Switching from ICE to electric is a much smaller ask than switching from personal cars to... bicycles?
Sarcasm aside, I think this is why people have generally stopped caring as much. What we are being asked to do (buy new shiny things for some estimated small percentage decrease in lifecycle CO2 output) does not match the messaging.
FWIW I cycle almost everywhere.
Looking at American commute distances however, cycling, even with an e-bike, is likely not a reasonable option.
A lot of Americans probably won't be able to commute on a bicycle, but could easily use one for shorter trips like visiting friends, doing groceries, getting a burger, etc.
Even with commutes, there are lots that could be done on a bicycle. I briefly lived in the US and had a 6-mile (~10 km) commute. It was an unpleasant experience because there was exactly zero cycling infrastructure along the way, but otherwise it was a brief 25-minute trip, shorter than any of the commutes I've had in Europe. Not a single one of my American colleagues, all of whom lived locally, cycled or took a bus.
- 2 live less than 5 minutes from a metro that literally takes them to the office, they never take the metro
- 2 live easily within a biking distance to work, 1 has a bike, another has e-bike, they never bike to work
- 1 lives literally walking distance to work, she never walks to work
Public transportation where I live is vast, you can easily commute with the public transportation to just about everywhere but only low(er) income people will take public transportation.
Two most-frequently cited reasons I hear why not bike/walk/...
1. Dangerous - every female friend I have lists this as #1 reason they always drive. Regardless of the fact that I live in the area where I often forget to close my garage overnight and leave the front door open (very very low crime rates) the women feel unsafe. A lot of sensationalism in the news regarding every minor thing happening might be to blame but I have a wife and a daughter and am godfather to several girls so I understand
2. Inconvenient - what if after work I want to go to ____ and ____ and ____. Now I got to track back home and then perhaps change clothes, clean the house... and then get into the car to go to _____.
Bikes are awesome. I do 95% of my trips by bike. It's healthy, cheap, and has very low amortized emissions. Everybody can repair a bike with a small amount of training.
More countries/cities have to do bike-centric road design.
I get that a change in lifestyle is more difficult for the individual than a change in what we are buying. My point, though, was that only the former is going to have a much greater impact.
Good, working and efficient public transit still means having significantly less comfort compared to having your private vehicle. Pretty much the only exception is using the metro in a congested downtown area at peak traffic (still, your metro experience will also be degraded by the peak traffic), or perhaps if parking your vehicle will be very difficult. And i say this as someone in a rather big city in Europe who is currently only using public transit. And there is a lot of stuff that i'd like to do but i can't do since i currently don't have access to a car or motorbike.
People don't just want "useful", at least the majority of people in developed countries also want "comfortable", and "nice", and "easy", and "enjoyable". A peak-hour metro ride or missing your tram by one minute is none of that.
When i bought my house, i looked into public transportation options. Instead of a 40 minute car ride, i could drive for 5 minutes and then take 3 hours (and 2 bus transfers) to get to my office by bus.
I would love to get some reading done on my commute, and would be willing to spend an hour on a bus or train instead of 40 minutes fighting traffic in my car, but it's just not really feasable. I think this situation is extremely common.
though your 40 minute by car commute is something that is unlikely something any invsetment will ever make reasonable.
there are things you can't do with transit. However nearly everyone is living in a family - so keep the truck to tow the boat, but get rid of the other cars that you won't need if transit is good. That is a much more reasonably goal that transit can aim for. A few like you won't own a car/truck at all, but most won't need to go that far
But hey, at least you get to keep 99% of your comfort while making 50% less emissions! (if it really is that much).
