Bike maps are a good idea, but don't assume Google's walking maps are any good yet. Yes, it will direct you the wrong way down a one-way street, but it will ALWAYS take the street option, even in a community with plenty of pedestrian-only options.

I'd rather focus the efforts on making the walking maps useful first, because much of that work will be easily translated into bicycling.

47032 Signatures Total (including mine) on the petition.

I live in a small town (I'm talking apprx 360, give or take) in Kentucky and work 17 miles away. Some of the back roads have little or no shoulder area. But the main road has been widened in the last couple of years and now has nice big juicy shoulders. Now all I need is a bike.

Pete,

Regarding the hills...geography and weather do determine a culture at some level. Those old guys wearing ragged bicycle clothing next to me in Italy a few years back didn't look menacing but their daily ride up and down some incredibly steep hills/mountains shaped both their endurance and their will. Though these guys just tooled around for fun, they more than likely could have kept up with USFC Cat 2 or 1 riders here in the states. Once you master those hills, sign up for a USFC bicycle race and see just how well you do!

You'll surprise yourself I'm sure.

I live in a sort-of rural suburb and fear for my life when I ride with car and truck drivers who hate to share a state road with a bicyclist.

Two deaths and one seriously injured in 4 years is too risky and all within a mile of my home. And asking for bike lanes or paths is a comedic endeavor...

The thought of using a bike for local transportation is just that... I would love to use the bike to go to the store, bank, post office, restaurants, etc. because they're all within 3 or 4 miles of home. I just happen to live in a combustion engine dominated area.

I'm trying to work with the local bike clubs to get the state, county and local communities to make things bicycle friendly but it's going to take time...

What keeps me from biking to work is my schedule. I have appointments/activities that are too far to bike to after work, and that keep me out after dark. The nearest is 5 miles away along a non-bikable road, with no decent alternative. The bike is not a good alternative when you only have 15-20 minutes to go 5 or more miles in traffic.

A second limit is that I have lousy night vision, so biking in the dark is simply out of the question. No amount of legislation, bike trails, or extra equipment can fix this one conditions.

I'm glad to see so many people making an effort, but there are solutions for those commenters who still have a hard time deciding to ride. If you live in hilly area and fear the hills get yourself a stokemonkey mounted on your bike. Have a hard time getting your local government to justify bikelanes? Ride anyway, because it is your right, and it creates awareness which will bring about change in perception and policy. Having a hard time riding at night? Invest in a quality dual-beam headlight- It has done wonders for my depth perception at night and your vision will be as good as when driving at night.

night biking: get a really good light. stay on roads with lights. flashers are so cars can see you [makes you a better target?] but a good niterider, at least 110 watts means you can see the road.

shoulders: what? riding on shoulders and bike lanes with cars makes me feel like the pigeon in a skeet shooting tournament.

hills: it's all about the climb. makes you strong, powerful. and what a rush going down at 37+mph!

irony: i used to bike to work every day, 10 miles roundtrip. now, i work at home and commute to bike trails and group rides.

I would love to be able to bike to work. Problem is, I have two jobs and I go straight from the first to the second (where I pick up at least two kids and their 8,000 lb backpacks) without much time.

Plus, Nashville may be one of the worst cities for any sort of transportation. Traffic sucks, the buses don't go past the county line (where I work) and unless you're commuting in certain areas, there are rarely even shoulders, let alone bike lanes.

I hope to have one job in a city that's a little more bike-friendly soon!

I live in SF as well, and used to suffer the same hill induced misery. Then I built a bike with an electric assist motor. I no longer fear the hills. If you can't build your own there are many to buy. For steep hills it's best if the motor drives through the gears (hub motors aren't okay). Check out Optibike (awesome), or Cyclone makes a do-it-yourself kit of this type architecture. It is so satisfying to blast up the steepest hill in SF!

"...geography and weather do determine a culture at some level"

I wish that was true. Here, it's the culture that dictates the lifestyle. El Paso is dry and warm year round, and relatively flat. It's the perfect place to ride a bike year round. It is the local culture that equates owning an SUV as a symbol of having arrived. A Hummer is the absolute bragging right. Riding a bicycle is considered a poor man's way. How to undo that mind set? I ride my bike to work and to nearby stores, hoping to create a reversed snobbery. We need more bike riders.

I do commute by bicyle part of the way. Currently, my schedule prevents me from doing the full 30-mile round trip (need to get home to dog, kids, etc.). I hope when the kids are older and I have more free time in the evening I can go all the way.

The only other impediment is weather -- I am not mad about cold weather or extreme precipitation so on those days I tend to haul off on the bus. Otherwise, I don't mind mixing it up with cars and trucks on the road; I have gotten very used to being scared (note: I never stopped being scared). I also have a great light for the evening. And I got a nice lightweight road bike so those hills don't even bother me anymore.

Although I live in Atlanta, I can relate to Dave's complaint about reckless drivers and the lack of bike lanes. Having come from Chicago, a city that invites ridership, Atlanta invites congestion. The trip I would need to take to work involves some hills--one doozy--but mostly it's the traffic whizzing by at 50mph and the semi-trucks that make up the bulk of the traffic that keep me from getting on my bike. It is truly fearsome. Thanks Atlanta for putting one more driver on the road...

I would bike a lot more if it was more easeful to take my bike on BART....maybe a BART car especially designed for holding a bikes and riders? My daughter and I could ride to almost everything she does from softball to clay classes if taking a bike on BART wasn't so cumbersome.

I would bike to work, and have been thinking about it for some time. Unfortunately, I would end up a sweaty mess by the time I got to work.
No place to wash up and no time.

I do a 24 mile commute twice a week in the san diego area. So grateful that most of my commute has bike lanes. normally takes me 1h15 on bike and 40 to 60 by car. No reasons not to bike commute in San diego. Great bike lanes, great weather, most people respect cyclist....

I work from home, but what prevents me from using my bike more is time. I have young kids and once I factor in the time to ride my bike for errands, I realize I'm cutting it too close and much of the time I end up taking the car instead. Yesterday I rode to my son's school to volunteer and the trip took 25 minutes more by bike than car. It was great, but I don't have an extra 50 minutes every day to build in to my errands.

My only issue with not biking to work is that the work is about 18 miles from where I live. I would bike if it was about 5-7 miles from home. What I have started though is over the weekends, instead of driving I walk to the nearby shopping center which is about 1.5 miles away.

Socio-econmic trends will have to change before we see the landscape transformed from one dominated by the auto to one shared with the auto. And honestly, as hybrid and electric cars take the plunge to Classe Bourgois, they'll re-certify the current infrastructure as auto-dominated.

...$6.00pg...$9.00pg...? Or, when its all gone...

I love cycling in any event!

I too also would like to bike to work. I have to drive through a rough neighborhood and there is spots with no side walks. The Chicago drivers seem to think you are a target while pedalling. They like to hit and run :( Some knuckle dragging idiots like to come up behind and blast their horn because they think its funny. Im very disappointed in this area. I used to live in Sandiego. It had lots of areas to ride and had ample bike paths. People treated the bikers like regular traffic and not something to try to run over.

Yew Ho gave SG this information. Thanks.

I work 6 miles from my home and would love to commute by bike. It could eliminate riding the bike at the gym several days a week. There are several reasons why I don't - 2 lane roads, rural area, no bike lanes, and lastly my mother-in-law sold our bikes while helping us with our garage sale last summer. Hey, she was trying to be helpful. With my work hours my commute home at night would be great - 2:30am with all the drunks leaving the bar!

The absence of municiple night lights will actually make you safer at night. Although this reads as counter intuitive, too much lighting is distracting.

I have a Xenon strobe light on my handle bars, a 500 watt halogen mounted to my helmut - so it shines where I look, reflective strobe ankle wraps and a red halogen strobe behind the seat. Combined with reflective clothing, these measures help keep me as safe as possible.

A State Police cruiser stopped me one night at about 1am in the morning and said they could see me from more than a quarter miles away on a back country road.

Yes, this was all expensive, but far less than you might think.

We have put together a google maps based cycling route planner for Vancouver BC that allows users to select their route preferences (topography, greenspace on route, air quality, etc.). The route is plotted including indications of steep uphill segments), you can download coordinates and upload to GPS if you want, and the site also calculates some rough stats. We've had great uptake from users and update the site periodically as route features change.

check it out at www.cyclevancouver.ubc.ca

Many of the comments talk about how bike-unfriendly their area is. (I'm in Miami. Add mine to the list.) San Diego seems to be the only place where you can ride and not fear for your life. Anybody experienced any other bike-friendly towns?

First, you have to be a good rider; possess good bike handling skills - know how to brake, shift and move in and out of tight spaces, have good situational awarness, know your own limitations - are you fit and how long can you ride before your concentration falls off...and then you have to pick the correct routes while wearing the correct gear...follow all traffic laws as if you were driving a car.

The above will help develop a sense of confidence while riding your bike but bad behaviour will not go away...I've had hot coffee thrown at me, all sorts of food - too bad none of it was edible - had a book thrown at me...the list goes on.

Confidence and a thick skin help, but never place yourself in apparent danger...sounds logical but I've seen some pretty stupid acts on a bicycle. Others aren't always to blame.

Cars and trucks always have the right of way, law or not. They are bigger...being right and dead at the same time is not confidence - insert a wink here.

Hills? Get an electric bike!

Post a banner that says, "Stop burning petroleum, unless you are on dark side"

Oh by the way, that includes all the hybriders too!

Seattle is another city that is at least somewhat friendly to bicycle riders. Car drivers are not as aggressive here, and the city plans to install bike lanes downtown.

Madison, Wisconsin was a heavenly little city for biking. Now I live in the most rural of areas, and forty-five miles from work, alas.

Agreed with posters that Chicago is not very bike friendly, but I never even owned a car in Chicago, because the mass transit was so robust.

I live in Highlands Ranch, a southern suburb of Denver, Colorado, and I've been biking to work seasonally for about 2 years now. I say seasonally because it has to be in the 30's in the am to get me on my bike - can't afford frozen fingers! Drivers have been 99% wonderful. I have never had anything thrown at me (thank goodness) although have gotten some rude gestures and some near-misses from the hummer-sized SUV's. I do ride on the shoulder, which at times is only a bike-width. I have learned to kiss the curb :). It takes me 25-35 minutes (depending on head-wind) to ride 5 miles on my mountain bike and thankfully I have a shower at work and secure bike parking. I have been loving bike week/month and I've been seeing a LOT more bikes on the roads!

As someone who has commuted to work by bike since a grad student at UCLA in the 1980s (Los Angeles, of all places!), my best advice is a simple "Just Do It", as the folks at Nike would say. Since those years back in LA, my commuter bike has traversed the wonderfully efficient bike paths of urban Germany, the rural backroads of Pennsylvania, and the wild and crazy streets of Boston/Cambridge. I estimate that my vintage Italian racing bike I have used for commuting since UCLA now has over 100,000 kilometers on it, and (knock on wood) I have yet to be in anything one would consider an accident.
I can certainly recognize the difference between the civilized conditions of a typical German city and the brutal free-for-all typical of American cities like Boston, but I have never taken this recognition into account when it comes to deciding *whether* I will bike commute or not. For me, the alternative of actually using my Volvo to commute the streets of Boston is pure insanity. Wherever I commute, I simply take the "environmental variables" into account and deal with them accordingly, whether is cold temperatures (warm clothes!), heavy traffic (bike helmet and a mirror!), or big hills (have the proper gearing!). Just as one speaks of things like "emotional intelligence", I guess there must be something like "bike commuter's intelligence"!

Leave a little early and keep a box of handi-wipes at work.

Lighting is a critical component for bike commuters, and what kind of lighting you need depends on the circumstances. In Boston I have used a more powerful Light & Motion light (www.bikelights.com), not so much for seeing potholes and the like (though it certainly helps for that), but rather for being seen by cars and people. Don't skimp on lighting, a good one will cost $200, give or take.

As someone who has lived in a RURAL pro biking area, I'll be honest when cars have to make way for the "road hogging bike riders" who ride two abreast, who are exercizing their sport,while the rest of us are trying to get to work, etc..it is definately annoying. If they were to support their fair share in licensing, I'd like them better. I do not think that someone going to work that way should have to pay road taxes. So, maybe if they can prove they are employed they could get a free tag. But let the others ride to their hearts content after they pay for a license. Not too different from fishermen and hunters who also have to pay for a permit. Then you can block the road. Just let drivers know what roads, so we can avoid them.

What prevents me biking is sexual and racial harrassment from drunk men on the sidewalks. I LOVE to bike and walk, but I intentionally choose a career field and a residential neighborhood that accepts people on the bottom end of the economic and social ladder. I'm very happy with my choices, but for my own sanity I try to minimize the harassment. Unfortunately the most effective way I've found is to stay in my car during the evenings when a lot of people are on the streets. My husband has even gone from bike commuting to taking the bus when possible. It's one of those cases where two justice issues come into conflict for us.