Who said anything about Kansas? The author was talking about Sydney, Australia, which has a population of about 4.5 million. It's a big city. The official city limits encompass almost 4700 square miles.

Even assuming that that it's a perfect square, that would make it 68 miles across -- so four or five hours to ride a bike from end to end under good conditions? You can probably do that in a car in a little over one hour.

When people talk about bicycles being "efficient" -- they're rarely talking about their "swiftness" at the same time. (Bikes are so efficient compared to cars in a joules per mile*pound way because they go slow.) They will get you there in some situations faster -- in very highly congested areas, short distances, places where parking is impossible to find -- but outside of that niche, a car will get you there faster. And I've never been there, but I'll bet cars are faster in most of Sydney for a trip of more than a mile or two.