Want walkable, bikeable, mass transit, etc? Live downtown. Want bigger homes, yards, quite, etc? Live in the suburbs.
Obviously there's a limit to how reasonable multimodal transportation is. Nobody's expecting decent transit among rural farmland. But we could do better than we're doing now -- MUCH better.
> Want bigger homes, yards, quite, etc? Live in the suburbs.
The biggest problem with this is that in the US you usually have to choose between one of two extremes which dovetail with your examples. You're either in a big ugly apartment block downtown (or in a downtown-ish area) or you're in a super low density suburb where Cars Are Law.
Plenty of countries manage to have more of a gradient, where you can have, say, suburbs of middling density, where driving is easy, but so is walking, biking, and taking the train to the city. I live in Munich at the moment and the suburbs nearby fit this mold perfectly, but in the US such towns are extremely rare.
There are still plenty of cars in Munich proper, for that matter. There are just lots of other options too.
* Also in most American cities even the downtown still isn't very walkable, definitely isn't bikable, and has crappy transit. There really are only a handful of cities in the US where these things all work reasonably well.
But really really really, biking is not incredibly dangerous.
Everyone I know has been in an accident of some sort. Hit & runs, side swipes, doored, pushed (deliberately), etc.
After better infrastructure, the most effective way to improve safety is to have more cyclists. I think we're in a rough transition period, but things are definitely getting better.
One of my bike buddies thinks things will really change once moms start cycling en masse. That'd change the perception from gonzo bike dudes to totally uncool in a heartbeat, evoking much less hostility.
These are both avid riders with professional-grade equipment taking a short Mission-FiDi route.
Regardless of its "project zero" marketing, SFMTA has bikes last on its priority list. It has to be pushed by guerrilla infrastructure groups to do anything meaningful.
I used to ride bikes all the time as a kid but I would not make a habit of riding on our roads. It's too much of a gamble.
Building to support multiple modes of transportation is the freedom-loving thing to do. Want to walk? Go for it! Transit? Sure! Biking? Why not? Driving? Works for me!