Bicycle Culture by Design: Mikael Colville-Andersen at TEDxZurich
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- Опубликовано: 27 ноя 2012
- The focus on re-establishing more liveable cities continues unabated. The primary problem however is that 85 years of traffic engineering revolving around the car has failed miserably. It's time for modern thinking. Design can help. Historically, streets were human spaces. Let's design our cities like we design toasters or smartphones, following the desire lines of our citizens. Using basic design principles instead of engineering is the surest route to developing thriving, human cities.
Mikael Colville-Andersen is an urban mobility expert and CEO for Copenhagenize Consulting. He is often called Denmark's Bicycle Ambassador but he has learned the hard way that this title is a dismal pick-up line in bars. Colville-Andersen and his team advise cities and towns around the world regarding bicycle planning, infrastructure and communication strategies. He applies his marketing expertise to campaigns that focus on selling bicycle culture and bicycle transport to a mainstream audience as opposed to the existing cycling sub-cultures in particular with his famous Cycle Chic brand. Colville-Andersen gives talks around the world about bicycle culture, design and social media.
In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations)
I first saw this 7 years ago when I was studying Industrial Design at university. Hearing this message was decisive in informing my choice to pivot from focusing on car design to bicycle design. I’ve never looked back and now I’m working as a bicycle designer with the hope to get people riding good bikes that fit into their lives. People championing good infrastructure design are my heroes!
Hi! Im graduating from industrial design this year. Where do you work?
@@orjval Norco
We need more open minded and intelligent people like you to turn things around .
Fantastic talk. Thumbs up! Towns and cities without cars = better quality of life for citizens. Fact.
@@nussbaumer-dominik our local bike courier company has a cargo bike that mostly carries spares (tyres, even gearboxes) from distributors to car workshops. Trains and boats can carry bulk stuff to cities and then ebikes/ cargo bikes can take stuff round the city. The only issue is where to put all the extra people that wont be killed on the road.
@@nussbaumer-dominik cars are dominating the roads for many years now! Dont tell us that there is a monopoly here. Goods can be delivered and taken by cargo trucks! The problem now adays is that many people are idiots and blided by cars
You cannot mistake this guy's genuine enthusiasm. We need him in Australia. Our govt is so anti cycles.
+Carole von Aarberg Hey, didn't you just get rid of that twit PM?
They are ALL twits, replacement is not going to help.
Anti-cycle is almost 100% pro-car; the pro-car crowd has a BIG problem with the delusion of entitlement; either the Type-A men or the pampered women -- both feel strongly they are entitled to have whatever convenience (AND status symbol) they desire.
I've been looking for the solution to that for a decade.
Carole von Aarberg remember, change of pm means change your smokealarm.
@@everythingepichd5183 surely the batteries last longer than that?
16km each way to the office. 12 months a year. Rain or shine, through Canadian winters and hot humid summers. Cars are about 10 minutes faster than me. But I smile the whole way. On my bike. 🙂 Great talk!
I have the same distance to the office and plan to start biking to work. I'm a bit nervous but your comment really inspired me!
@@TonyIgnatova the secret is to take your time, don't worry how long it takes, and stay in your comfort zone. Don't want to ride in the rain? Don't. Stay comfortable. Ride happy. Once you are in your zone, then push the envelope if you want. But if you don't want to, that's fine, too. Every minute on your bike should be a joyful minute. 😀
my commute is 44.2km one way to toronto dt.. what can i do? bicycle?
I bought myself a vintage 70s road bike less than 2 months ago. Thats my 3rd bike, the last time i remember i ride my bicycle was 14years ago.
Now i'm 26, i ride my bike everytime i can and i feel myself become a little bit "lighter" everytime i ride my old bike.
This is probably one of the best money spending i have ever done after buying myself a camera.
Ride safe! FTW!
@@atomicat So good! Well done! :)
Nice job Mikael. As a Planning Commissioner for the city of San Luis Obispo California... I often refer to Copenhagenize. We are currently re-designing our circulation plan... and your thoughts and links have been very useful. Thanks for all you do ! BTW... there is great new book just out you might like... called Walkable City by Jeff Speck (co-author of Suburban Nation)
RIP Diablo Canyon it will be missed
Brilliant. I'm sure there are schools and institutions all over the world using this clip as a base for action to save our cities. You can count at least 3 schools in Olomouc city among them. Thank you, Mike.
Just look at The Netherlands, our cycling and traffic structure is the most evolved system worlwide.
You netherlanders have long been a beacon in this world. New York was originally New Amsterdam, and it is a liberal place because "dutch merchands", netherlanders, were running the show, and it still goes on ;)
Maybe we don't want to be like the Netherlands.
@@googleuser6201 If its not Dutch its not much.
Your smugness about bicycle infrastructure is also the most evolved worldwide. You better attach pontoons on your bikes for when the ocean takes back what was taken from it.
You're absolutely right, I don't understand why other countries are trying to reinvent the wheel instead of just copying the Dutch
This is truly inspiring. Thank goodness there are people like you out there doing this kind of work! The only negative aspect of this talk was the guy in the front row very rudely using his smart phone throughout your talk. Could he really not have put it away for 15 minutes!
The children's playground should really be the symbol of what's wrong with car culture.
"No child, you mustn't play. Ford and Volkswagen have spoken - your time for fun only exists in the playground. And no running."
I've been riding BMX and MTB since I was a kid and I love the culture around both.
10:10 - This is awesome!!! A 3-year old is a leading mind of the urban design field.
Great how you show that kids can often come up with great design solutions to everyday problems - they certainly view the world with different eyes to a grown-up.
Thank you for your talk Mikael!
"7 out of every 5 trips in my town are by large truck or SUV. Suggesting people do something else is a quick way to alienate yourself."
-Alien
Excelent speaker, and a great message.
Brilliant watching!
Thank you Mikael! I wish you could come to Calcutta city (India) to educate authorities-in-charge. They are banning all non-motorized forms of transportation. Most roads in the city has "No Cycling zone" signs & only fewer roads are left to come under such ban. Very soon riding a bicycle in the city would be considered illegal.
That's dangerous.But In Pune, we see many cycle tracks, and they are increasing cycle tracks.
Copying motorways
Amazing guy! Amazing speech! Great ideas
Great talk. I liked the enthusiasm and thoughtfulness. He surely showed the way to go ahead. Back to the future.
I've seen some videos about Copenhagen cycle infrastructure. While it's good, it never comes to the level of Dutch (cycle) infrastructure, it's just way better.
Have you biked in CPH? I have never biked in Netherlands, but i have to try it. :D I heard many Dutch people are critical to Copenhagen bike infrastructure.
@@strangerpainter They're always talking about big cities but there are bikes lanes everywhere in The Netherlands. And there are special bikes lanes that go by interesting land marks and through nature parks where cars cannot even go. We rule. Danes, find your own hobby!
@@rockyslay4310
Danes should just come over and learn how to build Dutch style bike routes. The more people the better, I say.
It would be fun to have bike paths that reach in an unbroken line from Krakow to Amsterdam and Naples to Oslo.
Not really. You're used to the dutch infrastructure, but the one in Copenhagen is superior, which is why Copenhagen is rated the most bike friendly city in the world ahead of any Dutch city.
@@stigandersen3783 As someone who lived both in Denmark and in Holland. It's not, I love Denmark, but holland wins on bike infastructure. Pick any Dutch city and they will beat Copenhagen on that part.
Lesson learned: observe; desire lines are fundamental for functional urbanites
- cars are silly because you can't people in them
Thanks TEDdy!
what needs to be understood in this is the fact that cities arent designed for the people that live there, the politicians and their rich friends dont live and walk through the city, they drive here from their big houses and spacious land to use the cities as utilities
Ironically my video started by playing an advert for a car. There is still work to do!
Same here. Mustang advert. Irony indeed. 😢
Same
So did mine....ironic indeed.
Thanks for the kind reply, I guess I hear a lot of stereotyping about 'engineering' which i probably take too personally :). I often sense that many people link engineering to a cold stiff robotic presence, I quote form the video 'should we really be engineering something as human and organic as public streets' YES WE SHOULD, but that engineering should be done well so it is organic and doesn't feel like the matrix by for example working alongside designers!
They should use a third world country as an experiment. Where there's almost no real infrastructure and no city planning in place. Then create this perfect eco-friendly transportation and show the world that it can happen. But perhaps I'm just a dreamer.
+Saphal Touch What about countries like China... they had billions of bicycles for centuries and now they are dreaming of cars. It seems every country has to make the same mistake - first people cycle, then cars and then back to cycle...?
Uhm...
What about the Netherlands. Where in most big cities the majority of all travels are already done by bike?
Doesn't that work as a better example that it can work even in developed countries?
@NorthernLights definitely not the uk
This sounds very neocolonial lol
consider using "Global South" instead of "third world country" or "developing country" and looking up why
For me the big problem with most cities is they are being modified to handle better the increased traffic when traffic itself is the problem.
Traffic generates pollution and annoyance. It eats time from peoples lives and is far from cost effective.
We need to rethink cities so that there is less traffic, not simply to have "better" traffic.
We are trying to solve the wrong problem, asking the wrong question.
And the continuing focus on minimizing traffic issues would likely result in induced demand - ie traffic looks better -> more people drive -> more traffic et al.
@@christopherpape4823 Not just "likely" - undoubtedly. Every single time you expand a road, or otherwise improve conditions for cars, the immediate response is that new and improved capacity being met and exceeded at most hours of the day. Cars are far beyond their maximum possible utility, and have been so for half a century. Meanwhile, all other forms of transportation have had their space stolen, and their needs prioritized down.
One really should follow Andersen and other urban planners' example, and think of the modern city as an experiment. With that perspective, it is abundantly clear that the experiment has failed.
12:34 Netherlands cities with rain sensors for bike-priority signal changes in the rain, snow, cold
They are a bit useless though. Why not just always give the bike the pass instead of just in rainy days?
@@PedroCstify Because it's just not always the best thing to do. Dutch traffic design is about moving people around. Not cars or bikes or pedestrians. People.
BEAUTIFUL... 🚴🌸
Really great! Well worth listening to and sharing.
Great talk! I completely agree. I am lucky enough to live in a city that is very proud of, and committed to, its cycling infrastructure.
It's not luck, you just move to one (I moved to my city for the MTB riding)... it was 11,564 miles away so I had to fly.
💕very nice 💕
Amazing talk. Perspective.
Inspiring!! This is my goal!
We of the Copenhagen-index advice Copenhagen-index! Nice words for a small country.
I would love to work for or with you! Truly inspirational and motivational. Thank you
Great talk!
I think I'm with the kids with this one, the case for glass roofs for bicycles lanes is more logical. If you had a choice between going to gym outside another one inside which one would you choose ? Would you expect people to drive if all cars have no roofs ? Why should cyclists HAVE to get wet? It doesn't make sense. Covered cycling is the more logical choice.
Sure, but also an expensive choice, Copenhagen has about 350 km of bicycle paths, that would cost alot of money to cover up. But even though its one of the most rainy cities in the world, people still use the bicycle paths when it rains or snows. There is a saying "there's no such thing as bad weather, only poor choice of clothing"
I think the problem I seek to question is why must cycle lanes 'have' to be cheap? If the US can spend billions building a mile of road for cars why do we self-censor? If a covered why would say double usage then why not think of making some primary routes covered?
I'm with the kids - the many benefits from cycling don't come from getting wet so why should it be mandatory to treat cyclists as second class travelers? I'm not saying that we SHOULD make all cycle lanes covered, but I am pointing out it's not a ridiculous ambition as was made out in other works by Mikael.
'There is a saying "there's no such thing as bad weather, only poor choice of clothing" ' So if that's true why do cars and buses and trains have roofs? I know this might be a big conceptual leap but try thinking like this if you wanted to cut car usage do you think making sure all cars were open tops (no roof) I would have NO impact? Your argument would be car drivers would be happy to drive in rain gear, my argument would be they would switch to a dry bus or tram.
in fact isn't your argument one AGAINST bus shelter provision? Why do cities do that?
The key question is would the extra numbers of cyclists justify the costs of building primary sheltered routes?
I agree. It doesn't have to be everywhere. Because that's the thing--cars drive around those roofs. It's more environmentally sound to have the roof be stationary, right? How about making the covering out of solar panels? Right now, roads are built to handle that great weight of cars and trucks etc. Put that money into the solar panel roofs, lets say at least in downtown and growing outward over time and get something that also gives back. Even just one! Somewhere! And then send me a picture so I can imagine a better world for my kids.
@@otishaschemeyer8194 One of the many joys of riding a bike is seeing the panorama of nature, including human nature, all around you. Unless those solar panels are clear, it would take away from something that draws people to cycling. They might be helpful on a rainy, windy, or snowy day, but they won't keep out the cold, and you can't roll them down when you want to feel the sun and the breeze on your face because the weather is so beautiful.
I live in Sacramento and I'm convinced we are one of the top cities for rude drivers because our streets our so horribly designed. I ride my bicycle almost everywhere and car drivers are rude to the point of endangering my life. The sad thing is that when I *must* drive, as soon as I get in the car I get so angry at the crappy streets that I want to run over bicyclists too. =(
That is so sad :( I live in Sydney and people are not kind to cyclists here either :(
Best video EVER !
Awedome i commute every day
His ideas are needed everywhere. Common sense needs to be brought to the forefront. Cities like New York are drowning in a mass of humanity.
5:29 "desire lines": observation of unmet needs, redesign
The shear irony of getting an Acura ad in the middle of this video.
This is a great deal more than a pro-bike talk, which is the way it seems billed and is marginalizing. It goes to deep issues of design's role in regard to the human spirit. Design leads life, but self-interested politics leads our design choices. Just ask us in Eugene Oregon, where we should be developing environmental infrastructure but are instead building a Courthouse to prosecute all those who aren't being served by the current design "choices."
Brilliant. Common sense is rarely so common!
So true! and stupidity is universal...
That is an excellent talk, and the speaker is awesome. But I wouldn't dismiss engineers and engineering. Engineers just need to have guideline and priorities, and they can optimize for all modes, if they are properly motivated, do have space and proper methods to work with. A lot of it boils down to education, and putting more money into things mentioned like observation, analyzing flows, putting them into foot of cyclists, taking time to look at details for long time. And that is money too again. If the cost and time is the main factor in the engineer job or company designing a intersection or few, obviously they are going to do a poor job, and just copy paste existing solutions. Proper good solution can be engineered, it can be objectively measured, it can be done scientifically, even if it involves human elements and behaviors. And it is important to not make engineers your enemy.
Also add several months of -20 -30:deg C. And ice & snow. Same happens in deep winter in Denmark.
-20 for several months in Denmark? Hardly. At worst, we might get -10 for two weeks. As for ice and snow, bike tracks and roads are periodically salted as soon as the first frost hits, everywhere in the country.
Either way, uncomfortable weather conditions are a good reason to also invest in robust public transit like trams, buses and trains. Getting around Denmark is incredibly easy by train, and getting around at least Copenhagen is easy by metro, train and bus. With options like that, bad weather is negligible.
It is very telling that in the US we have maintained the use of terms like _street smart, street price, street clothes, street drugs, guns on our streets, etc._ yet no longer consider a street any place to do or experience anything except drive a motor vehicle.
Wish my city was more bicycle friendly. Would ride my bike everywhere!
This guy’s rhetoric is excellent.
I agree, past version of me!
wow guys, you are so right about this
This talk changed my life...
¿podrían subtitular al español, por favor?
I ride back alleys of busy streets and it issafest
Seattle is a "bike friendly" city and I biked 9mi home yesterday....
on a busy road with no lane... then into sidewalk... finally on a bike path... then dumped onto a street, then dumped into a busy road with no bike lane... then you have to know where to go to get back to the bike path
Yep, Sydney is the same. Cycle ways are in bits and pieces, suddenly ending. It's bad.
I wish to apply this to san sebastian
Well stop bloody clapping then!
Lmao this made my day
14:26 nice Quote
Amen.
I strongly believe in your words. If you design a bike way and ensure safety there will be thousands of people who want to travel of bicycle. I’m talking about Hyderabad, India. No one cares about cyclists or pedestrians. No hope that this situation will change
The state imposes these designs on people. Perhaps private roads would open the door to safer city environments, since the people who DO walk and ride on said roads would have some input.
for my safe biking future, im moving to copenhagen. also, im going to stop flicking off and chase down drivers to curse and tell them how close they came to clipping me. because in reality, i am less shielded and have 2 fewer wheels (unless ur in training. i think bikes are safer shared with pedestrians than the roadraged streets known to kill. cuz my body matters
Bread Knight It would be better to move to the Netherlands. They are much more advanced in street and traffic development than Copenhagen/Denmark. Many of the things this guy is talking about have already been happening for years in cities and villages troughout the Netherlands. In the Netherlands there is not one city focussed on cycling like in Denmark but the whole county is being built like that. The Netherlands is basically one huge cycling network. And in the Netherlands there is still more research and experiments done every year to make streets and cities even more safe and people orientated. Netherlands is by far the safest country in the world to walk and cycle with also the largest percentage of cycling in the world. Copenhagen should watch and learn from the best: The Dutch.
I wonder when his utopia may be implemented world wide. I am afraid I could be dead when it does. The power of the car, sometimes you think it is ingrained in the DNA now.
Change starts slowly until it reaches a tipping point, then it happens surprisingly fast.
It's regular in Japan though.
Move to the Netherlands before you die.
👏👏
Thats why I moved to Tilburg
That is true a lot of cities government just keeps giving tickets to cyclist for riding on prohibited places but they don’t seem to know that a lot of this tickets repeat itself everyday, they should really stop and observed so they can find a solution but government is just interested in money so for them it’s easier to just give out the ticket
Please come to Hong Kong. It is an island that begs for a bicycle culture.
Who have a transcript?
Whe have already that what he said in the netherlands
Bike life!
we need to bring him to connecticut to teach dot why the bicycle should be king!!!!
the guy in the first row playing with his smartphone during the entire talk....must be a guy working for the city of Cologne going back and telling everyone that hew has attended a great talk about a guy telling about restructuring cities to be more livable....was great... but unfortunately cars are more important and we will never ever change anything.
The permanent problem that we all need to get to the correct question before we try to find the correct answer.
Glass roof's if cycle lanes were huge greenhouses the heat and co2 generated by all the cyclist would grow really good cheap food and keep people dry!
Houten near Utrecht.
Your faster with your bike to the store,then by car.
I am a bicyclist myself and appreciate the jest of what the presenter is trying to put across but a few points, like there would have been several accidents during those 7,000 years when people traveled in horses and carriages and later bicycles when they were invented. The paradigm shift he mentions has also enables us to travel further and faster which is mostly a good thing except for those accidents. Dual carriage ways existed even before motorcars and even those streets were not very safe even back then. Traffic gridlocks, noise and accidents existed even during those times. www.uctc.net/access/30/Access%2030%20-%2002%20-%20Horse%20Power.pdf
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_roads#Practices_and_terminology
I wonder if London's mayor Boris Johnson has met Mikael Colville-Anderson? He should at least watch some of his videos
+PorkyPiggles Don't know about that but i know Boris was invited to the Netherlands to have one of David Hembrow’s study tours (for free!), but he never came!
@@HelenaRG71 ffs now he's our PM
It’s come back boys
If you want to see desire lines, take a bus to a shopping mall in the suburb. You'll see desire lines from the bus stop cutting through the grass instead of the walkway 50feet away.
Right. Blame it on the engineers.
I dont think hes trying to, more like blaming the people that said it should be only engineers that make the roads. He wants designers to be included.
It's about designing AND engineering. Not just engineering, designing should come first.
Nowadays, roads are now exclusively for automobile especially in an urban environment, because they represent the veins to keep the city running.
The most efficient way to keep the city running is by having the most flexible transport system, rather than given priority to one group (motorist) over other modes of transport like trams, bikes, horse or walking even though they all share the same road.
In fact, Segways are ideal for persons with arthritis, one day we will all grow old right? But currently is banned on most public roads because they don't know what to do with this category of transport.
A city that exclude old people, younger children to play or do short journey without the need to think about parking spaces. Rush hour exist because of cars, not bikes, bus or other transport, then what the hell is the point of a city where everything supposed to be efficient???
The motoring public has accepted the idea that dying in a car crash is not unacceptable.
This guy's message has a lot of merit. But this person who thinks no engineer thinks like a designer without the end user is mind does not really understand what engineers do. Does he think engineering is only math equations...?
interesting
2 hours a day**
clap clap clap clap clap
nine
...eleven
Each bike could have it's own roof, maybe even fully enclosed. Well it would be heavier then so make the bike motorized. It might tip over so move up to 4 wheels. Hey put a radio in there! And a/c!
Its sad that globally the world is designed around the car, it seems that the human species has mutated into a machine.
My problem is that you choose to blame my profession when in your own reply you make it clear engineering is not to blame. If you give an engineer a task their job is to design / produce what you ask for. The problem in your example is that the politicians asked for the 'wrong' thing as they were driven by financial interest.Describing the engineer as 'cold' is just disrespectful and rude.
You see Cars and vehicles keep you feeling secured in a capsule by locking yourself and your stuff inside it's a less social way to travel.......
And the adverts tell us we are safe and free in a car :)
As a passionate cyclist who is an engineer I find the attitude of this video somewhat disturbing. In general engineers are employed to engineer a somebody else's idea. Blaming this problem on engineering is short sighted and mis-leading.
Compared to Amerdam Copenhagen is just a first step. Denmark and Copenhagen have no right to claim any superiority. There is only one who has that right: The Netherlands. Compared to the total network of cycling infrastrucure in The Netherlands then Denmark infrastructure is midieval. In the Netherlands there truly is an inteliigent and safe network connected througout the country. Unlike anything in this world. Copenhagen does not even come close. Let alone the rest of Denmark.
Yhea comparing the netherlands to denmark make denmark seem bad, but comparing denmark to the rest of the world except the netherlands makes denmark seem like an amazing place, and its the only country outside of the netherlands where bicycles are taken serious. And denmark is still improving so in a couple dozen years they will have as good bicycle infra as the netherlands
all I keep heaing is Copenhagen this and Copenhagen that. We got it, u live in a bicycle paradise. Well we all cabn't live there sadly as they won't let us in. Tell me about somewhere else please
Hahaha you suck ass
Great
It will take 3 hours of peddaling to get to work
But you wont jave to go as often because you wont need to pay for a car.
@@W1DO people dont live in cars.. ( well most dont ) People live in houses and they still need to pay for those..
@@nikk7619 case in point, one of the things I am doing to save money is riding a bike to work so that I can afford to cut down to 4 days in work. We will still keep 2 of our 4 cars and 1 motorbike, we just wont waste money on cars we own for convenience rather than enjoyment. Ps it's easier to pay for your house if you dont pay extra for travel.
@@W1DO you are a bicycle enthusiast, so we will never see eye-to-eye on this topic.. Plus i presume you live in Christchurch New Zealand judging by your mountain bike videos. Which has a population of 400,000. Now i live in Toronto(6 million), well not Toronto because no one can afford to live in Toronto but in the surrounding areas. My commute is 44.2km one way. How do you expect me to do a marathon twice a day?
@@nikk7619 you move somewhere better or change jobs or start a business or do all of it. I'm from the UK. I changed job and country to live somewhere easier. Nothing stopping you changing the length of your commute other than your own choices. PS I could also be described as a JDM car enthusiast or a biker or a Mountain biker. I dont ride bicycles on the road because I like it.
He is kind of a human interaction philosopher....
It does not require very deep thinking to answer why the automobile culture is thriving despite its lethality. Lots of people from doctors, lawyers, engineers, auto makerrs, oil giants stand to profit from this. Too many tycoons lose out if we curtail fossl fuel consumption which is what is going to spell the end of the human civilization in few centuries from climate change apocalypse.
what this guy says the netherlands litterly have just show a few pictures stop talking about copenhagen or desire lines man
There are a number of reasons people don't want to ride a bicycle. Many have grown to love their cars, as the car is designed to do. People love their cars for the speed, the range, not getting tired, not getting sweaty, being able to easily take passengers (especially children), moving lots of weight or bulk, traveling in bad weather comfortably (including high winds), having privacy, or showing off an expensive ride. I think some of these reasons are legitimate (especially somebody with multiple young children), some of them are very shallow and selfish. I think the mis-western US embraced cars so completely due to the agricultural backgrounds, where traffic isn't a large concern and moving at 60 miles per hour instead of 15 is important, since they often need to cover dozens of miles in a day. They also often need to move large amounts of equipment or goods, also difficult with a bicycle. As cities grew, cars were already a cultural staple. Cars also appeal greatly to the more wealthy, as the cost becomes a non-issue and privacy, style, and not getting sweaty or beaten by the elements is more important.
We need to see changes in people's outlooks, that's a significant psychological battle. That said, we also need to recognize how much cars can do for so many people. The bicycle was a great invention, and there might be a need for another great invention or at least iteration to help narrow the gap between cars and bicycles. We either need something competitive with cars or we need city slickers to be a lot poorer.
Your are wrong
Cities can won a lot of money if the planning consider humans as humans, not as machines. We just need a change of mentality so that we can realize that a humanized city is better for citizens and for the economy !
Engineers are brilliant problem solvers. They just need to be told which problems to solve. They are rarely leaders. They are the Can Do team. If we design a city properly, they will make it work. But as it is now, we are living in The Matrix, because traffic engineering goes unchecked and uncriticised. The 85th Percentile, for example, is a joke. An archaeic study that doesn't work. And yet it's the first thing you learn when studying engineering. Time to change things.
No. Engineers do as they are told.
He is wrong. What is standing in the way of progress is not "engineering the streets", it's money and greed, a 'very old' human trait.