Bikapalooza: City And Cyclists Like Ham And Cheese
It seems the citys [bike-lovin efforts] are paying off: the [League of American Bicyclists](http://www.bikeleague.org/) recently honored our little town for cyclist care with a [shiny bronze medal](http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2007/10/08/2007-10-08_new_york_honored_as_one_of_nations_most_.html). Hoping for the gold? That may be a bit of a reach considering only 0.5 percent of New Yorkers actually ride bikes to work, according to Census figures, compared to 2 percent in Seattle and San Francisco and a shocking 34 percent in Copenhagen. Damn Danes, setting the bar so high. Oh well, something to shoot for. And shoot we will with Mayor Bloombergs proposal to require commercial buildings to provide bicycle parking in an effort to cut down on theft. Then theres the citys plan to install between 400 and 500 bike racks a year and to establish more than 400 miles of bike lanes and paths by 2009. Still, for all our crazy cabbies and wildly aggressive pedestrians, there are only [2.8 bike deaths per million people](http://www.nysun.com/article/64149?page_no=1) annually in New York City, compared with 2.7 deaths nationally, according to the city health department and the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Not too shabby, but a study conducted last year by the city departments of health and transportation found that between 1996 and 2003, that worked out to 3,500 cyclists injured by cars and 225 killed. Like we said, NYC got the bronze.
Photo courtesy of [pixietart on Flickr]