Earlier quoted context omitted.
Doesn't and can't actually replace a car over a certain size of the city. It is said that in the Netherlands 27% of all trips are done by bicycle - IIRC it's the highest percentage in Europe. What is not mentioned though is that 50% are done by car. If you look at the distance traveled it's 75% car, 8% bicycle. The cities in that country that have a higher trip percentage are tiny, 100k towns. Bicycles replace walkin…
Bicycles replace both walking and driving trips. In Dutch cities, most people walk or cycle to the grocery store, which is a great example of cycling replacing walking trips. In smaller villages however, that are more spread out and usually only have one or two grocery stores, people usually take the car or their bike to the grocery store, because walking is too far. In this case, bikes do replace trips by car. Also…
In cities (and I lived in London until six years ago) you needed a car for transporting shopping. Its either that or pay inflated prices at local convenience stores. Where I lived (Leyton) there were 1 or 2 supermarkets within a mile or two but other parts of London you had to travel further. Even with the much better public transport, you would not be able to carry more than a couple of bags of shopping. And much of London was just too dangerous to cycle on.
So I can understand why people like their cars even in cities.