Boston Now: Cycling summit gets rolling

Cycling advocates and transportation planners from around the country are gathered in Boston this week to advise city planners in a three-day cycling summit. “Boston has the potential to be the best biking city in the country,” Mayor Thomas M. Menino said at a kick-off event yesterday on City Hall Plaza. Menino’s previous cycling initiatives have stalled, but this time may be different, said summit participant Steve Madden, editor-in-chief of Bicycling magazine.

“It’s much more public,” said Madden, a Boston native whose magazine has historically rated Boston among the worst cycling cities. “With so much attention being paid to it, it’s a lot harder to back off of it.” Cities of Boston’s size are good for cycling, said Andy Clarke, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based League of American Bicyclists. “We’re saying not to put on spandex and ride 50 miles, but just to ride two or three miles around their neighborhoods,” he said.