Tooker Gomberg, the bike-riding former councillor who died tragically in 2004, had a dream of Edmonton as a city of cycling. He envisioned a place where people could cycle anywhere at virtually any time of the year, on safe cycling routes.

“It just makes sense, economically and socially,” he told me one spring day in 1989 when I spent a few hours cycling with him for a story I was working on. I recall being captivated by his enthusiasm but unconvinced that such a northern city with five months of winter and seven months of bad skating could became a cycling capital.

What Tooker knew then, and I didn’t, was that globally, more people get to work by bicycle than by automobile. In fact, hundreds of millions of citizens in China, India and a dozen countries in Europe hop on a bike for their daily commute.

With 1.4 billion bicycles in use worldwide (compared to 530 million automobiles), perhaps it's no wonder that 100 million bikes are now manufactured annually. That’s more than double the 42 million cars produced in 2003. Even cities in the world's cooler climes are experiencing a surge in bicycle use, as health- and eco-savvy urban planners implement bicycle-friendly policies.

Since 1990, Portland, Oregon, has expanded its bicycle network fourfold, to more than 240 kilometres, and ridership has tripled. The city is also instituting more end-of-trip facilities and improved integration of bicycle use and public transit, while enhancing safety features on bike routes.

In Alberta, however, bicycle riders are still peddling uphill, with the wind in their faces. At long last, Edmonton and Calgary are in the midst of plans to encourage cycling and make it safer for cyclists and motorists to share the roads – just as Tooker said they would one day.

Edmonton is revamping its bicycle transportation plan, recommending improvements that will go before city council. Calgary is spending $1 million a year for the next five years on cycling routes.

The Edmonton Bicycle Transportation Plan calls for the city to create nearly 500 kilometres of marked bike lanes and trails. The plan would build a network of bike-accessible routes just a few minutes apart that would reach most major destinations in the city. Planners estimate building the grid would cost about $100 million over ten years.

Since the city’s bicycle transportation plan was last modified in 1992, the number of cyclists has more than doubled. In the 2006 census, 195,515 Canadians identified bicycling as their primary mode of transport while commuting. Of those, 19,300 were in Alberta, and 6,235 were in Edmonton.

But the StatsCan numbers don't tell the entire story, nor provide a current measure of ridership, says Michael Kalmanovitch, president of Edmonton Bicycle Commuters. "Our membership has more than doubled in the last couple of years, and we're seeing more people are using bicycles to get where they need to go. It makes an enormous amount of sense – cycling eliminates noise and emissions, decreases traffic congestion, uses land and road space efficiently, improves health and fitness, costs virtually nothing and is a lot of fun."

Edmonton's household travel survey, conducted in 2005, found a 150% increase in cycling between 1994 and 2005. Meikle says the reasons for the increase are varied. "Bicycle commuting is becoming more of a mainstream transportation option and, as fuel prices continue to rise, we are going to see more Albertans biking to work," says Jessie Meikle, the Alberta Motor Association’s environment project coordinator. "It doesn't cost much – all you need is a bike, a helmet, and a lock. As an added bonus, it's one of the easiest ways to integrate exercise into your daily life." I ride my bike whenever I can, and feel better for it.

Currently, Edmonton's cycling network is comprised of 135 km of multi-use trails in the North Saskatchewan River valley. Fifty–five kms of the trails are paved, while 80 km are granular surface. The city also has six km of on-road contra-flow bike lanes, more than 100 km of shared-use sidewalks (multi-use trails), six km of bus/taxi/bike lanes, and more than 30 km of trails along utility rights-of-way.

Cities around the world that have expanded their cycling infrastructure provide ample evidence of the difference it can make. They illustrate some valuable lessons to improve the transportation network through more thoughtful and intuitive urban design.

"The knowledge is there, the ingenuity is there,” Kalmanovitch says. “All it takes is the political will to design and build transportation infrastructure that recognizes bicycles as a key part of the solution."

Just like Tooker Gomberg said it could.

Next week: Moving Forward with Cycling Improvements.