[tremon]

It's not really a hard limit if there are exceptions, though?

The issue is that The Netherlands has been moving in this direction for 50 years. It takes decades of consistent policy to convert a city from car-only to multi-modal, and adoption will only increase once a critical mass has been attained.

For cycling specifically, it's about the value of the network: what I've seen happen in many places is that they construct a bike path, evaluate it a few years, and then conclude that there's not much bike traffic, so it must be that the people simply aren't interested in cycling. That conclusion conveniently ignores the fact that the bike path terminates on a dangerous multi-lane road at both ends.

You simply won't see cycling adoption rise with half-hearted implementations like that. Only when people can safely make a full trip to their destination does the alternative begin to appeal, and only then might you see a generational shift to cycling. So for a city that's completely car-dependent now, you're looking (roughly) at a 25-year policy window to see the full effects.