Sure, let's compare the Netherlands to the US - the US being nearly 24,000% larger in size and somehow it could possibly be just as bike-friendly. From its most narrow point, it is a comically short 80 miles or roughly 130 km.
Nobody is saying that we need to have a bike path going across the whole country. Most people don't leave their home city on a regular basis, and for those who do, we need to build trains, not more cars.
The cities are probably not build the same. The highways on several levels, the streets sizes, the places to live, work and buy stuff, everything was built around the use of cars since the 60s. And a train network doesn't build itself.
Exactly. We already bulldozed and rebuilt our cities once in the last 60 years. But that we demolishing density and replacing it with parking lots. Reversing that damage should be easier because a lot of it is just infill, much less demolition needed. There's no reason we can't fix it, and every reason we can't NOT fix it.
The roads didn't build themselves either. And most major cities were built around rail and walkability until the 50-60s. Before that it was expected that everyone could walk to their basic needs or transit if they lived in the city.
Ironically, the guy has an entire video dedicated to debunking the poor framing of this argument.
No one is trying to bike across the United States. Heck, hardly anyone crosses the United States period. The core issue usually relates just to city clusters in one area, and mostly relates to a single individual city with its suburbs, and how that city has used the space it has.
That fact that someone can conceded to realizing that the US is massive and thus would require (not a wish, but an actual requiremrnt) long distance transportation, and yet still mentions a country like the Netherlands in the same breathe means they are incredibly disingenuous in their thinking.