Why L'Ville is different

I remarked previously that it didn't seem like many people actually biked to the Bike Summit II. Roaming around tonight I found an article via Rocbike of Albany, NY and their first public meeting to discuss their new city bike plan. The author states,

Almost 200 people turned out — but you would have been able to predict that even before entering the building: Every available sign and stachion on the sidewalk had a bike locked to it.

I don't want to dog our fair city and its efforts to increase bike facilities and usage, but I'm just simply struck by this observation. It seems like their attendance, about 200, is similar to our Bike Summit II. Their metro population, 850,000 (including some other local cities), is about the same as our own. But what is different is that there were not bikes coming our of the woodwork at our local meeting. Furthermore, the article states that the central premise of the meeting is to discuss the development of functional bike paths which will connect the city and will get people out of their cars. Our entire morning session was nothing more than an Ad campaign for a suburban park that you won't be able to get to without a car. I just have this sneaking suspicion that bike usage in Louisville is overwhelmingly recreational, as opposed to functional, and that many of our long-term goals (the 100-mile Louisville Loop) mirror this usage, as that of recreation and not as something transformational, like the bicycle as transportation. Just a thought.