And on that point: bicycle-related comparisons between Europe and the U.S. often cite infrastructures, traffic laws, motorists' attitude and such. But what makes it so difficult to commute in the U.S. compared to Europe is first and foremost the immense distance between the places you want to be. One small town with housing, schools, shops and recreational facilities I lived in in Germany would easily fit into the space occupied by the (eastern) interchange between Interstate 295 and Interstate 64 near where I live now. Obviously, doing everything by bicycle was easy in that town.
Exactly. The infrastructure of our great United States was built in a post-war cheap oil economy, so everything catered to the new marvelous modern automobile. Freedom! Get out of the cities and live "in the country"! What a dream! Progress!
And we bought it. Hook, line, and sinker. And look where it got us. Shuttling back and forth to jobs. Shuttling kids to sports practice. Driving 15 miles to the store to pick up a gallon of milk. And of course, we put our bikes in our cars and drive them just so we can ride them.
All of this used to be done on foot, and we used to build our communities around that. It worked for centuries, and indeed, when we run out of oil, we'll have to do it again, but we will probably pay dearly in much of the US for having wasted our resources on our modern car-centric system.
I myself live in NYC, and I commute to work by bike. Here, I can. When I lived in VT, I couldn't. I had a 60 mile commute each way. Except for the luxurious amount of podcast listening, I hated that drive. I hope I never have to live that far from work again, but I know I won't be in NYC all my life either. I plan to live closer to a small town or small city, so that I can ride or walk where I need to go.
Having said that, I'm now off to do a tuneup on my car right now, so I can drive to a race in CT next week.
