If you can afford to live downtown and you work downtown (which is a very, very small percentage of the Austin population) then yeah maybe you can bike to work, but like I said in my previous comment that is basically an edge case.
Riding in 2020 when everything was abandoned was great. I was in a hotel near Blackfriars during the first lockdown, and rode along Oxford street, barely any traffic at all - it’s normally chock full of buses attempting to kill you.
Ride confidently, take the lane, ignore the bus and taxi drivers who think they own the road, and it tends to be fine.
Outside of london there’s a big problem with car drivers though - every year in the U.K. about 40 pedestrians are killed by car drivers while they are on the pavement, yet we continue to turn a blind eye to drivers who drive on the pavement, and even those who attempt to murder people with their car get off with less than a year in prison
https://www.stokesentinel.co.uk/news/stoke-on-trent-news/dad...
Because people take time to change, I think the two bandaids for the social problem are expanding separated bike lanes and then dropping people into pedestrian/cycle shared streets, not the roads.
I know I know, you didn't buy the Ultegra gear set just to sit on the big ring dodging foot traffic, but a cycling city will need to cater to the majority of commuters not the speed machines. Most potential cycle commuters are just everyday people wanting to meander into work and around the city centers.
Over here in Paris, there still are many bike-related fatalities, and most cars are smaller than in the US, biking has been more popular (and feasible) for longer, etc. Yet people still don't pay attention. And by "people" I mean car drivers [0], bike riders [1] and pedestrians. [2]
Regarding pedestrian / cycle shared streets, it may overall be better that sharing with cars, but there have been quite a few cases involving scooters (as in Lime and the sort) and pedestrians, some of them fatal, on this kind of shared roads.
Not sure what the best approach would be to help change mentalities.
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[0] As a motorcyclist I try to make sure people have seen me / are going to stop and check / etc and the number of people I see completely absorbed by their phone seems to be climbing every day. Also, a new fashion in Paris for the last few years is running red lights.
[1] A few years ago I started seeing signs on trucks and buses along the lines of "blind spot / if you can't see my mirrors I can't see you / don't overtake on the right", usually with some cyclist behind. I've always been surprised by this, I thought people had figured that out. My motorcycle instructor taught us to be sure to be able to see a truck's mirrors when behind. My reaction was "duh", to which he responded "you'd be surprised".
[2] Many people walk into traffic without paying attention. The City has recently started deploying blinking lights on the border of sidewalks synchronized with traffic lights.
It took 20 year to La Rochelle to have a really good bike infra and to get people to not be reckless.
My point is that people should really have this ingrained, and not put down the phone / not do stupid things just because there's a cop looking. Because as soon as the cop turns away / is on break, the bad behavior happens again. Also, being on the lookout for cops so that you can scroll your FB feed without getting fined only detracts from paying attention to the road.
Let's also not forget how incredibly empowering bikes are for kids, essentially they can get anywhere they want to if they can ride around on a bike.
About French drivers, I have the feeling that French drivers are very inconsiderate to every one not just bikes at least for urban traffic.
That's true on paper, but note that in the outer suburbs, towns are usually small and kids would have to ride quite long distances (>10 km) to get anywhere useful. And winters here can be rough. Add to that narrow streets and careless drivers, and I can totally understand why you don't see many kids cycling.
Regarding rough winters, I grew up in Germany and live in Sweden now, so saying winter in France is rough is quite funny (my French partner is laughing quite hard now)
I don't know where you grew up in Germany nor am I familiar with the country, but the places I've visited (in Baden-Württemberg, around Schwäbisch Hall mostly) had amazing bike infrastructure, with paved paths in very good shape and several meters away from car roads, separated by grass, dirt, etc. I can see why parents would have absolutely no problem letting the kids bike around these paths. Also, drivers seemed much less crazy than around Paris.
The difference is not having to worry about the weather (too hot, too cold, wet) and even aside from that, carrying an extra set of clothes even in ideal conditions. And you’re obviously limited as to how much you can carry.
Speaking as someone who cycles as a hobby and for transport around the city (commuting and leisure).
He’ll in central london it’s faster to walk than get a bus, and buses he special lanes to bypass the traffic!
They should get ride of bus lanes and use the lane for bikes and escooters. Put buses in with the delivery vans.
The countries that got cycling infrastructure right are the Dutch and Danish. Also Germany and Sweden are improving a lot with their infrastructure.
However, we also need to change attitudes and enforcement of rules toward cyclists. The problem is that often police and judges also only drive cars and walk, which leads to cases where cyclists are hit hard for infarctions, but drivers or pedestrians get a slap on the wrist even if their actions result in serious injury.