Moscow cyclists are getting new bike paths. Do Muscovites get a say?

Few descriptions of Moscow, even by admirers, have ever called this huge, overpowering metropolis “user-friendly.”

Its efficient but crowded metro and choking traffic streams move its 12 million inhabitants every day, but somehow make getting from place to place an exhausting and demoralizing effort.

But all that has been rapidly changing over the past decade, as an activist mayor backed by a professional bureaucracy has channeled the city’s resources into huge public works programs.

And lately the city’s urban planners have put on their green caps, replacing many of Moscow’s creaking old buses with brand new, Russian-made electric-powered ones, the largest such fleet in Europe. Their latest project is to construct a “green ring” of bicycle paths and hiking trails to connect the city’s giant