As long as safety for people is not prioritized over car speed, no amount of spending will make streets substantially more safe. Cars are the problem, they cause all the deaths.
It’s possible to have both. It’s why we have grade separation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grade_separation
Most pedestrian friendly streets that do mix in cars actually do the opposite to grade separation, slow down the cars a lot and make it clear that they are in a pedestrian space by removing demarcation between cars and people,which changes behavior.
There was a period right during/after the pandemic where things were really bad but it’s settled to a fairly decent situation.
If you ride a $500 bike then you will probably be fine factoring in a $50-$100 theft cost at most.
Finally, most bike theft is covered under rental insurance, which isn’t all that expensive to begin with, and is highly recommended anyways.
Obviously this is an average and won't hold true for every American in every locale.
I biked for over a decade without incident for leisure.
Then I started bicycle commuting. Within one year I had not one but two occasions where I was knocked unconscious by angry rush hour drivers. I no longer could plan my destination but rather had to fight the entirety of traffic trying to get downtown at the same time at once. I still have trouble with one arm and the other time I believe I got a concussion after the driver destroyed my bike hitting me broadside and drove off.
I have about 3-4 years of biking as only transport including working as a full time professional bike messenger. I have never been hurt outside of rush hour. I have never been hurt on a planned leisure route. Only when I cannot pick the destination.
The hostility in my experience is like 10x dealing with angry to/from work rush-hour traffic headed to a dense job-rich area, especially with folks like soccer moms desperate to pick up their kiddy from daycare in time, etc.
As you note and in my experience the school drop off / pick up times are the scariest as you near schools and arteries on the school destination paths. There are frequently backups and gridlock situations at these times, coupled with palpable driver anxiety and hurriedness, which just seems like a recipe to get killed or maimed as a cyclist
I would never bike commute where I live currently, and I don't think that will change any time soon despite it being a relatively left leaning urban area.
> If you live in most American cities, biking is basically a life hazard on par with smoking imo
That said, I used a bicycle as my primary mode of transportation in the Atlanta, Decatur, and Northern suburban areas for several years. It wasn't really all that bad despite a near-total lack of cycling infrastructure (this was before the Beltline).
I just found a hack, I'm going to spend 12 hours a day cycling and extend my lifespan by at least 50%. All joking aside, cycling as travel is a fantastic way to add physical activity into your daily life.
There is a big difference between what is, and what must be. Improvements are possible, which is what the linked article is all about. These are baby steps, but if you want to bike more (and get healthier and live longer and live happier and pollute less) then demand more from your local politicians.
Until cities get affordable to live in, us “poor” will continue to exist in the reality that is now, and commute for two times the square footage, and a backyard, for less than a studio apartment.
And have all the utility, too. It's not a simple problem.
I'm not even going to bring up places like rural or lower density suburbs as the service there is almost non-existent.
To bring up one more thing related to your point on rural and suburban areas, the low-density car-dependent development across the vast majority of the US is a deeply ingrained problem here. That is changing with more dense transit-oriented development happening across the country, but it will probably take decades for the needle to move significantly. And unfortunately the street safety measures that this money is going to are not going to help very much with this, which is sort of the point of the original comment.
These issues are all intertwined, but I don't understand the arguments in these comments that point out the problems are intertwined and stop there, as if that's a death knell for change (for example, political support for transit service is tied to the quality of that service). Yes, no one is denying they are intertwined, that is even why urbanists have started using terms like "car culture" that encapsulate the messy ball of issues. The more we discuss these issues, even online, the more consciousness arises in the public about how things can change; and things eventually do change. Hence the use of attention-grabbing call to action phrases like "cars are the problem" that started this thread, which provide an alternate framing.
https://transweb.sjsu.edu/research/What-Do-Americans-Think-a...
"To bring up one more thing related to your point on rural and suburban areas, the low-density car-dependent development across the vast majority of the US is a deeply ingrained problem here."
If it's such low density, is it really a problem?
The current reality is that these aren’t options, in most American cities. My 20 minute commute is a 2.5 hour bus ride, according to google. My 20 minute commute also puts me into a neighborhood that I can afford.
> We repeatedly make a political decision in the US not to prioritize them
Public transit can be fast and efficient if it is prioritized. That may require raising the federal tax on gasoline (last raised thirty years ago!!!) and directing that overdue increase to funding alternative transportation options.
For the higher density cities, cost is a major factor. I remember seeing a study or article comparing cost and time to build a subway in the US vs a European country. If I remember correctly, it tooks years longer and cost tens of millions more for a similar route even adjusted for local cost differences.
I would like additonal funding for many things. I would first like to explore efficient use of the money we do have in order to make it all more effective.
There was a great article on here the other day about the evolution of pickup trucks, the user-survey statistics about how trucks are typically used was pretty eye opening. As was the size of the forward facing blindspot for your everyday stock F-150. Kids don't stand a chance.
It seems the biggest factor is alcohol, which played a role in around 50% of pedestrian fatalities (not all on the part of the driver).
The amount of actual ped zones in America is pretty small anyway, think downtown shopping precints and stuff like that, so the majority of roads would still be car dominant.