Do we really care as much as we say we do?

Living in Los Angeles, I get my fair share of traffic. I have only lived here for about a year, but I knew of the traffic problem (like I'm sure everyone else does) before I moved here. However, it's not so bad if you plan your living and working locations properly (or have the luxury to do so). I live about 9 miles from work. In the morning, if I were to leave home at 7:30 AM to go to work, I can generally get there in about 35 min. However, if I leave work at 5 PM, it'll take me the better part of an hour to get home. 9 MILES! So, I adjusted my schedule to get to work at 7 AM and leave work at 4 PM to avoid the traffic. This has cut my commute time down to about 35 min going home. Now, traffic isn't something new to any major city, but a lot of major cities have done well in setting up mass transit to help mitigate the issue.

LA has quite a few buses, but not many subway / metro trains. They have streets that they claim are bike paths. Some of these streets actually have an extra white line to dedicate to bikes while most are simply a normal street (perhaps a bit wider) with a sign that says "bike path". This is a joke. The number of auto drivers that actually respect a bike rider is about 50/50. A lot of times a car will not nudge over, not even a little bit, to give the biker room. I think it's high time to paint that extra line on those other streets that are labeled "Bike Path" and give some added assurance to potential bike commuters that they aren't going to risk severe injury or death when attempting to ride their bike to work in one of the most populated cities in North America.

Do we really care as much as we say we do about fuel prices, green house effect, global warming, etc... If so, there are many things that could be done in our own cities to promote greener living. How about starting by giving bike commuters dedicated lanes to ride in?