How One New York bike lane could affect the future of cycling worldwide, an article in the Guardian today, is just one example of the worldwide coverage our local bike lane controversy is getting.

The Guardian also examines the New York Times’ coverage of the bike lane lawsuit. A front page article in yesterday’s NY times was, according to the Guardian, very partisan. And last weekend, a  profile of Janette Sadik-Khan, transportation commissioner focused mainly on the way she rubs many city officials the wrong way.

Clearly this is bigger than just a neighborhood battle about a bike lane. The future of biking in New York City is at stake. It’s cars vs. bikes. It’s congestion pricing, bike advocacy and all the other eco-visionary things that many in the city support (and many oppose). It’s also New York pols setting up the perameters for the next mayoral election.

No doubt about it: this is power politics getting played out on a bicycle path. As the Guardian writes:

Connect the dots, and this becomes a much more significant story than the future of one bike lane in Brooklyn, or even the career of one official. New York City justly sees itself as the world’s greatest city: here, in some sense, people live the way everyone would live if they had the chance. How New York – the city that still has a uniquely low level of car ownership and use – manages its transport planning in the 21st century matters for the whole world: it is the template. If cycling is pushed back into the margins of that future, rather than promoted, along with efficient mass public transit and safe, pleasant pedestrianism, as a key part of that future, the consequences will be grave and grim.