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

Trails are great, but much of what I've seen in Europe is just bike paths along the road. They're delineated very well, so no walking in the bike lane or biking in the walking lane. Other than rail trails, this or something similar is about the least expensive way we can accomodate biking in the US. Just add a 3 foot wide extension and paint a white line.

Property values along the new bikeways in Atlanta skyrocketed.

https://www.greenbiz.com/article/atlantas-model-future-urban-green-spaces

The american dream is about having a car, at any cost even if you go into great debt. It as promoted as giving you freedom to move, power behind a cage to run people over, required for you to have employment, and the only way you can attract a spouse. It as if you have no choice, and its a necessity in life. This makes the car industry pocket full of cash to lobby LOS as highest priority for cars when it comes to infrastrucure

People are Just less consumerist here. We think its quality of life to cycle, while americans like to own and eat big things and many of those

I was amazed with how smaller the vehicles are in general in Europe. When I came back to the states after three months there it was eye opening to how large the suvs and pickup trucks are in the US. I do think the movie Wall e explains it very well.

USA far inferior wrote:

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

Vienna, Copenhagen, Oslo, etc - all these places have awesome bike path systems where you can easily commute to work on a bike and not risk getting killed.

It seems like in the USA with the exception of a few small US cities you cannot ride a bike very far without having to watch out for getting hit by cars.

I wonder if when gas prices double some day in USA to 8 dollars per gallon if cities will have more incentive to create more extensive bike path systems including numerous bike underpasses?

They employ socialized/government medicine and accumulate cash by denying care to the oldsters who have been paying into the system for decades and killing off the deficient before they can collect a check. Obama tried to bring that system here("maybe the old people should just take a pill") but he unfortunately failed and we now have no good bike paths and these old, deficient people to deal with. Europe is utopia, at least on vacation or my semester abroad.

Cars are not seen as pretty much an extension of your person like they seem to be in the US. When vacationing in the US, it's really obvious how important their cars often are to people in the US. Cars are also expensive here, at least in Scandinavia. The cities are also older, and not built for lots of traffic, so driving and parking around city centers is often a nightmare. Distances are often shorter between work and home in smaller cities, so cars aren't as necessary, and especially not if parking is impossible or super expensive. Not to mention, most governments here actually care about the environment, so there is a pretty decent focus on making people move from cars to bikes, since it's better for the environment and better for you.

That said, most people I know in Oslo use public transport to work, while in my smaller home town people use bikes more.

There is a ray of hope - look at roundabouts. For over 60 yrs in Europe it's been blindingly obvious that they are superior to stop lights in almost every way, yet USA had very few until about 10 yrs ago. (4 way stops hahaha) Now they can't build em fast enough.

If there's one country that denies healthcare to its people it's the US government. Hell, you elected a president whose decided goal it was to dismantle affordable public healthcare provision his predecessor tried to introduce to much resistance from one party that is ruled by moronic religious zealots.

wineturtle wrote:

gas price list in Europe

There's yer winner right there.

zxcvzxv wrote:

Property values along the new bikeways in Atlanta skyrocketed.

https://www.greenbiz.com/article/atlantas-model-future-urban-green-spaces

On one hand, you're gentrifying poor neighborhoods, which is bad.

On the other hand, you're spending $4.8 BILLION dollars on 33 miles of bike trails, which is bad.

Conclusion: bicycle paths are bad.

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!

Uh, because Europeans are smarter than Americans ? Yep , that’s it .

Free time in the U.S. is horrible compared to most countries. The 40 hour workweek is a joke for both salaried and non-salaried employees. I've had to work up to 100 hours per week for no extra pay for months. It's hard to maintain any form of exercise when you get off of work and go home to a family and a spouse that is overtaxed at home.

This is the most rational thread I've seen on letsrun in awhile. Congrats for everyone already stating some solid reasons.

These days I see everyone driving a Tesla, BMW, or Nissan Leaf in western Europe, or electric bike or high end bicycle. The regular bicycles people don’t even have to bother locking them up because no one will bother stealing them since there are 100+ other crappy bicycles available to ride on the street practically for free. In the USA crappy bicycles get stolen and sold for parts on eBay and in other illegal chop shop operations.

In USA people drive piece of sht car that fall apart easily. Adam Sandler said it best in his song, “piece of sht car.”

Also the taxis are all Mercedes with brand new leather seats, whereas in USA I sit on stinky cushions in pos Ford with holes in them. Or if it’s an uber or Lyft ride in USA, the car usually smells like that of a lower to lower middle class person. Unwashed seats wreaking of old sweaty bums and sulfur methane odors are very common in USA public transportation methods

carrying my semi-automatic weapon is quite difficult on a bike.

I am from Toronto and i was in Austin the other weekend for the SXSW and there was a good bike path system to get around, the rest of Texas left a lot to be desired however.

As long as the bike paths are separate from cars so that cars can’t treat them as breakdown or right signal turn lanes, then they are safe and are a great thing

In some state DOT's it's starting to dawn on them that there are other benefits to trail construction, most notably economic development.

it's also worth remembering that if you employ people to build trails, they have a job, which means unemployment goes down. which is the economic argument for building trails.

if you then wait for the trail builders to get 5 miles down the trail, you can employ another gang of people to start behind them tearing the trail up and planting trees instead. in this way, unemployment is kept low, you have a constant 5 miles of bicycle trails to be proud of, but you also preserve the environment.

can I get a job in the DOT now?

cheers.