[kokx]

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 note that in general, Dutch cities are quite walkable and cycleable. If I visit a friend on the other side of the city I live in, I go by bike. Which is about as fast as going by car. Going by public transport also takes about the same time. This is a result of the Downs-Thomson paradox [1].

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downs%E2%80%93Thomson_paradox

[davidhbolton]

Here in the UK, approx 10 million (about 16% of the population) people live outside of towns and cities. My nearest supermarket is seven miles away. Public transport is almost non-existent. Cars are a necessity not a luxury.

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.