I used to bike to work in my suit in Copenhagen. Kids are driven to nursery and kindergarten on bikes like this:
http://www.christianiabikes.com/
In NYC I always thought they could benefit from real, separate bike paths and not just the bike lanes created by stripes painted on the avenues.
But honestly, I am not sure the idea of biking is going to pick up in America. Biking is popular in Denmark and the Netherlands where temperatures rarely fall below 20-25 degrees in the winter and where summer temperatures above 77 degrees is something experienced 5-10 days a year. Most American cities have much warmer summers and much harder winters - even if they had bike lanes it wouldn't be comfortable to use a bike as means of transportation.
In LA temperatures rarely fall below 50 degrees in the winter and are rarely above 85 in the summer. Yet LA is jam packed with cars and features traffic jams at any time of day.
I think LA is a perfect city for bike streets. There are underground gangs of byciclist in LA that periodically take over large streets by swarming them with thousands of bikes and completely shutting down car traffic. I am sure they do this to give city planners a clue, but the clues are slow to come.
In NYC I always thought they could benefit from real, separate bike paths and not just the bike lanes created by stripes painted on the avenues.
But honestly, I am not sure the idea of biking is going to pick up in America. Biking is popular in Denmark and the Netherlands where temperatures rarely fall below 20-25 degrees in the winter and where summer temperatures above 77 degrees is something experienced 5-10 days a year. Most American cities have much warmer summers and much harder winters - even if they had bike lanes it wouldn't be comfortable to use a bike as means of transportation.