[silverbax88]

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.

[peatmoss]

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.

[vanderZwan]

I agree that the solutions for Groningen do not scale on their own, but as others suggested a good public transportation system would go a long way.

I really don't see how horses would be better than bikes though.

[walshemj]

Well 1 horses are dangerous (horse riding is a high risk sport) 2 the removal of the horse poop becomes a major issue.

I cant see a problem in riding across New York - I have done cross central London a few times.

[silverbax88]

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?

[walshemj]

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)

[rayiner]

No, but getting across NYC on the subway is probably the fastest way to do it.

[denom]

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.

[yincrash]

Singapore does it just fine. I bike in NYC often and I think it could support mass bike ridership in combination with the subway.

[silverbax88]

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.

[Dylan16807]

Don't be disingenuous. NYC has a density of 27k people per square mile. Farms in Idaho do not factor into the discussion about cities.