I'm not saying a car never makes sense. But Americans go out of their way to justify using a car and refusing anything that might change that. Most people live near urban center probably in suburbs. Those are just very bad land use, but with some small changes, bikes could be reasonable to get to a somewhat close bus or train station.
nor would it be safe on country roads at night
Protected bike lanes, as I said.
I still drive almost every day to sports practices, dance classes, music lessons, or visits to the grandparents. I own a bike, as does every member of my family, but we only ride recreationally.
Sports and grandparents, yes 50-60 km, dance and music lessons are about 30 km each with occasional 100km trips to performances.
I agree that we do not have land use optimized for bikes. That's been my thesis from the beginning. We can not easily reallocate suburband land use to make it possible to navigate via bike and public transit. Adding protected bike lanes to country roads would cost hundreds of millions of dollars to widen, and that's before we start considering the legal costs of buying all of the land it would require. And then what? You still need to reconfigure the land use itself to create concentrated commercial spaces, because it's no good if I have to ride 30 km to the grocer and then 70 km in the opposite direction to the shoe store if I want to do two errands in a single trip.
As I've said, you're underestimating the enormoty of the problem and the distances we travel for normal things.
I'm not saying a car never makes sense. But Americans go out of their way to justify using a car and refusing anything that might change that. Most people live near urban center probably in suburbs. Those are just very bad land use, but with some small changes, bikes could be reasonable to get to a somewhat close bus or train station.
Protected bike lanes, as I said.
Are those all 50+km away?
Sports and grandparents, yes 50-60 km, dance and music lessons are about 30 km each with occasional 100km trips to performances.
I agree that we do not have land use optimized for bikes. That's been my thesis from the beginning. We can not easily reallocate suburband land use to make it possible to navigate via bike and public transit. Adding protected bike lanes to country roads would cost hundreds of millions of dollars to widen, and that's before we start considering the legal costs of buying all of the land it would require. And then what? You still need to reconfigure the land use itself to create concentrated commercial spaces, because it's no good if I have to ride 30 km to the grocer and then 70 km in the opposite direction to the shoe store if I want to do two errands in a single trip.
As I've said, you're underestimating the enormoty of the problem and the distances we travel for normal things.