Why do European cities have much better and more extensive bike path systems than US cities and it’s not even close?

Sh!thole country!

...because the average American would rather commute to work in a Ford F-150 than ride a bike.

It's called FREEDOM.

USA! USA! USA!

Most American cities were built after the invention of the car. European city centers by contrast are tiny and windy - built for ox carts and pedestrians - and they don't sprawl as much. So no one really cares if you displace cars in the city center because driving there sucked anyway. And you have much more room to built orbiting bike paths without cutting across 8 lane freeways built to get bubble butt Americans from their couch to their office.

Abdoujaparov wrote:

Most American cities were built after the invention of the car. European city centers by contrast are tiny and windy - built for ox carts and pedestrians - and they don't sprawl as much. So no one really cares if you displace cars in the city center because driving there sucked anyway. And you have much more room to built orbiting bike paths without cutting across 8 lane freeways built to get bubble butt Americans from their couch to their office.

the premise is true. the conclusion is wrong. if anything, it's easier to build nice bike paths in the US. the answer is this:

Not so fast bro wrote:

...because the average American would rather commute to work in a Ford F-150 than ride a bike.

It's called FREEDOM.

USA! USA! USA!

Because the USA is a..... wrote:

Sh!thole country!

Their stupider.

Why would you build extensive bike paths for the few people who would even use them in the USA?

Well the US pays the bill for there defense. If we didn't spend all the money we did on the military industrial complex we would have plenty of money for petty stuff like that. Pull out of NATO and stop all these unconstitutional foreign wars.

Not so fast bro wrote:

...because the average American would rather commute to work in a Ford F-150 than ride a bike.

It's called FREEDOM.

USA! USA! USA!

And because gas costs so much in the EU they have no choice. They must walk or bike.

As soon as a country steps out of 3rd world status they want cars - see China for example. the EU is heading backwards.

Haven't you seen the film Wall-E where they take this piss out of most Americans for being compete lard-asses?

That's your answer right there - What would be the point in investing in a cycling infrastructure when most of the population is too fat to even get on a bike?

Notice that the European cities you mention, along with Amsterdam, are completely flat.

David Byrne wrote a book about this. Surprise: He’s more insightful than all of you.

https://www.amazon.com/Bicycle-Diaries-David-Byrne/dp/0143117963

gas price list in Europe

Oslo is not particularly flat the moment you get out of like… the harbour area.

(And also doesn't have great conditions for biking – though things are improving and some bike paths are pretty decent.)

Tax hells wrote:

And because gas costs so much in the EU they have no choice. They must walk or bike.

As soon as a country steps out of 3rd world status they want cars - see China for example. the EU is heading backwards.

I assume you're joking about heading backwards. Its really pretty nice to have bike lanes and walking lanes. Bikes appear to be just another vehicle choice in the EU and the cars dont seem to try to run them off the road like they do here in New England. People commute or bike to the store or bike for pleasure. They've got a nice system going on over there. My town is just now adding a few feet to the sides of main roads for bike/walking/running lanes and I love it.

Because we'd rather "invest" in highway infrastructure than "subsidize" bike infrastructure.

Land tenure (ownership) laws are much different in most European countries versus the US, that's the main reason. In the east coast US, where most land is in private hands, it's extremely difficult to build a trail from scratch. And that's mostly because its difficult to convince private land owners to give up their land for a trail, or there's no funding to pay for easement or land purchases on which to construct a trail. Which is why you see many trails using abandoned rail corridors. In the western US, more land is owned by the government, which makes trail building easier.

And trail building in most states is often overseen by the state Department of Transportation. The state DOT's are usually run by stiff engineering types who only want to develop and build highways that can carry the most amount of cars possible. They don't run, don't exercise, and don't care about what's going on in Europe. In some state DOT's it's starting to dawn on them that there are other benefits to trail construction, most notably economic development.

US wastes billions of dollars on US military, NSA, weapon contractors, etc. Members of GOP only want to cut social programs. Both political parties, GOP and DNC continue to vote to increase budget to subsidize local law enforcement and subsidize rest of prison industrial complex. Lack of good bike paths also is tied in with lack of high quality school lunches and huge out of pocket costs for school activities such and band, orchestra and athletics.