That hardly defeats the argument. Saying that 40% of "urban journeys" are <=2 miles does not convince me that I want to make the other 60% of "urban journeys" that much more inconvenient as well as the 100% of non-"urban journeys". In America, "practical everyday journeys (to school, shops, work)" are quite often farther than 2 miles, and it really shows that the author has never lived out here. Within 2 miles, I've got a pizza place, a sports bar, a Chevron, and a dentist's office. My old high school, grocery stores, heck even Walmart, just about everything is farther than 2 miles away. "The shops" are about 10-15 miles out. Ikea? That's about 35 miles away. Even when I lived in the city center, it was still 10 miles away! Now mind you, I actually don't mind how far things are, but only because we have great roads and a culture of driving fast. I just keep seeing these bike propagandists dismiss valid concerns by saying nothing more than "stroad bad, America bad", and it's honestly just annoying to see so many out of touch with my day-to-day reality
You miss my point. The Netherlands has really nice inter-city bicycle infrastructure, the thing my region lacks (it's easy enough to get around on quiet grid streets). They aren't in any way affordable, so we designate the US highway shoulder as a national bicycle route.
There's a not-yet-connected separated path growing between here and the smaller town ~10 miles away, but the local casino paid for a bunch of that!
That's an ironic reply in this context. 600 km of cycling infrastructure in my region would have a fraction of the users (and thus a fraction of the benefit) as the same 600 km built in the Netherlands. We have ~300,000 people occupying a slightly larger land area than the 17 million people living in the Netherlands.