It can be expensive, but it's never too late. We paved over cities to create what we have now at great expense (and great detriment to historically black neighborhoods). But it's also possible to slowly, incrementally, address it. Paris in particular is going at this head on, with the same sort of growing pains Amsterdam saw decades ago, but it's also clear the shift is already happening. There's clear tipping points that once you reach them, the benefits begin to materialize and you get the demand for further improvements. Not that different from EVs in that regard, or really any form of transportation.
It was the same with the interstate system and the car-based road system we have today.
Part of the problem I see with how NA cities have done this is that these decisions tend to be made in terms of roads, not trips. Bike lanes being added do nothing if the infrastructure doesn't support real trips being made, or don't make riders feel safe (see my comment about bike gutters). So if I take away a lane without alternatives for trips being made, and fail to attach those bike lanes to real destinations, or make it unlikely that the average family member feels safe using those lanes, of course it will fail to solve the problem. People make trips, and will make those trips in a way that is easy and safe for them. They aren't "cyclists" or "pedestrians" or "drivers".
Anything we do here needs to be comprehensive. It means zoning for neighborhoods that include mixed use, allowing people to make shorter trips and having amenities available to them that don't require a car to access safely. It means having places to secure things like bikes/scooters/etc at those destinations. It means public transit accessibility for longer trips. And yes, car access should still be in play. It's not just about swapping one type of lane for another, but rather a rethinking of transportation in a holistic, people-centric mindset rather than a car-centric one. Otherwise you get into the "when you have a hammer, everything's a nail" mindset we currently have. Car infrastructure is expensive, and makes other forms of infrastructure more expensive due to sprawl. It's starting to be shown that the sprawl makes it harder for a city to remain solvent compared to more dense cities that don't devote a third of their land to cars. Historic districts and modern mixed use districts being the core revenue centers for today's NA cities.
Anyways, I've let this topic get derailed, so it's probably better to move this to a separate thread.
