The issue with biking as a commute option is land use. America, more so than other countries, completely overhauled it to suit cars. In 1900 apartments or hotels on top of stores and businesses on small lots was the norm in most American towns and cities. In 2018 it is pretty much illegal to build that kind of development except for a few areas in major cities, and even then the mixed-use structures of today are monolithic, curated shopping mall experiences that are bad at encouraging the kind of convenience that exists in New York, because you get bored of it. And on top of that most cities in America ended up gutting their walkable cores with highways and parking lots in the name of progress.

The fact that it is hard to bike is a symptom of how far things apart are in America. But how far things apart are in America is a symptom of blind faith in new technologies.