Madison, where the powerful bike lobby pushes for policies that will get 20% of workers commuting by bike...

... bicycle commuting dropped to only 4.69% in 2011. The previous year it was 6.03%.

The bike lobby folks disparage the survey, which asked people how they got to work in the previous week. Maybe the question was asked after a week of nasty weather. Of course, here in Wisconsin, it's frequently too cold or rainy for anyone other than a hardcore bicyclist.

The number of people walking (8.38 percent) and using a motorcycle (0.15 percent) to get to work edged down slightly. The number who said they took public transportation to work (8.79 percent) inched up, and those who drove to work alone rose to 65.46 percent from 63.42 percent.

This is America, people. We drive. We have a lifestyle built on cars. Do you mind?

Arthur Ross, Madison's pedestrian-bicycle coordinator, could not be reached Thursday for comment, but data from the city paint a picture of steady growth for bike commuters. According to a 2011 report by the city's traffic engineering department, the annual average volume on the John Nolen Drive and Brittingham Park bike paths has steadily climbed since 1987, when an average of 400 bikes per day used the paths. In 2011, the number, according to the bike counts, had more than doubled to about 975 bikes per day.

Yes, but are these people biking to work? Or are we talking about people who bike for exercise/pleasure on weekends and off hours, mostly concentrated in the pleasantest times of the year? I know I bike those paths a lot, but not as a method of commuting.

Meanwhile the 20% goal lives on, with influential politicos hyping expensive improvements (or supposed improvements) as if people will shift to bicycle commuting. I find it amusing that my liberal city puts so much tax money into amenities that serve, overwhelmingly, its white male population.