Originally Posted by ianbrettcooper

Your town of Lincoln, Nebraska (2010 population 258379) is hardly an 'urban dot', unless you count a ten mile diameter of urban sprawl as a 'dot'. I guess if you zoom out far enough on Google Maps, any city can look like a dot surrounded by single family lots - - you just have to zoom waaay back in to see the family lots.

City suburbs within the sprawl are not 'rural', and cycling in them is just as quick as cycling in the city center. I think you are grossly overestimating the speed of a car in city suburbs and underestimating the number of delays car drivers are subject to. Also, you seem to be underestimating the ability of a cyclist to match a car's speed in that environment. Maybe you haven't tried it so you just don't believe it.

I have tried it, in cities, in suburbs and even in the countryside. I know that in suburbs and the city, a bicycle can match or beat a car's speed over a commute of up to 5 miles. In the countryside I've even beaten trains over a 30 mile stretch. The idea that trains, buses, cars are faster than bicycles is a myth. They 'can' go faster than bicycles when conditions are right, but in practice they do not because conditions in an urban commute are usually complicated, and cars, buses, trains, etc., are either hampered by built-in inefficiencies (such as having to walk and from stations and wait for a scheduled bus/train), or not flexible enough to overcome the inevitable delays.