But bikes solve the last mile problem that people tend to have with busses and trains. Plus they’re useful for shorter trips that wouldn’t really make sense for a bus or train. So giving better infrastructure to encourage that would definitely help even in a situation where you’re taking other forms of transit. As well as with how suburban America is it allows people to get out of the suburbs at a fairly good speed to get to public transit hubs or to stores.
I used to live in a county that solved that problem by having in effect a connecting bus for rural riders it operated a bit like a free taxi you had to schedule. Unlike an uber there was a longer wait as it had to serve many folks so you had to plan on leaving early and waiting but it did work out pretty well and it was anything but a rich county.
If you are going to be on the bus you mostly need more busses not more bikes
But bikes solve the last mile problem that people tend to have with busses and trains. Plus they’re useful for shorter trips that wouldn’t really make sense for a bus or train. So giving better infrastructure to encourage that would definitely help even in a situation where you’re taking other forms of transit. As well as with how suburban America is it allows people to get out of the suburbs at a fairly good speed to get to public transit hubs or to stores.
I used to live in a county that solved that problem by having in effect a connecting bus for rural riders it operated a bit like a free taxi you had to schedule. Unlike an uber there was a longer wait as it had to serve many folks so you had to plan on leaving early and waiting but it did work out pretty well and it was anything but a rich county.