If NYC can do it...

over the last 20 or so years, the percentage of New Yorkers who use cycling to commute has doubled, to 0.6 percent in 2009 from 0.3 percent in 1990, according to an analysis of census figures by John Pucher, a Rutgers University professor who studies bicycle trends worldwide. That still leaves New York behind Chicago, with 1.2 percent of commuters on bikes; Washington, D.C., with 2.2 percent; San Francisco, with 3 percent; and Portland, with 5.8 percent. WHAT’S keeping more cyclists in New York from doing so? “The indifference of the New York City Police Department is the biggest obstacle,” said Charles Komanoff, a mathematical economist and past president of Transportation Alternatives. He and other cycling advocates said that police officers too seldom ticket drivers who ignore cyclists’ rights, particularly by treating biking lanes as temporary parking spots and thus forcing bike riders to swerve into and out of traffic.