Green Daily

A while back, I asked 'would you bike more if you had a separated lane?' Well, the jury is still out on that, but it doesn't seem to matter -- the number of people commuting by bike is skyrocketing anyway. Apparently, there is one surefire way to get Americans to ditch their cars for short trips: out of control gas prices. For decades, cities have been trying to encourage bike commuting, but to no avail. Now, after a few months of unprecedented gas hikes, bike commuting is finally catching on.

Cities like Chicago and Washington, DC are seeing the number of riders in their bike lanes double. In the crown jewel of US bike cities -- Portland, OR -- about 5.4% of the population used bikes as their primary means of getting to work in 2006. Chicago expects bike commuters to make up 5% by 2015, up from the current 1.5%. It's no Europe -- where about 30% of the population commutes by bike -- but it's a pretty huge increase for the nation that epitomizes 'car culture.'