I live in Osaka, Japan, a city with one of the best mass transit systems in the world. I walk to the supermarket because it's right across the street. There's a Korean grocery downstairs about 30 seconds from my front door. There are probably 10 supermarkets within a 5 minute bicycle ride, and people frequently sell vegetables on the street about 2 minutes on foot from my apartment. I do all my shopping on foot or bicycle, although I do take the subway/bus/streetcar quite often. I also travel a lot, and I've been all over Japan by train and bus.

I guarantee you that I cycle in weather much harsher than this community you speak of gets, and I'm rarely uncomfortable. (I'm in central Alberta, Canada. Not Calgary anymore. Now, I'm further north and east. I cycle five days a week. It would take a foot of snow falling in a single night for me to consider anything else.) The extra clothing for winter cycling is nothing compared to the price of a car, and equivalent to a few months of transit passes. A single studded tire (in front), fleece long underwear, a light fleece jacket, a microft shell, gloves, a light toque, and a mask is my winter kit. I might have spent $280 total (Canadian) piecing it together. Throw in a pair of panniers, and you're set. If it were dangerous, I wouldn't be doing it. The vast majority of the folk in a 3-by-5 mile community are only looking at a 10-15 minute trip by bike from any point A to any point B. That ain't that bad.

Honestly, I don't know why people look at cycling like its a fate worse than death.

Besides cycling, there are many other options. Improving bus service is obvious. Car rentals worked great for me. (I'd rent a car for a couple of "chore-days" a month.) A hybrid between taxis and busses could also fill a niche. All of these could work within the current capitalist system. I strongly suspect we'll see things move in this direction (but not enough).

And there are many ways to help the poor without taking away anybody's (rich or poor) insentive to conserve. A revenue neutral fuel tax (tax every unit of fuel, split the revenue equally among the population) is an obvious one.

Don't get me wrong. At heart, I'm a leftie, but I've watched governments bung so many simple things up over the years that the thought of government intervention on anything important makes my sphincters cinch. Governments are just so good at doing the wrong thing. Since governments are necessarily somewhat populist, and the populous is nothing but selfish, this seems unlikely to change. Big business takes advantage whenever it can, and that's often.

This is why I've mostly stopped worrying about everybody else and began to focus on my own family and the people close to me.