A lot of this comes down to the way people view how the future path of the economy should fall. Considering our country is run by bohemoths of the business world it is obvious which way we are headed. Big business wants big profits, big growth/consumption/free travel(/even congestion and pollution it could be argued are all good for big business; more money and opportunity for them) lead to big profits. Our country goes where the money is at.

The bicycle is not a big money maker; it can be purchased and operated at a tiny fraction of the cost of the automobile so why should anyone support it.

On the other hand, who actually really cares that we're fat? Fat and unhealthy Americans mean higher medical bills, more crash diet fads/weight loss strategies (aka easy money makers) and in the end more money in big companies' pockets and higher economic growth for our country.

If we weren't so hell bent on creating higher economic growth and appeasing huge corporations something like this might be more of a possibility.

Rebutting your arguments in order, Scott:
- Ad hominem. That's not an argument, it's an insult. I agree Easterbrook is often wrong, but his analysis is often useful as he normally tries to look at things a different way to get at them better. "Easterbrook argues that as long as producing pollution is a free good -- without cost to the polluter -- there is little economic incentive to produce new methods to restrict it." What exactly is wrong with that? Holy smokes, that seems almost self evident. Naah, forget it, we don't like Easterbrook so we'll just insult him and move on, ignoring his argument...

- Oil, gas and hydro strangling coal as a means of transportation and residential heating has *surely* had an enormous effect on air quality improvements, as has regulation of existing fossil fuel burners - catalytic converters for cars & prime movers, and analogous technology ('scrubbers') for coal & gas powered industrial plants. (Yes, air quality has improved tremendously since mid-century, by almost any measure, as a result of regulation *and* market forces, they aren't independent variables - scrubbers are a big industry for example, but that market wouldn't exist without the Clean Air Act, and societal forces - consumers and voters - demanding cleaner air).

- Gerson isn't really a conservative, any more than David Broder. He's a conventional wisdom guy which makes it sort of stunning that he'd even think about quoting either Easterbrook brother.

- It isn't necessarily conservative to insist that government be strangled. Burkeans would argue that there needs to be good government. Classical liberal 'conservatives' would argue that there needs to be enough government to protect the rights of individuals. Paternalist conservatives would argue that there needs to be a lot of government to look after wayward folk. Only a small subset of radical libertarians - the disciples of Rothbard, mainly - want government scuttled, and frankly most of the other libertarians find the Rothbardians (or Randians for that matter, who never quite got that Roark was a fictional character) to be insufferable. On the other hand, many Chicago School conservative/libertarian thinkers - Bork & Scalia among them, fewer of the pure economists - believe that government can serve a useful purpose by remedying market deficiencies, of which there are many. Markets are bad, for instance, at solving problems that belong to everyone but no one (tragedy of the commons, anyone?) It's a strawman to insist that Grover Norquist is the True Keeper of the Flame, in the same way it would be silly for me to insist that Ralph Nader is the guy who defines neo liberalism.

>>>however, there are powerful political andbusiness forces which make this a difficult sell here in the states

- Aha. Now you make a good argument that I buy. You know how electric light rail was killed off in LA? General Motors gave free buses to the city, but the city had to trade in the rail cars to earn the buses. General Motors has no interest in people riding $300 bicycles, they want them to drive expensive cars. It's not just "big business" because big business isn't 10 fat guys in dinner jackets and top hats like the little Monopoly guy sitting in a back room, it's also anybody with an interest in general material prosperity. We want people to drive cars, because it generates a lot of work to make a car, and it makes a lot of money, not just for the fat cats but for pension funds and indviduals with 401(k) plans and so forth, yep the oil companies profit but so does the local gas station owner, the mechanic, the insurance company...

I think government nudging to get people to ride bikes is really smart. Open the bike lanes (or even "semi" lanes that run alongside regular traffic), encourage bike-friendly businesses, make a bike used for commuting at least once a week tax deductible, fund studies on how to make these new mixed use developments bike & ped friendly and more liveable generally (kind of like how Energy Star was stood up) and go from there. I don't think you can dictate how people will live, as Hayek points out people tend to spontaneously organize efficient solutions, and big gubmint solutions, imposed centrally, are usually inefficient and rejected. A concerted campaign to sell the idea of less impactful transportation, however, coupled with incentives, is probably the way to go to change the culture and get people to want to ride. You think Trek and Electra and Giant are going to produce relatively cheap bikes to meet that need, if the government starts trying to convince people it's a good idea, and people start asking for it? Gosh, that sounds like a combined government/market solution. I think it also avoids the coercion problem that a lot of conservatives and libertarians worry about.

One other thing - gas isn't expensive, by any historical standard. It's cheap compared to European prices, it's cheap compared to 1973 or 1967 or 1940 in inflation-adjusted dollars. Expensive gas might help the obesity epidemic a bit, but without some incentives to get people off their butts, it will only help because people will have to eat less in order to be able to fill up their car.