That's the subject of a paper by Royce Hanson of the Montgomery County Planning Board and Garry Young of the GW Institute of Public Policy. From the abstract
One potentially effective political strategy that was successful in Arlington is for activists to pressure elected officials to select professional managers who see bikeways as crucial to the overall transportation system. Then it is important to formalize the government-citizen relationship through an advisory panel. Also, in Arlington, the incremental creation of biking assets helped create demand for more and better facilities. In turn, this created political support for expanding and upgrading. Finally, Arlington used potentially negative circumstances (e.g., the building of highway corridors, the introduction of the Metro) as opportunities to change the built environment in ways that have encouraged more active living.
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