[burntsushi]

Respectfully, I think your analysis is overly simplistic. You ignored the elephant in the room: the geography of the US.

Cycling makes a ton of sense if you live in and around an urban area---particularly when most of your interactions with other people are in that same small area. Despite my love for driving, if I fit that mold, I'd happily adopt cycling as my main mode of transportation. But there are a couple of very common scenarios in the US that maybe aren't so common in other countries:

* Living in a suburb/rural area that is more than a half-hour drive from your place of work (in no traffic). There's a high price to pay in terms of time that cycling would entail.

* Traveling throughout the US. And I don't just mean across the country where trains or buses are appropriate---I mean visiting your friend several towns over. For instance, my friend that I frequently visit is about 30 minutes away by car but is about 100 minutes away by bicycle (back-roads, no traffic, data from Google Maps). Similarly for my parents.

I think both of these scenarios strongly militate toward owning a car in favor of a bicycle. I also think tons of people in the US fit this mold---certainly more so than smaller countries with a much denser overall population. Most of the people in the US live in cities---but the overall population density of the US is much lower than most other countries, which suggests that even if you live in or around a city, you have a much higher chance of having connections with people who live in more suburban or rural areas (than similar folks in denser countries). When that happens, a car is typically the most sensible form of transportation.

Of course, it's certainly plausible that we could own cars that we rarely use but cycle to work every day, for example. But I think that's a more complex dynamic and I don't think I have the tools to properly analyze it.

I also find your enthusiasm for passing laws to legislate your cost/benefit analysis on everyone else to be deeply disturbing, but I'll leave that one be.

[swift]

> Living in a suburb/rural area that is more than a half-hour drive from your place of work (in no traffic).

That this situation is so common is a symptom of the fact that our cities and towns have been designed around driving. The geography of the US is a comparatively small factor, since (as you mention) most people here live in cities or suburbs.

> When that happens, a car is typically the most sensible form of transportation.

For these sorts of occasional needs, car sharing services work well.

> I also find your enthusiasm for passing laws to legislate your cost/benefit analysis on everyone else to be deeply disturbing, but I'll leave that one be.

This assumes that the status quo doesn't already constitute legislating one group's cost/benefit analysis on everyone else.

[burntsushi]

> That this situation is so common is a symptom of the fact that our cities and towns have been designed around driving.

I live outside Boston. Which was most certainly not designed for driving. And yet, my analysis holds there too.

> The geography of the US is a comparatively small factor, since (as you mention) most people here live in cities or suburbs.

I think you've taken what I said out of context. I went on to qualify that by saying those people, due to the lower overall population density, have a decent chance of knowing people in suburbs/rural areas that they visit.

> For these sorts of occasional needs, car sharing services work well.

In urban areas, yes. In suburb/rural areas, no. My friend had a similar dilemma, and her solution was to rent a car. Plausible, but is of varying pain depending upon use cases. Her use case was "I need a car infrequently but for long stretches of time."

> This assumes that the status quo doesn't already constitute legislating one group's cost/benefit analysis on everyone else.

No it doesn't. I said nothing about the status quo. I didn't even argue in favor of the status quo.

Do you acknowledge that geography plays a big role in the viability of cycling as a primary mode of transportation? From your response, I can only assume that you don't. If my assumption is right, then I suggest we focus the conversation on that.

[Retric]

Your also assuming an ether or situation if you drive less having a cheaper car seems more reasonable. I bought a 30k car back when I spent 2 hours a day in it, now that I drive ~2 hours a week and kind of wish I had bought a Honda civic instead.

[burntsushi]

> Your also assuming an ether or situation if you drive less having a cheaper car seems more reasonable.

Where did I assume that? This isn't about whether you have a $30K car or a Civic, just that you have a car...