Originally Posted by
Clyde1820
In most spots in the U.S., for example, I suspect the reason is that towns (and particularly cities) tend to not be designed around walking and cycling; instead, they're absolutely car-centric layouts. Can take a good long while to get from point A to B, if attempting to go via some other method than a vehicle. I suspect that's a major reason, for many people.
Honestly, I think your conclusion is incorrect…at least for inner cities. True cars have been grafted into the inner cities but the cities themselves were not designed with cars in mind. Most inner cities are decades (to centuries) older than the automobile. My city, Denver, was established in 1859 and the “suburb” I live in was built in 1910 and is roughly 5 miles from downtown. Cars were around…the Model T was introduced in 1908…but probably not in great numbers. By the time cars were widely available, Denver was roughly 15 to 20 miles in diameter and many of those old streets weren’t…and aren’t…really all the suitable for cars.
Please don’t take this the wrong way, but we cyclists can be our own worst enemy. This whole “people have good reason to fear traffic” thing plays into everyone’s “Big but…” fears about riding a bicycle to work. One of the biggest problems I found is that people look at the world with “car eyes”. They say “I can’t ride to work because there’s too much traffic” but they don’t realize that many cities are set up on a grid pattern so there is a nice, quiet road a block or two away from that high traffic road. In cul de sac hell, there are often breaks between the endless dead end roads that allow a bicycle to pass where a car can’t. Motorist don’t know about these pathways because they look on the world only as a motorist. Motorist who want to be cyclists see the world the same way.