What Bike-Friendly Cities Look Like

"Good bicycling infrastructure...doesn't mean a 'bike route' sign and a white stripe along the arterial. It doesn't mean a meandering trail shared with joggers, strollers, and skaters.

Bike friendly means a complete, continuous, interconnected network of named bicycle roads...It means a parallel network interlaced with the other urban grids: the transit grid on road or rail; the street grid for cars, trucks, and taxis; and the sidewalk grid for pedestrians. It means separation from those grids...

Picture a street more than half of which is reserved for people on foot, bikes, buses, or rail; on which traffic signals and signs, street design, and landscaping all conspire to treat bicycles as the equals of automobiles...

Moreover, the quality of biking infrastructure matters as much as the quantity. Slapping a 'bike route' sign on a road may qualify it for a city's registry but doesn't help cyclists much. Conversely, traffic calming on residential streets may make entire neighborhoods bike friendly without adding a mile to the bikeway count."