Why not take up cycling?
The most important thing imo is to find a form of cardio you enjoy. It's not worth stressing over the differences between forms of cardio just find something you like and make it a part of your lifestyle.
Reagarding knee injuries, sure intense running with bad form is more likely to get you an overuse injury but those heal quickly, long term studies don't show increased knee/hip risk for runners.
Strength exercises are also very important for runners. Getting all the muscles arounf your hips, knees and ankles stronger significantly reduces the chance and severity of injuries and has a ton of other benefits.
Typically you sit on the part in front of your hip, which also has its downsides as it is quite a delicate area where pressions on the wrong area could lead to issues.
I was a cycling maniac for some time. It fucks one up (knees, back, elbows) anyways. After 10 years of that I cut it down to occasional pleasure rides. Luckily all my pains had stopped after a couple of years.
The body, including bones, muscles, tendons and joints, adapt to stress. Many people do too little, not too much, as they get older.
There’s a limit to that recovery of course, and balancing it with stress is not always simple.
Also avoiding using your domotics, motorized vehicles, elevators and escalators, kitchen/cleaning robots/electric devices when there are manual replacement as well as not using domotic, does a super job on its own.
People have become lazy, pretend they don't have time to do stuff, then have to actually dedicate additionnal time so that their body doesn't suffer from their lazyiness. This is bonkers.
One day my brother saw me shirtless and asked me if I was going to the gym. I said no, I just have 2 young kids, carry my groceries including cat litter by foot, use a shovel to clear snow, use a manual coffee grinder and kitchen whisk and only use my car when it would take me more than 1 hours / 30kms by bicycle, etc. And I had an office job. Being active, fit and healthy shouldn't involve having to "exercise".
my brief reading of studies shows there is no proven negative impact on knees from running. Some studies suggest there is positive impact: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11320545/
I can speculate that running is very natural to human, and body evolved for running through the evolution, and cycling is not natural movement.
It can be difficult to fix too as once your knee is sore it takes ages to come right so it’s not clear if adjusting the cleat is working.
This is stupid (saying that as an ex elite road, track and cyclocross racer).
I’ve never tried real cleats, I just use mounting biking ones, spd. Doubled sided pedals seem easier in traffic and I use them for a decidedly non-pro 2-300km a week.
This what they all say to sell "custom fit" services. I now how to fit and have access to pro level fit rig.
I live in a city where it's challenging to reach safe riding territory in a reasonable time frame. If I was rural and had access to trail riding (gravel, mountain), I think I'd be all over that.