That is not how it works. What people want is a function of the choices available.
When the government builds a ton of car roads, people want cars. When they build great rail, bike lanes and walkable streets, people want cars much less.
When the government builds a ton of car roads, people want cars. When they build great rail, bike lanes and walkable streets, people want cars much less.
> When the government builds a ton of car roads, people want cars. When they build great rail, bike lanes and walkable streets, people want cars much less.
Is there evidence of that? I haven't seen an American city where bike lanes are utilized more than sparsely, even when an extensive network is built.
My many but anecdotal observations of bike lanes do not support it (I wish it did).
I'd like to be wrong: Where have you seen medium or high utilization of bike lanes, in the US?
despite all the improvements even cities like NYC still doesn't have this
imagine a city that's made up of a neighborhoods with high quality roads inside them but unconnected and separated by patches of sand dunes or dirt fields with between them
would you look at that and conclude "nobody drives here, these people must hate cars, we shouldn't invest in roads then, roads and cars are a useless technology, hiking on foot or riding a camel or donkey is superior!"
of course you wouldn't
but that's exactly what it's like being on a bike in ALL cities in the US - islands of a few (mostly unsafe) bikeways here and there, but not a complete, safe network to connect them in a meaningful way, so it's little wonder they're not as used as they could be (although despite that, esp in nyc, bikeways ARE heavily used)
if you wouldn't ride in them, they're not safe
if you wouldn't let your kids or nephew johnny ride in them, they're not safe
meanwhile in the Netherlands, Valencia, Seville, Barcelona, Paris and a bunch of other places in the world, they HAVE started to build meaningful, safe bikeway networks, and what do you know, then, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands and millions of people (including families and kids) end up using them daily
taking cars off the road and freeing up space for ardent motorists who always complain about traffic
it's a win win but most motorists are too blind to see it
Bike lanes in Vancouver and Montreal are pretty heavily utilized. But bikes are quiet and take up so little space compared to cars that it's easy to not notice.
> Cycling is increasingly popular in New York City; in 2018 there were approximately 510,000 daily bike trips, compared with 170,000 daily bike trips in 2005.[2][3]
Might also depend on what you consider and observe for 'bike lanes'. I've known very pleasant walk/bike paved paths that you wouldn't necessarily see from a car.
Have you ridden any of the bike lanes you've observed? My hunch is that they don't adequately serve the need due to a combo of dangerous intersections/car exposure and poor road conditions (potholes, construction, rails or grates sufficiently wide to trap a wheel).
EDIT: you might try looking for a counter example in Portland, OR? Purely anecdotal but my recollection is that I and many people I knew primarily biked around the city, probably had something to do with the infrastructure (roads felt safe, car exposure felt manageable, etc).