> “The city was close to bankruptcy in 1993, but it still wanted to promote development, so it had to go with cheapest option available, which was cycling infrastructure,” Kabell says.

THIS. The cost of a lane-mile of pavement for bicyclists is vastly lower than the cost of a line-mile of pavement for cars & trucks. Mostly, that's because the 99th percentile weight of bikes is maybe 350 lbs. Vs. the 99th percentile weight of cars & trucks is more like 70,000 lbs. And pavement damage from traffic is proportional to the 4th power of the weight.