@Hypocrisy_Central you asked what it would take, and it would take quite a bit of mind shift, which you know. But also consider the infrastructure shift that would be necessary. Roadways would have to be remarked for bike lanes, just to get us started. Stores would need to be smaller and more distributed so that goods and services would be closer to the population’s residences.
In these European countries that have high bike rates, what makes that possible? First was that fact that gasoline was in short supply, high priced and heavily taxed after the second world war. Second was the fact that steel was in short supply, high priced and heavily taxed such that manufacturing and owning a car was outrageous for the common person. Third was the size of the villages, the density of the population, the reliance on rail because, well, see 1 and 2, the lack of production capacity since many factories needed to be rebuilt, etc. The bike system was most cost effective for these people.
Contrast to the United States in the same time frame and here we had less dense population, cheaper gas and steel, our production capacity was looking for peacetime work, we had money and Mad-Ave knew it and wanted to lock it up in their coffers. Distance alone drove many to prefer the automobile version of travel as it allows for our belief in eliminating the middleman in our daily business.
So New York City might be able to convert to bike travel, if you get the fashions on board. What percentage of the population will that give you? LA was built to showcase automobiles, what percentage of the population there would be re-enfranchised with conversion to self-reliant bike travel? Chicago, another large city, split between the density of population like NYC, and the sprawl like LA.
These three cities illustrate the practical difficulties of converting the population to a pedal nation. Solve the problems of distribution, distance and distrust at the local level and you might make a dent in converting people to a pedal nation.