Miles and miles to go to catch up...

I was reviewing the posting over at Streetsblog LA about the 2010 Los Angeles draft Bicycle Plan and thought to do a little comparison; what else are statistics good for? The plan calls of the creation/designation of approximately 40 miles of new bikeways each year from 2010 to 2015. I knew this was below some other more forward thinking city's, but alright, lets just consider Los Angeles. According to Los Angeles Almanac there are a total of 20,771.64 miles of public roads within the city, of those 3,117.40 are County roadways, 869.03 are State highways, and 16,785.21 are City roadways. It would seem that if you are a cyclist who does not feel safe outside of a designated bikeway, and there are many who feel that way, you will not be getting especially far. I know, there are many variables involved, things like proximity to existing bikeways, and whether the new ones actually go somewhere useful, but 240 miles over 6 years added to the 337.88 miles of existing bikeways (according to the 2009 LADOT Los Angeles Transportation Profile) still leaves a long way to go.