Aside: I used to unicycle to work, and I have to say that it was both fantastic and much faster than walking while on a 27.5" wheel.
When you account for calorie transport it's possible the e-bike comes out on top, especially if charged from a local renewable electricity source.
This is simply not true. A pedal-assist bike will go faster with the same amount of W put into the pedals, yes. But will people put in the same amount of W if 60 % will get you to your "target speed"? I doubt it. And then you get less health benefits for the same distance traveled.
On my 8 kilometer commute I average 150 W. Not because I use it as exercise. That's just where I find my comfortable level of output. Every time I've ridden on ebikes I've put in much, much less effort. I'd be surprised if I put in even a third of the energy. That's great if you just need a mode of transport. Bikes are practical, efficient, and planning for them improves cities. Even ignoring the potential health benefits. But claiming that a pedalassist bike gives the same fitness benefits just doesn't pass the smell test.
If everything around you is built with base assumption that you must have a car, then the optimization was done by someone else with a different definition of efficiency.
This isn't unique to cars - trains could give the same, but we already have a road network.
I think the same can be said (to a lesser degree maybe) about cars, which are very space inefficient. With enough sprawl and a certain density, e.g. in Toronto, it's just gonna be traffic for every one.
Cars don't enable many people to own 100 square miles - but I can get pretty close if I settle for 5 acres in an exurb. Many find that a single family house gives them close enough (they get a small garden - most likely grass they mow weekly - which is all they really want). But again it is a compromise. If we had science fiction technology (terraform Mars and Venus; teleporters) that 100 square miles might be reasonable.
Torotno exists, so of course car dependency is somewhat feasible in real life. The impossible part is travelling in the sprawl with relatively short time, as limited by the road's speed limit. The real limiting factor most of the time is traffic, because of the space inefficiency of cars.
I made this point because I seem to recall a city simulation game despawn cars (literally physically impossible) to make car dependent designs "work".
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> you can reach enough of a city to consider it all the advantages of a city
With enough people driving downtown you lose most of the advantages, and it makes the lives of those who didn't choose this lifestyle worse.
They are both Pareto-efficient. Here's a chart of cost of transport (calories/gram/km) vs weight (kg) comparing a salmon vs a bicycle vs a jet fighter etc: https://www.bike.nyc/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/efficiency-g...
Those go 0.1, 0.2, 0.4, .. 1, 2, 4, ... 10, 20, 40...
I am guessing they printed "0.1" as ".1", and because it's a really bad scan the ".1" and "1" look identical.