> Neither is helpful. We're going to need lots of tires for a long time. Trains don't (and can't) go everywhere. Bikes can't carry everything, and any imaginabl

> Neither is helpful. We're going to need lots of tires for a long time. Trains don't (and can't) go everywhere. Bikes can't carry everything, and any imaginable bike that could would have the exact same problem. Trucks of all kinds, and buses, are indispensable and need tires. The question is how to make the tires better. Fortunately-people are working on this. As with many things, scale matters. You are correct in saying that bikes can't carry everything, but a significant portion of vehicle trips are private car owners driving alone (whether for shopping, commuting, etc) and over shorter distances bikes can serve a very similar purpose. Likewise, while nobody is seriously suggesting replacing (say) long-haul trucking with bikes, mail carriers have made good use of cargo bikes for last-mile delivery within cities. You are correct in saying that trains don't go everywhere, but they can go more places than they do now. (And in the US, they used to!) The discussion shouldn't be a binary choice between "eliminate cars and trucks" and "do nothing" - there's room in between those two for reducing our reliance on motor vehicles. To the extent that the problem of tire dust (among other things) scales with the number of vehicles on the road, reducing the number of vehicles on the road will help to mitigate it. And yes, we do also need to pressure tire manufacturers to develop less harmful tires. But I don't think the other concerns are as orthogonal to the issue at hand as you say they are.