Groningen, a city of less than 200,000, is not scalable for the biggest cities in the world, which is the problem. Biking across New York or L.A. is not even remotely feasible. I'm not saying better cities are not possible, but just putting everyone on bikes is not even close to a solution. You'd be better off going back to horses.
While I wouldn't necessarily want to cross NYC in its entirety by bike on a frequent basis, remember that most trips are three miles or less--a perfectly cromulent distance for a bike. Most people don't need to cross an entire city all the time. Also, mass transit works rather well when paired with walking and biking.
And you are of course, elderly or handicapped, correct? Or you need to travel with two small children? And when you say you biked 'across New York', you mean from Long Island or Yonkers to Manhattan or some similar commuter trek, correct?
Across manhatten yes done that distance many many times in London its surprising how quickly you can get from a train terminus in the north over the river on a bike.
You can get kids bike seats and trailers I see a tandem with a kids trailer do a commute from my village to the local town (3 miles quite often)
Just as an arbitrary data point, I've biked from Hollywood to Santa Monica. It's doable, and with a fraction of the effort spent on building and maintaining infrastructure for cars the bike-ride might even be pleasant. Re: New york, I have not biked there, but the new bike rental program seems to indicate that biking there is becoming more friendly.
Singapore has a population density of 13,600 people per square mile, where the US has 75. They do NOT "do it fine". It is a mass of teeming people crawling all over each other.
Yes, but isn't that the whole point? If a city is designed for cars, you're gonna need a car. Which has all kinds of downsides.
I have to admit I often thumbed my nose at 'those Americans and theird cars', but only until I spent some time in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Once there, I realized that it's pretty much impossible to do anything without a care! It shocked me.
I like the Dart, though. I've window shopped employment in the DFW area. Problem is all the major companies are in suburbs like Plano, where there is no metro access.
At least they build the roads to accommodate down there. 4 lanes each side for regular avenues, and the travel density justifies them. Up in the northeast some major interstates and roads like i78 and route 22 are two lanes with the traffic of a 3 lane each side highway.
Whenever I move next, though, I'm moving where I can take public transport commutes to any office I work at (if any at all, I'd prefer remote, maybe one in office day a week). The monetary investment and insane risks with cars is just way too much to justify.
well there is weather, cities rarely are designed to protect you from adverse weather. Usually it what ends a lot of people's new found idea of, lets bike to work. One day its too hot, its too cold, its wet, its windy, oh I need to take x, and on and on and on, now we have a nice garage ornament.
Biking to work is fine, I just wish people quit implying its an alternative to cars or mass transportation when its very weather dependent. Got a change of clothes at work? Not where I work you don't, top it off where I am going to put the bike though I did have a nice folding BMW one awhile back.
It's not weather dependent though. Just look at Denmark. Cold, wet, snowy in winter and yet basically the same number of people are biking to work year round.
That said, Americans in particular are used to being in a "comfortable" environment all the time. It's a cultural thing, and those take forever to change, but there's nothing inherent in the calculus of weather and biking (with a few obvious exceptions).