"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:j4JTc.314255$XM6.88329@attbi_s53...
Iowa City spent a hundred thousand dollars (or more) installing "bicycle
lifts" on the front of all city buses. These contraptions allow the bus
driver to stop, get out, and "easily" load a bicycle onto a rack mounted
on
the front of the bus.

Those racks, along with bicycle lanes on bridges and bike trails and the
like, are heavily used in this area. I think it depends a lot on population
density, though I would have expected bicycling to be more popular than it
is in your area -- after all, you don't have the hills we do. It has been
kind of miserable riding across the Hood Canal Bridge lately since the bike
lane has been all but closed for bridge maintenance, but I expect once that
is completed that people will be riding across the bridge again.

Of course, I am one of those infernal bike nuts, which I suppose would make
me a Green when I am not a rabid right-wing conservative. :-)

It is funny how some pilots who are sensitive to airlines complaining that
we don't pay our fair share of taxes will turn around and level the same
charge at bicyclists, yet the situations are very similar. Sure, bicyclists
don't pay gas taxes when they are not driving cars, but then in most places
gas taxes aren't being used to pay for roads anyway. There is very little
difference between bicyclists and motorists on the total amount of taxes
paid.