I ride outside NYC, and the cyclists I see (99.9%) are riding for fitness not transportation, so I'm not sure how relevant my post is to the article posted, but:
I've noticed an increase in women cycling over the past 30 years, and the trend has really accelerated in the past 2 years or so. 30 years ago it was very rare to see a woman cycling, and the few women you did see were nearly always accompanied by at least one man, often it was one woman in a group of men. Now, I pass (ahem, get passed, usually) by whole groups of women, women in pairs, occasionally women cycling by themselves. The difference in the number of women cycling in my area is quite striking, this year in particular.