I guess that's the main thing. I wouldn't particularly expect the US to make huge strides here, but e.g. in London the difference between now and years ago is night and day. The Netherlands didn't get to the present-day infrastructure overnight either. (Like London, my home town also improved a lot in the same period, even if it already was in a rather good place.)

UK has plenty of soul-crushing sprawls around every city.

> whole heap ahead of the US

That's a very low bar to clear, come on.

Better? Since when? During my lifetime in Britain it has only got worse. It's so bad now I no longer cycle myself for fear of serious injury or death and don't recommend others do either. Cars have become bigger and there are far more of them. We even see monstrous American cars on our roads now. They've taken more and more of the roads and there's no stopping them. Police don't bother any more.. The roads are in worse shape than ever. Far more money is put into car infrastructure than anything else. I assume you live in London or some other city. Outside of there it's way worse.

I was explicitly talking about cities because that's the context of the subthread (and indeed the OP). London, Cambridge, Birmingham, Manchester etc. are installing protected cycle infrastructure that was basically unheard of 10 years ago. I do agree that rural roads are more hostile for cycling now, and your assumption as to where I live is wrong.

I can only speak for Manchester but people here have looked at the cycle infrastructure and taken it as a signal to ride around dressed all in black with no lights. I don't think the accident rate will go down.

That means they feel safe. It's an improvement in infrastructure.

The next step (Amsterdam, Copenhagen) is to ride around in black, with no lights, while drunk.

The infrastructure isn't good enough for that in the UK, they will just get squashed. I narrowly avoided hitting one head on about an hour ago.

>It's a shame there's basically no country in the anglosphere designed for pedestrians like most European countries.

Was also a bit confused why Britain and Ireland are not considered by the parent. Sure, they do not have as good cycling infrastructure as the Netherlands. But both of them are equally good at being pedestrian friendly - exactly what has been asked - and I'd say are even more pedestrian friendly than most European countries.