As a dutch person, i want to correct some of the arguments made. Bikes are popular in _old cities_, and _with kids_, but adults living in suburbia will drive a

As a dutch person, i want to correct some of the arguments made. Bikes are popular in _old cities_, and _with kids_, but adults living in suburbia will drive and use a car for everything, just like an american in sururbia would. In old cities, they are the best form factor. And if Holland weren't flat, we would all be driving scooters (like they do in Rome, Paris or Greece). It's the form factor that works best in old cities, because the roads are simply _too small_ and the population density is _too high_. Cars are for moving furniture and deliveries in old cities, not for navigation. I live in Utrecht where you would sometimes have to navigate around the city for 30 minutes to reach a place you could walk to in 2 minutes. Then you pay 3 to 7 euro's an hour to park your car, after looking for 10 minutes to find a free spot. It's a hellish experience, you will only opt-in to, if you really need to. Secondly, we raise our kids with freedom and independence, and that starts with trust. That means, between the age of 5 and 10, your child will start navigating to and from school, their sports club and friends, by themselves, using their bike. And yes, we were doing this for decades before mobile phones even existed. If your child was late out of school, you would generally just assume they were with a friend, or working on a school project. And most of these kids live in suburbia. The reason few people choose to raise kids in the city, is exactly because you can't allow them to navigate freely: you would be more inclined to escort them. Now, suddenly, its clear just why these bike paths are so safe. Our children are riding there: unsupervised. They are not just safe in terms of traffic, but also safe in social terms. The paths are always in the view of shops and houses and other traffic. They aggressively clear bushes and dark corners. So people can keep an eye out on the kids. And getting a driver's licence is much harder in Holland. You would have to be at least 18 years old, pass about three exams and spend hundreds of euro's, and the legal amount of alcohol in your blood until you are 21, is 0,000000000% If you make a big mistake, you'll loose the right to even apply for a new licence until you are 21. So bikes are used in old cities, because those city planners didn't know cars were going to be invented the next century, and they are used by pretty much all of the youth in Holland, everywhere. The american style, of navigating your child from your prison home, using your prison family car, to the prison school, is not the dutch approach to raising children. People that drive their kids to school get a serious talking to, and schools are often in fuck-off-cars neighborhoods, optimized for child safety and free exploration. Places where cars shouldn't be going faster than 15 km/h, and where all kinds of obstructions are placed to slow them down. It's not about health. It's not about having a pro-bike culture. It's about what's a usefull form factor, and how do we raise our kids.