You had me up to this point:

> What if all bike companies (and component manufacturers like Shimano) spent all their R&D budgets on education and lobbying instead of better technology?

The R&D budget of the entire bike industry is not going to move this needle.

What has moved this needle is the fact that automotive infrastructure has become a huge obstacle to growth in big cities. Most big cities cannot increase road infrastructure to support growth so they are more or less forced to support denser forms of transportation like cycling or stop growing.

The other big thing is eBikes.

Yes, this. We need BIG changes in cycling infrastructure.

My old bike commute in the Bay Area involved stupid shit like this:

https://i.imgur.com/YajWMoY.png

Having to constantly switch between pushing along sidewalk and waiting ages for pedestrian lights, dealing with broken road sensors where I had to wait for a car to come behind me and "rescue" me so the light to turn green, having to go back and forth in zig zag patterns while cars got a nice direct road (not fair) -- all that made be not want to bike, especially in the heat or rain.

Seriously, get rid of ALL parking on El Camino Real. It's mind-bogglingly stupid to have parking on a major road. Turn the remaining space into a separated bike lane.

Or just mark off 1 out of the 3 lanes on El Camino Real as a wide bike lane. Our governments are just too chicken to do that.

Wow, you did that every day? Controversial opinion to consider, if you have the attitude that traffic laws are only for cars and serve only to inform bicyclists of the expected behavior of cars, riding in the Bay Area becomes much safer and faster. Habitually running red lights is important as it gives you an open road and a red light behind you. Also I always filter to the front(which I think is legal), abuse cross walks(I.e. get off my bike to stop traffic and walk it across a pedestrian crosswalk, also legal I believe). I biked in the Bay Area for years with that strategy and never had a problem, during work hours on week days I could beat cars handily on short trips. Some people will say this gives biking a bad name, but I think bicyclists getting hit by cars is a far bigger problem for the PR of cycling.

I'm not convinced running red lights is safer. Red lights are red because of cross traffic, and that sounds a lot more dangerous to me.

Lack of a pedestrian/bike path on the Bay bridge is also mind bogglingly dumb.

I made a pretty concerted effort to bike (I used to bike to public transit every day at an old job and loved it).

At my current job I'd have to go through a very loud car tunnel without enough space for bikes. I've tried it a few times - just not workable. You have to ask - is this commitment worth dying over? Having your lungs filled with crap from being in an enclosed space with cars? Having your hearing killed.

So making the environment support biking would be great.

Yeah, infrastructure seems like the #1 difference.

The truth is, even somewhere considered reasonably bike friendly like Germany, bikes are still clear second class citizens compared to cars, in terms of transportation investment. In terms of quality of infrastructure and amount of space allocated in cities, there's just no contest there.

And in the US, it's downright pathetic. The general attitude of city governments when it comes to bike numbers amounts to, "we've tried nothing, and we're all out of ideas!" Pointing to the clear success story of Vancouver BC actually putting forth a serious effort and getting results will get you nowhere, they'll keep on muddling through and feigning confusion as to why nobody wants to use their fragmented, dangerous bike network composed mostly of door zone bike lanes that suddenly end whenever it was inconvenient to continue dropping paint on the road.

I've lost track of all the painted bike lanes that suddenly disappear and then show up again 50m later because cars needed a dedicated turn lane right there, or the times the bike lane curves and yeets itself into the sidewalk with no warning. Even a quick glance at Google Maps with the bike lane layer on makes it immediately clear how badly bike networks are almost always implemented there.

I'm enthusiastic about all the safety features going into cars over the next 10-20 years. We may be able to ride safely in traffic once most cars are able to recognize and avoid cyclists.

All the things you list are accurate... Also, more 20mph speed limits on urban routes useful to cyclists. Cheap and effective for creating a more cycling friendly environment.

To paraphrase current civil engineering doctrine:

A sign doesn't do anything to turn a four lane boulevard into a road people drive 20 on. The enforcement needed to back up the sign is not the kind of thing people put up with in the western world (a few pockets of Europe notwithstanding). You need to actually design the road to make 20mph a reasonable speed.

Anecdata:

We recently instituted a 20mph limit across our town (I’m the chair of the town council and also a keen cyclist). We do regular speed surveys.

Not everyone sticks to 20mph. But no one drives above 30mph any more. When we had a 30mph limit, we’d regularly get people driving up to 40mph.

So it’s not perfect, but it does make a difference, here at least.

My city has done quite a good job of making itself much more cyclist friendly over the last couple of years and reducing the speed people drive. Most of the roads were already more than wide enough before for bike lanes, but that came at the expense of people driving at 60km/h in densely packed urban areas (the speed limit is 40, but nobody cares).

- On quieter roads in retail areas they added painted white lines, but most importantly they've enforced them so delivery drivers don't park over the cycle lane.

- On roads in busier areas that had street parking they've shifted the street parking inwards a couple of meters, and put a cycle lane between the street parking and pavement. This means the driving part of the road is narrower, so people drive slower.

- On other streets that were too small for a cycle lane and street parking, they have removed street parking and put up a cycle lane separated with small bollards (a few cm high, so can be driven over). These are usually in areas where you would have only driven at 20km/h. We have a lot of cobbled streets and they aren't (I'm wondering if it's intentional) very well maintained, so most are very uneven. The only issue with these is that delivery drivers do park over them, because now there is nowhere else for them to park. Of course people complained about the reduction in street parking, but that issue was quickly forgotten.

- They changed a lot of road directions (bikes are exempt) so that you cannot drive through the city center to get across the city. This did increase traffic a little in other routes (this happened at the start of this year, so hard to tell because of covid), but it means that as a cyclist you can easily cycle through the city center which has much less car traffic. Of course people complained, but again it was quickly forgotten.

- A few streets that were popular for commuters were tested being pedestrian only in the summer (case numbers here were fairly low then, so traffic levels were maybe 75% of normal). Again people complained, but the issues were quickly forgotten.

- Proliferation of food delivery services have meant there are much more bikes on the road, so drivers are more cautious.

I live in a city that dropped speeds from 30 to 20. The change didn't happen overnight, but the average speed has dropped from >30 to >20, which is a world of difference

My understanding is that narrower lane widths do cause drivers to slow down. The signage stating a 20 mph limit may be ignored, but if all the other lane lines get repainted narrower when a bike lane is put in, then cars will drive less aggressively.

Then the police start ticketing cyclists exceeding the limit.

In some cases that's entirely appropriate, though not always, also an anecdote from the UK:

A policeman in a car pulled up alongside my friend on his bike, said do you know you clocked 45mph though that 30 zone.

"Er I'm sorry officer..."

"Don't worry, legally that limit only applies to motor vehicles. I wanted to say well done."

Full agreement about how to increase ridership. I've been lucky enough to work somewhere with good storage, power for charging¹, great security and that really changes the dynamic for cycling to work.

Re: showers at work. I've been wondering what is going to happen to cycling to the office once people start going back en masse.

For example, the shower unit at our office has only been available to people who work in the clean room environment since March, and I just can't see how we go back to common use in the foreseeable future.

And frankly, if people start going back to full-time without showers I'd probably like to see cycling use drop(or at least for people like me who tend to arrive lycra'd up on a road bike).

¹ Ridiculously that seems to include lights, computers, Garmin Varia, gears, etc at this point.

Decide to bike to save time and not have to park one of the most compeling reasons to bike over driving. Luckily I was living in boulder where biking to the main street was faster and easier than driving.