Here’s one more reason to make sure Rahm Emanuel is on Chicago’s mayoral ballot: he wants to expand Chicago’s current bicycle network. Emanuel detailed, “the three-point agenda at the Rapid Transit Cycleshop (Chicago), which includes adding 25 miles of bike lanes a year, leaving Chicago with 100 miles of protected bike lanes by the end of a first mayoral term,” SunTimes reports.

Other plans include the creation of the Bloomingdale Trail, a $75 million 2.65 mile trail built along Bloomingdale Avenue on the Northwest Side to accommodate commuters hoping to get Downtown, and for children in the area to get to and from 12 nearby schools. Emanuel said he would also push for a city ordinance to require certain Downtown buildings offer protected bike storage facilities to increase the number of bikers.

This is a great idea in every way. When New York added over 200 miles of bike lanes, bicycling in the city went up by a huge margin. According to Transportation Alternatives, the average number of bikers in New York each day in 2009 was roughly 236,000, up 28 percent from 185,000 daily riders the year before.

“More and better designed bike lanes, that’s clearly what’s fueling this growth,” Wiley Norvell, a spokesman for the bicycling and pedestrian advocacy group told the NY Times.

The number of miles traveled by bike also went up to 1.8 million miles from 1.4 million miles, according to their estimate.

With increased transit cuts and traffic congestion — biking seems like a great alternative. Bikes also don’t pollute, keep our population fit and during rush hour traffic, they often go faster than cars in most urban cities.

If enough cities made riders feel safe enough to ride on the streets, biking culture could exist in the U.S. like it does in Europe right now. Here’s to hoping!