a bit also to build scenic and safe bike routes. I hope to see many of the trail heads, parks and distant bike trails all reasonably connected by safe paths or quiet car routes. For a simpler, greener and a healthier Wisconsin level of fitness (as we got some real problems in that area).

Daniel J. Luedtke

We really need to change the cultural barriers to cycling in the U.S. I’m not convinced we will do this by building infrastructure and hoping the cultural shift will follow, or whether we need to break down cultural barriers to cycling with the infrastructure changes following. Chicken? Egg? Hmmm…..

Start in places where cycling is already popular. Minneapolis, etc. Report back….

APBP wanted to better understand why we saw so many more women cycling in the European cities visited on the 2009 bike ped safety and mobility scan than we would typically see in the U.S. and Canada. With the help of APBP member Fionnuala Quinn, we launched a survey (13,000 women responded), hosted a webinar in 2010 and another on 3/30/11 at 3pm Eastern time. View survey results and link to archived webinars at http://www.womencyclingproject.info. We are finalizing edits on three reports on several of the open-ended questions. APBP is willing to make the data available to researchers for further study.

APBP is planning to make this (or a related) website interactive so people can post ideas, resources, ask questions, etc. Together, we can learn and improve cities for cycling.

http://isocrates.us/bike/2011/03/info-graphic-shows-bicycling-ratios/