Building the world class city is more than making statements

Boston is mulling over making the commitment to becoming a "world class" city for bicycling. They take heart in the fact that in the 1970s, Copenhagen was not the kind of bicycling city that it is today, but much like other places.

The Boston Globe has an article about this, "World-class bike cities? Why not Boston?," keyed on the fact that Boston has hired a person to coordinate bicycling programs for the city.

To track this, the Globe has introduced "Shifting Gears," described as:

a regular column that will follow Greater Boston's path toward this goal. We'll keep our eye on policy and progress, and also take some detours along the way to explore the daily joys and hassles of pedaling around this city.

One of the reasons I like measures like the Prevention Magazine list of best walking cities, although granted the criteria are not likely to be perfect (i.e., in another survey, Baltimore was ranked more highly than DC in terms of being livable without having a car), they are independent. If you make that list, it's not merely a matter of puffery.