> People need transport now, not in some hypothetical ideal future world. This is the only part of your comment that I can really agree with. Aside from weath

> People need transport now, not in some hypothetical ideal future world. This is the only part of your comment that I can really agree with. Aside from weather and physical conditions the rest is simply not true. I used to live in San Francisco and had both a pickup truck and an electric assist cargo bike. I could get anywhere in the city on that bike, and typically was able to get door to door even quicker than I could by car because I didn't need to spend an extra 10 minutes finding a place to park a motor vehicle. The bike served as the mini-van. I'd drop my kids off at their two different schools, each in different parts of the city, and then head to work, doing all of that in less time than I could in a car. I also used it to help people move households. It's carried a full size refrigerator from the top of Potrero Hill (one of the steepest in SF) across town to Outer Sunset. It wasn't even difficult, and probably took less time getting it from one house to another because it was easier to load (the "deck" of the bike is less than a foot off the ground) and moved just as quick as a loaded truck through the city. I've used it to tow a friend's broken Honda Accord a similar distance as well. Getting rolling was challenging, but only because the bike tires lacked the traction needed and would do burnouts unless the bike had a lot of weight, so we solved that by also moving a small motor cycle at the same time. I don't have data to back this, but it's safe to say that I've moved more cargo (in weight) with that bike than the pickup truck I'd owned for 10 years prior to getting the cargo bike. My experience may be unique, but it's totally within the ability of anyone who can afford even a cheap used car to do today with ready built models shipped overnight via Amazon Prime. In other words, the people who need transport now can have it in a very non-hypothetical world. All this coming from someone who does not believe simply advocating for people to use public transit is a fix-all solution. Use it when the weather isn't great, or when you sprain your ankle, or when you don't want to fuss with finding parking.