Ha! Go see how they do it in Europe. Bike trailers, extra seats in the front & back, built in cargo decks, longer bikes; there are lots of fancy ways to load a lot of kids & cargo onto your bike. And don't forget that kids can ride their own bikes too! My kid was riding a bike with me to daycare at 3-4 years old. Your thinking is too car-centric!
Europe does not have some magical equation for drastically reducing car use. The number of cars per capita in the EU is only about one third lower than the United States. That's nothing to sneeze at, but it certainly means that the sizable majority of Europeans are still car-centric.
And even then that's mostly a function of lower incomes (vis-a-vis the US). The high-income European states of Luxembourg, Switzerland, Iceland, Monaco and Liechtenstein all have almost identical car ownership as the US.
The difference of car usage between USA and Europe should be much larger than the difference in car ownership. A car is useful for many things other than the daily commute, someone who mostly bikes to work is still rather likely to own a car but contribute much less to the traffic and pollution.
[edit] looking at random stats such as http://internationalcomparisons.org/environment/transportati... seems to confirm that - the vehicle ownership rates are just a bit lower, but annual distance driven per capita in European countries is twice less than USA.
This is probably a function of distances between living space and work. Beyond 10 km the car catches up and starts to get ahead in total travel time.
Public transport is meant to close this gap but there's not enough for people, much less bicycles, especially long distance. So it gets crowded. The car is universal until you run out of parking space.
They do, but not enough to ensure longer distances are inefficient.
And especially the "ingress" roads do not block - from suburbs and further districts.
Now that is Poland, Warsaw, the city is designed to be more car friendly than most capitals in EU, more spread out, while still keeping strong public transport and bike as options.
The parts that block up are near choke points, City center, bridges, some big intersections.
I live and travel around Europe. Seeing parents riding with their very young kids is not too common a sight and every major city I've been to has traffic problems, because a whole lot of people do want to use cars and do value their convenience.
Whether that's a bad thing or not is another discussion but don't try to present Europeans as some sort of superhumans.
I only have experience with Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, and Amsterdam; but if you sit outside of a daycare in those cities in the morning you can see the multitude of people who ride their bikes to drop off their 1, 2, and sometimes 3 kids at daycare. Those cities do cycling right and it shows.
So I would disagree with you. The traffic problems are caused by having cities that are only setup to make cars convenient and everything else inconvenient. Cities that prioritize the lowest bandwidth people mover are going to have major traffic problems, of course.
Like you say, people want convenience. But I don't know why you think they particularly care about driving (or cycling or walking or taking the train). They just want the most convenient & cost effective thing. If that's a car, they will drive a car. If that's cycling, they will cycle. If it's the train, they will take that instead.
On practically every measure, owning a car is far less convenient (unless you live in a city built around driving cars) and more expensive than not owning a car. We owned a car in Germany but only used it for weekend trips. So the point here is to change cities to not be built around cars. Make cars less convenient.
Your last line is the issue that annoys people. It often lands like “rather than focusing on making other means more convenient, we’re going to focus on destroying the existing convenience to make alternatives more competitive.”
A certain amount of that, as an unavoidable byproduct, is okay with most people. What’s not ok is the perceived (or real) gratuitous destruction of convenience.
You can't have it both ways. You can't have a car-friendly city that is also great for cycling and public transit.
Besides, gratuitous destruction of that "convenience" is good for society and the planet. The obesity rate in America should be proof enough that cars are bad for you.
While we love our bycicles in Europe, if you go down to the southern countries you won't see much of them taking kids around either with trailers or kid seats.
Most of the Germany had the "benefit" of being able to rebuilt post WW2 bombing, so they are a bit more spread out and can easily accommodate new road features (if there was a country that is car friendly but not US, it's Germany :)).
And Netherlands is just... Flat, and biking has been a tradition there long before the current ecological push.
However, most European old towns are frequently narrow one-way streets on hills and it gets really hard to get a buy in to reconfigure them altogether.
But I agree with the premise that streets should be given back to people, but pedestrians should first and foremost, with bikes and other micromobility tools "demoted" compared to them as to not cause mayhem (eg. pedestrians do abruptly stop :). Basically, pedestrian streets with traffic rules stating that pedestrians are always in right of way. That should provide plenty of space for both social activity and transit with bikes and such, even in small streets I mention.
Living in a climate that gets significant snow and is hilly means I would also like to streets to be efficiently "heated" to reduce risks for pedestrians and cyclists during winter months.
But why? It takes a long time to get kids helmeted up and they don’t ride very fast. Not everyone has the leisure to ride bikes everywhere. My kids schools are 10 miles from home and 5 miles from each other. Even with a dedicated bike lane, it would still take dramatically more work to drive. Then, if it rains.. I have to worry about it rain gear for everyone. Then if one kid gets sick at school, I’m supposed to ride my bike from Cupertino to Palo Alto, pick him or her up and then ride to the doctor in Mountain View or wherever?
Or little league practice in one part of town while another kid has gymnastics in another part of town?
It’s silly that a country as huge as the United States is being compared with the tiny, flat, Netherlands. Some American neighborhoods are larger than entire Dutch towns. The Netherlands doesn’t have Texas hot and humid summers, or California terrain, or Michigan winters. And a 3-4 year old riding to day care? Just how long does it take a kid to ride a bike 5 miles vs. me driving 5 miles? It’s absurd.
I get it “let’s hate cars,” but cars are freedom. If I have to run to a CVS at 2am, a bike is the last thing I want to ride. In the event of a natural disaster or an evacuation, are people supposed to ride their bikes to escape a wildfire or a hurricane?Or wait on the city bus? People literally die if they can’t evacuate quickly — and anyone expecting public transportation to be working or effective at evacuations is delusional or living in a perfect dream world where nothing bad ever happens.
Regarding quick evacuation - both in urban environments and rural, cars may not be the great option that you'd initially assume they might be.
In rural areas with few roads and sudden population movement, those roads can quickly become congested. This was a big issue for the city of Paradise during evacuation from the Camp Fire last year[0].
In urban environments, large vehicle movements can also become a public safety issue. Try commuting out of a major city at 5pm on a Friday and you'll frequently find delays and congestion at freeway entrances - exactly as you would during a mass exodus.
That's not to mention the rush on gas stations[1] which can occur as a subset of car owners realize they have to fill up before leaving town. This in itself will lead to delays and congestion - and even if you yourself have set aside plenty of fuel, you still suffer as a result of those who are less prepared.
Neither of these urban problems affect cyclists who can continue even in the presence of road traffic. I'd imagine they'd in fact be more at-risk from frantic and desperate vehicle owners who suddenly realize that using a car is failing and that they want a plan B.
Regarding CVS at 2am -- cycling at night can be surprisingly enjoyable since the roads and surroundings are quiet. In some places with cold/wet weather - or with larger distances to travel - it might be less pleasant though.
It looks like infrastructure and population density is your issue. Dutch kids ride to school, sports and social activities on their own from around the age of seven. You are the one wasting time driving dozens of miles to drop the kids off everywhere when they could bike on their own while you drive straight to and from work and not worry about the kids.
But again, the United States is lacking the infrastructure and population density for this. Yes it's a big country but they could've gone for small dense settlements with everything you need in reach and then big distances between those towns. But having everything spread apart was a cheaper solution.
> In the event of a natural disaster or an evacuation, are people supposed to ride their bikes to escape a wildfire or a hurricane?
This article is arguing for cycling/public transport infrastructure in city cores. Of course cars (or high speed trains in developed countries) are more suited for travelling large distances.
Building more bike lanes in the inner city doesn't stop people from evacuating by car.
As another commenter said, density and urban layout problems are one of the major problems relating to your other points.
Also - kids love riding bikes by themselves when it's safe, at least myself and my friends did!
You don't ask a 3-year old to ride their bike 5 miles. You put them in a trailer or child carrier. On an electric bike that ride will take about 25 minutes. Considering rush-hour traffic, that's often faster than driving.
Ha! Go see how they do it in Europe. Bike trailers, extra seats in the front & back, built in cargo decks, longer bikes; there are lots of fancy ways to load a lot of kids & cargo onto your bike. And don't forget that kids can ride their own bikes too! My kid was riding a bike with me to daycare at 3-4 years old. Your thinking is too car-centric!