Can you imagine mayoral candidates arguing about which is more committed to bicycling?

I don't write about bicycling all the time because I bicycle. It's because support of bicycling is a kind of symbol for how a community looks at mobility and urbanism.

Today's Independent has a story about the plans for instituting a bikesharing program in London, "Livingstone plan for street-corner cycle hire stands," plans that are quite ambitious (at least compared to DC), but interestingly, the Conservative Party candidate for Mayor of London finds issues with the proposal--not that people are being forced to bicycle, like some of the crazy Republicans in Congress or Mary Peters, the pro-automobile Secretary of the Department of Transportation--but that it doesn't go far enough. From the article:

But Boris Johnson, the Conservative candidate for Mayor of London, said that Mr Livingstone had been "stampeded" into his announcement and insisted that the proposed London bike hire scheme was only a fraction of the size of the operation in Paris.

He said: "There is no doubt that the Mayor has been stampeded into this measure because he faces a cycling opponent. Some of the proposals sound like waffle. For example, why do Londoners deserve a bike-hire scheme that is a third the size of Paris?

Imagine, candidates competing on the quality of bikesharing programs, rather than roadbuilding programs?

Still, the way that Paris or London deals with mobility far outspans how we do it locally. It's about transformation of behavior and systems in fundamental, paradigm changing ways. One way to see this is by looking at the Transport for London website. It's not just about taking a bus or riding the subway. It's about mobility, and efficient mobility at that.

From the article:

Mr Livingstone said he aimed to ensure that one journey in 10 was made by bicycle in London, a shift in transport habits that would save 1.6 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions each year.

The Mayor, who is also expected to announce a crackdown on 4x4s today, said: "The aim of this programme is nothing short of a cycling and walking transformation in London. We will spend something like £500m over the next decade on cycling, the biggest investment in cycling in London's history, which will mean that thousands more Londoners can cycle in confidence on routes that take them quickly and safely where they want to go."

Sure we care about non-automobile based mobility, but we aren't focused on how to make such mobility an integral part of our daily lives.

Of course, it's much easier to do this in places like London, Paris, or New York City, because compared to DC they are much denser, larger places, with far more amenities available at the neighborhood level, and with a transit system that is both deeper and wider than that present in the DC region.