There's a chicken-egg problem at play, though. We can't build denser cities because we need to build 4-lane roads and parking; we can't get rid of these roads and parking because people need cars because the city isn't dense enough yet. It's certainly solvable on the many-decade timescale by smart, consistent city and state governments, but it's going to be a gradual slog of incrementalism (e.g., see all the changes NYC has made to shift from car centrism since the 90s - gradually adding bike lanes, closing Times Square to traffic, closing 14th street to private cars, congestion pricing for taxis,...)
The distance problem with cycling is solvable (though it pains me a bit to say this as a recreational cyclist) by electric bikes and other micromobility solutions (e.g. Citroen Ami). The streets of NYC are chock full of delivery drivers and others zipping along at 25mph on cheap, quiet electric bikes with ranges of many dozens of miles. Once we have a better regulatory regime for these (so people aren't blowing so many lights and hitting so many pedestrians), I could see them being a viable alternative to cars for many-mile use cases, at least during dry/temperate weather.
The distance problem with cycling is solvable (though it pains me a bit to say this as a recreational cyclist) by electric bikes and other micromobility solutions (e.g. Citroen Ami). The streets of NYC are chock full of delivery drivers and others zipping along at 25mph on cheap, quiet electric bikes with ranges of many dozens of miles. Once we have a better regulatory regime for these (so people aren't blowing so many lights and hitting so many pedestrians), I could see them being a viable alternative to cars for many-mile use cases, at least during dry/temperate weather.