Originally Posted by
drlogik
Have you read in the news what they are doing to their farmers? In that respect, they are not exactly "putting the world to shame". They are; however, showcasing a very well designed bike infrastructure, that this underground bike garage is part of but the extremely high taxes are paying for all it.
Bicycle infrastructure is the cheapest infarstructure. We have had a right wing government for over a decade now so taxes for ordinary people have gone up too far, but in general you pay for things through taxes Americans tend to pay privately for. Government often works more efficient and cheaper so there's not much difference with what you end up with for free choice spending.
Originally Posted by
base2
The US and Europe are geographically similar in size (inso much as it matters in this context.)
The US chose to spread out horizontally basically guaranteeing car dependency. Other places chose human scale infrastructure design & city planning. Making car ownership a choice.
The Netherlands was indistinguishable from any major US metro until around 1960-1970. Then they collectively said: "This sucks" & chose something different. That's right. All of the bicycle & transport you see in pictures of the Netherlands has been built since the 1960's...& they are financially solvent.
I urge you to become familiar with how your parents & grandparents made decisions that limited your freedom, mobility & chained us all to high cost infrastructure maintenance bills for infrastructure that fails at it's primary design purpose: moving people.
That's not entirely correct. The Dutch were moving in the American direction until the 70's, but many cities used to be fortress towns which were compact. They embraced cycling in the early 1900's because the whole counry is pretty compact, so the bicycle was a life and society changer. villages and cities got connected, rural people could go to the beach and city people could go camping in the woods. A private associaton build most of the cycle paths in the country side. Basically because of the German occupation, mass car use came very sudden and very strongly, when lots of people were still cycling, but more things came together at that time.
It's not really a European thing. It's the Netherlands, Denmark had a similar thing going on to a lesser degree, and then there is the rest, with a country like Germany having done some positive things in the margins of a car centered country, while Britain is a mess. These are very different societies and cultures and that matters.