Or walk 6 blocks to the corner store each day to fetch your dinner. Shopping only every two weeks seems like what your car forces you to do, not enables you to do. I don't even like buying food that won't spoil in two weeks.
because all people live within 6 blocks of a corner store. I do now but this is the first time in my live that I've lived with in 3 miles (at least usually more) of a shop able store. A lot of cars in the city centers are people who live out of the city but have to drive in to get supplies.
There are places in the US that bikes are impractical. The more rural areas may have distances of over 10 miles to the nearest market, and the roads will be of poor quality and there may be large hills and/or mountains. That said, a public transportation system could help this problem as well.
I'm not fit, but I used to regularly cycle 15 miles, with some reasonable hills.
I think one of the problems with cycling is that people don't have good bikes, and don't know how to maintain them, and are worried about longer (more than 10 miles) distances.
In this context when I say "good bike" I just mean "in good working order" and "sensibly adjusted to size of rider", and "has baskets or panniers". Something like that is cheap and really easy to keep going. And once someone has actually got that bike and they start using it regularly for shorter distances they build up the distances they're comfortable with.
Having said all that, it's pretty hair-raising cycling on roads where traffic travels fast if that traffic isn't used to cycles and if there's not much room for passing.
+1. Most people have an old mountain bike in their garage, with double suspension, low tires, and a chain that's nearly totally fused together. They hop on that thing once and have a miserable time barely going faster than they would walk. That's enough to turn them off for another 5 years.
