Also, I would be very curious how many folks commenting here have kids vs. single men/women who ride their bikes and hate that they have to share the road with cars.
Oh, yes it is. I see comments on the internet like, "bike friendly? But what about kids??" as if kids explode if they get too close to a bike, all the damn time.
Somewhere in the commenter's mind, they're aware that there are bike friendly places where people have kids, like the Netherlands, and it works just fine. But they don't want to admit it, so they pretend they don't know. If you point it out to them, they'll find whatever the most obvious surface differences are between that place and where they live and insist this makes it impossible to draw any lessons.
I have a kid and we live car-free in Munich. We use walking, biking (including an electric cargo bike), buses, and trains. Works great. I don't dispute that sometimes it would be nice to have a car for the convenience, for things like going to Ikea or ski trips, but overall it's worth it for us to avoid the hassle and expense of car ownership.
On the other hand, I accept that when we move back to the states, unless we're in NYC we'll probably need a car. Oh well.
As such, this line of reasoning that if it works in Netherlands will work here seems vacuous. You need to consider the realities on the ground vs. making one off statements.
So, better start now. The longer you wait, the longer it will take.
”We should build for the future vs. the past.”
A future where we have to significantly decrease energy use in order to limit global warming?
”who ride their bikes and hate that they have to share the road with cars.”
Who says cyclists have to share the road with cars? Any decent infrastructure has separated cycling lanes wherever cars go over 20 miles per hour.
Kids in particular, have a lot to gain. A bicycle has thrice the speed of walking, so riding a bicycle makes a kid’s neighborhood about ten times as big (when comparing road system built for cars with one built for people, the difference is even greater)
And with it, their parents have a lot to gain, as kids riding their bike to school/friends/sports means parent do not have to drive them there.
That is ludicrous. We've only had cars for a hundred years.
The fact that it's difficult is BECAUSE we built cities around cars. Schools normally have districts so that they're nearby to the kids, if your kids school is in another suburb then frankly that's your poor planning. If you set up play dates with kids two 'burbs away, again, why did you do that? Places like Japan have no issues with no or low car families, the kids take public transport, walk, or take their bikes. You can ride your bike with them or join them for the train ride if you want to make sure they're safe, but the idea that kids need to be transported around in cars is ludicrous.
> but often "time" is a critical factor and you need the flexibility that a car offers.
Public transport and biking is often faster than cars in denser car centric cities, and good public transport is on time so you can plan accordingly. Not all cities have good public transport, I get that, but that's the problem we need to solve. We've already tried cars, it's not working.
The issue isn't that we need cars, it's that we need a better city built around moving people without cars. You're looking at the problem in the wrong direction.