How does it take 30 minutes to walk a mile, unless you're really slow and out of shape, or taking your time (something you shouldn't be doing if you're "commuting")? Any normal person should be able to walk 2.5-3 mph, which means you should be able to walk a mile in 20-24 minutes.

>New York City has built over 1,000 miles in bike lanes... Barcelona has implemented “superblocks” by closing off streets for use as community and pedestrian areas. Copenhagen is planning to make its downtown core car-free within a decade. In short, cities are prioritizing people over cars.

None of these cities are typical of any cities, especially ones here in America. Copenhagen is the most bike-friendly city on the planet, and has been for a long time, so it's no surprise they're aiming to be car-free downtown soon. NYC is unique in the US for its density, but also importantly is that mentions like this always focus on Manhattan, which is only a small part of the overall city. I doubt there's a lot of progress in building bike lanes in the Bronx or on Staten Island, or even in Queens.

The solution to this problem isn't more public transit, which simply does not work in places with lower density (i.e. suburbs) and are too spread out for pre-planned routes to work out well. The solution is Personal Rapid Transit systems like SkyTran.