Originally Posted by cooker

The developed world already has a lot of built infrastructure, and if the population for some reason does shift more to car free (and there is some evidence of that happening at the moment) it will probably involve adaptation of existing communities, not newly planned car-free communities. We're seeing lots of cities effectively being "retrofitted" with bikeways and better public transit, and with some reductions of car facilities or access, like the traffic restrictions in London, or revised zoning rules that optionally allow new apartment buildings to have fewer parking spots in Boston, etc.

Intercity bikeways would be nice, but I don't see that as a priority, especially in vast countries like Canada, USA, Australia etc. People who want to live car free are mostly going to want to live, work and shop all within a few miles, so within their own "node" if you will. In my case, if I want to go to Montreal, Ottawa etc, for business or even as a tourist I'll go in a few hours by train - I don't see myself riding that distance over a few days except as a holiday jaunt where the cycling itself is the holiday.

Having said that, when streetcars first became popular, they did spawn linear suburban growth out from the centre of cities, along each set of the tracks, but then when automobiles reached the masses, the space between the streetcar lines started to fill in. But bikes, like cars, and unlike streetcars, aren't limited to specific rights of way, so there is no sound reason why bike related development needs to be linear. Concentric growth would make all areas of the city easier to bike to, since a circle is the most efficient way to organize a community and keep distances down.