Got to hand it to the evil geniuses that work for the City of Winnipeg. You waste millions upon millions of dollars building bike paths and bike lanes that you know nobody is going to use ... so your plan is to make traffic so funking bad that people will decide to bike to work because now this is the only way to get to work or home in less than 2 hours.
I'm a bike commuter for largely the reasons you suggested, but I've been doing it for those reasons for about seven years now. No, I'm not militant, nor am I crazy enough to ride in winter (balancing on thin rubber tires on ice while in traffic doesn't appeal to me). But I very much prefer riding to driving as I get way too annoyed by the morons on the road coupled with traffic delays (often created by said morons on the road).
My choices were thus: drive to work - about 20-25 minutes in the morning, 30-45 minutes going home; bus to work - absurdly an hour each way thanks to the lack of express routes convenient to my start/finish times; cycle 30-35 minutes each way with the exception of notoriously windy days. It was a no brainer once I got into it. I am very, very lucky that my route has many paved or gravel paths so I'm on the roadway very little, though I do have to cross five major arteries in the city each way.
Most of the bike paths that the city has built I wouldn't want to use. Downtown those separate lanes are treacherous IMO. The stuff like Pembina Highway where you weave up onto the sidewalk near bus stops is nutty because no pedestrian is expecting you there. I had a guy standing on the pictogram of a bike give me the finger one morning because "I was on the sidewalk". I do like the paths like those along McGillivray or Waverly where the bike path is well separated from the roadway, though obviously there are few routes that afford that kind of space.
When I drive I hate cyclists; when I ride I hate motorists.
