I was in Tucson last week. For about 40 years, Tucson has been building a Loop trail that makes a big circle around downtown, following dry creeks. At cross-streets, the trail dips down into the flood zone, passing through culverts to get under each bridge. They've built 100 miles, to date, and spent over $100 million. It's nice!
https://flic.kr/p/T1nsXU
The city and county are leading the trail development and maintenance effort, reflecting a long-term commitment to building, maintenance, and promotion of the trails and parks. They've put a lot of work into landscaping, sculptures, connections into neighborhoods ... they've done a lot of things right. This reminded me a bit of the relatively strong governmental commitment to trail-building that you see in Ohio, and it contrasts with Pennsylvania, where state and county have paltry interest in such things, typically, our state transportation department treat bikes as an afterthought, and many trail groups are volunteers constantly scrounging for funding scraps.
The Loop planners estimate that their return on investment with trail building is 900%, between health care costs averted, increased real estate value, recreational benefit, and increased sales tax. See Loop map & economic info:
http://www.apwa.net/library/meetings/congress/9606.pdf
But Tucson is not bike heaven; much of the city is car-crazed and ridiculously sprawled, in the L.A. mold. Many of its streets have more lanes than Pittsburgh's interstates!
Mitigating the sprawl some is the designation of a few streets, such as Third Street, shown below, as bike boulevards, meaning they have speed bumps, roundabouts, 20mph speed limit, leading to a very bike-friendly street.
https://flic.kr/p/SSCGfi
Where a bike route crossed a busy street, I encountered a HAWK beacon (High-Intensity Activated crossWalK beacon). I tried it and it worked: when I pushed the button, the light for cars turned yellow immediately, then red, allowing me to cross.
https://flic.kr/p/SSCGeM
Tucson also has a Bike Church. (click for uncropped)
https://flic.kr/p/T1nsX3