Well, in most major urban areas, cars are inefficient transportation. You can tell that by seeing the traffic congestion in most of your larger cities during the morning and evening rush hours. I live 18 miles away from my place of employment...it should not take me 50 to 75 minutes to get to work by car...but, Monday through Friday...when you add thousands of other vehicles on the streets I travel on...it does. The few times I went into work on Saturday or Sunday, it takes 15 minutes. At least in America, it is considered economically feasible and worth the time and "conveinence" for people to make such a commute (or to commute a distance 3 times mine) by car.

I'd hate to sound pessimistic here...but, the fact is, alot of Americans are obese and lazy to the point that they would not be able to live without a car, and wouldn't think twice about riding a bike to work or using a bike to haul stuff/run errands. IMO the only thing that will change habits and lifestyles re: bicycle use is when gasoline reaches price levels of $4-$6? a gallon or when enough people start realizing that its cheaper and healthier to ride a bike instead or dropping close to a grand per month on gasoline. Another thing IMO that must happen is for obesity to become less mainstream...because it IS part of mainstream American culture now. More people need a "coming to Jesus" moment re: their weight and lifestyle...that will get people on bikes. Healthy skinny fit people, or people with a drive to become a healthy skinny fit person do things that will maintain themselves as; or become; a healthy skinny and fit person...riding a bike can be part of that.

Re: education, again, IMO...thats a lost cause. Get the middle schoolers out of the sex education and ethnic sensitivity courses and put their fat politically correct a$$e$ back into PE where they belong! I mean cripes...there are reasons why little Johnny is tipping the scales at 250 pounds when he's 10! You think he's going to want to ride his bike to school?