A bicycle in every garage
A thought experiment:
For $30B or so, we could buy everyone in the United States a bicycle. For $6B, we could buy every kid in the US a bicycle.
To gain some perspective, this is a lot less than the cost of our present vehicle fleet or major infrastructure investments, and$30B is less than the cost of rebuilding all the NFL stadiums in the US, which we collectively do every 25 years anyway.
What kind of changes would we see if bicycles were more ubiquitous? Would people ride more? Would they drive less? Would they demand different infrastructure? Would health actually improve?
A Political Economy of Access: Infrastructure, Networks, Cities, and Institutions by David M. Levinson and David A. King
To be clear I am NOT saying that the government necessarily should do this.