And how much of the general population does that total of people cycling is? Like 0.05% of the population? Cycling is nice healthy and eco-friendly yet being honest they dont trully serve a metropolitan area, more bus routes and comunal tranportation methods is what is trully needed on an urban area,
Probably there were only 3 people using bikes and now there are 5, that is a HUGE percental increase but not quite significant as a whole
Anecdotal, but: Yesterday I rode on the Midtown Greenway, chain of lakes paths, Mississippi River Trail, and Minnehaha Creek trail in Minneapolis. They each serve as a big artery to access various semi-urban parts of the city. You'd be surprised how many people are out biking. Each of those trails have a road that runs parallel to them, and there are consistently more people on the trail than on the road. Meanwhile, the trails take up half the space of the road, and spacing between bikes can be much tighter. Each of those bike trails also has a nice pedestrian path running parallel. I'd estimate the portion of the nearby population utilizing either the bike or pedestrian trails is more like 20-30%
I agree that improving bus infrastructure would be a huge help, but that's not mutually exclusive to improving bike infrastructure. If you haven't experienced biking in Minneapolis, please visit some time! Try our bike share bikes, and the trails above, and see for yourself.
Probably there were only 3 people using bikes and now there are 5, that is a HUGE percental increase but not quite significant as a whole