No, people commute on bicycles in the Netherlands even up to an hour (although the number of people doing so falls off rapidly with distance). Distance alone is

No, people commute on bicycles in the Netherlands even up to an hour (although the number of people doing so falls off rapidly with distance). Distance alone isn't the issue or even the leading issue. I was consulting in Atlanta once and people thought I was insane to walk two miles to the office. Don't get me wrong, the infrastructure is car centric, but the culture is very anti pedestrian and anti bicycle. It is a vicious cycle where the infrastructure pushes people to car culture and that drives the infrastructure. However the flipside of the culture is a lack of sympathy for pedestrians and cycling which creates a lot of tension and with it danger. In North America, it seems to me, people view cycling as a child's activity or a dangerous sport. People push safety in both cases. In the Netherlands, at all distances, people are more willing to view cycling as an ordinary human activity from a commute to a vacation across the continent.