Bus with line changes is usually slower than by bike. Why not compare with the for most people fastest option, if your criticism is speed?

The average travel speed of cars in cities is typically not more than about 35 km/h. Within a city, you are not likely to save that much time.

Bikes and Cars do not work well together.

You apparently have not seen Copenhagen. And yes, going 100% car-free is difficult. But in cities, you can get rid of 95% of cars. Myself, I never had one in 40 years, having lived in many different places, not only cities.

Sound like an anti-buddhist recipe for not really living and existing at all.

Yes! We need a 30 km/h green wave.

30 is great for bikes. The safer people feel, the more will use bikes - Paris or Copenhagen are great examples, or smaller German cities like Münster and Oldenburg.

The more people go by bike, the less car traffic you will have. A bike lane of 2,50 meters width can transport 7500 vehicles per hour - that’s equivalent to a mayor motorway. (A good example fir this is Copenhagens Cykleslangen which crosses the harbour to the South). As the comments here point out amply, the main obstacles for cars are other cars, so in a bike-friendly city, the cars that need to can travel with less obstructions. As well as ambulances, firefighters and so on (we have statistics from Paris that show the latter).

And an important consequential effect of freeing city streets for bikes is that scarce and comperatively expensive public transport capacity is freed for people which need to use it, because they either need to travel long distances, or are not healthy enough to use the bike.

And this is one reason more to limit speeds in cities to 30 kilometers per hour (20 mph).

Thanks.

For sure, we need collective action, urgently. But we still need individuals which pave the way.

In a way, we need to re-invent our civilization: We need to cease to use fire for everyday needs. This needs every brain we can muster.

Maybe we should do a fundraiser for an ad campaign which shames needless use of combustion engine cars, fossil heating, flying, plastics, and meat consumption. Similar to the warnings on cigarette packages. And aimed at the well-informed, resourceful middle class which can change without real discomfort, and knows they can do better, but is too lazy to act.

I think that would work. Much of advertising sells us pictures how we want to be seen by others - people are motivated by pride and what appears cool.

Also, the idea that you’ve “saved time” is a bit silly.

Not to mention that all the extra money which you will need for a car, instead of using public transport or a bike, will require extra paid work time which in many (not all) cases will annihilate any time savings you might have had.

I can’t look into the future, but there are two verses from the best German poets which come to my mind.

One is from Goethe:

Faust. „Nun gut, wer bist du denn?“ / Mephistopheles. „Ein Teil von jener Kraft, / Die stets das Böse will und stets das Gute schafft.“

It translates to:

Faustus: “Who are you?”

Mephistopheles: “I am a part of that force, which always wants the evil, and always creates the good.”

The other one is Friedrich Hölderlin:

Wo aber Gefahr ist, wächst

Das Rettende auch.

“Yet there where is danger, arises what rescues.”

I do not want to make fun of this - for many fellow souls especially in South Asia, this is already an emergency. And there is no doubt that our civilization is in deep crisis. We must find answers to this. What we do now - collectively and individually - will count more than ever.

It is strange that most countries do not seem to really prepare for severe supply shortages.

In the second quarter of 2020, the global response COVID with widespread lockdowns and cease of travel lowered global demand of oil by only 10%. Briefly, the oil price approached almost zero.

Now, supply is forcefully reduced by about 20%.

Another number is that the oil price spike of 2008, where brent crude went over 100 USD per barrel, was supposedly triggered by a much smaller shortfall of supply (if I remember correctly, in the order of a few percent).