I think the big thing with the pedestrian/bike/big steel box on wheels trifecta in most cities is that the automobile and the pedestrian were given clear "road rules" in the early stages and bikes were kind of an afterthought.
Some city planning (like helsinki) appears on the surface to be very friendly to bikes. And there are admittedly a lot of bike trails and even an
online map system (like mapquest, but it actually sometimes works) that gives you bike trail directions.
But in reality one is very vulnerable as a city cyclist. One (edit)
never is often not terribly sure where one should be biking. Sometimes the roads are just too dangerous and I take the sidewalk, much to the dismay of angry seniors.
Drivers, at least the ones here, seem ready to run over anything that is smaller than what they're driving.
