"building a better cycling culture"

Yesterday, Smile Politely posted an article about how communities across the U.S. have tried to encourage bicycling.  Dedicated bike lanes turn out to have a big impact, which is good news for Urbana since the city council just recommended implementing bike lanes on Main Street.

There's a lot of great stuff in the article, but this is my favorite (I'm still upset about my home state, Florida, getting impacted by BP's oil spill):

Creating bicycle infrastructure has been shown to have significant safety and economic benefits.  In addition to these benefits bicycling is the most efficient form of transportation in terms of fuel used and Green House Gases (GHG) produced.  About 50% of the average American households GHG emissions are for transportation.  Switching a few trips per week per household to walking/ bicycling/transit has more impact on reducing GHG emissions than replacing all household light bulbs with compact fluorescents, increasing insulation, replacing energy inefficient appliances, and replacing windows with energy efficient ones.  Any community that wants to reduce its carbon footprint has to provide infrastructure for walking, biking, and transit to give residents safe, easy, and accessible transportation choices.

 Here's the rest of it!