My wife is trying to get funding for a local bike path. As with most "community" changes she's running into the typical, "Not in my yard" resistance. Some of the questions are legit most are simply whining.

Anyway alot of questions revolved around crime, loitering, increased traffic, increased littering etc etc.

I'm wondering if anyone knew of a source of information that deals or has dealt with these sort of issues or better yet if any of you have gone thru the process.

More specifically I'm looking for information on how bike paths positively or negatively affect the communities they go thru. Statistics on crime, littering, etc etc would be preferable.

From my standpoint, obviously biased, the crime, littering, property damage etc etc are merely excuses to keep the people away. Seems to me that with a path comes a greater sense of community awareness. People meet there neighbors, get to know the neighborhood, are healthier and therefore a stronger community emerges. However that's an opinion backed by nothing and is worth nothing more than the naysayers opinion without facts.

Any help, articles, links would be greatly appreciated.

~Matt