Cars. They're noisy and ugly. They smell terrible and cause disease on an epidemic proportion. They move way too fast, take up an extraordinary amount of space, are a leech on the economy, and have a propensity to run people over, especially kids. What's to love?

I'm a bicycle activist in Portland, Oregon, considered the most bicycle-friendly city in the US, so you might not be surprised by my attitude. The thing that surprises me, though, is that everyone doesn't hate cars as much as I do.

People who drive cars, on the other hand – I've got no problem with y'all. Drivers aren't the problem here: in fact, people who drive everyday are often the ones with the most to lose from continuing to drive.

For one thing, there's money. Cars are a major source of household debt – and unlike other investments like houses, they depreciate, costing more the longer you own them and the more you use them. For most US families, car ownership is one of those damned-either-way propositions. According to the federal Consumer Expenditure Survey for 2012, the average US family of four spends about $10,000 a year on transportation – more than they spend on food. This isn't reasonable or affordable. But the alternative can be far worse, depending on where you live, work, send your kids to school, school, shop, get healthcare, go to church, and all the other things we do in our daily lives.

Then there's the cost of roads – building and maintaining them. Our gas taxes cover this, is the myth. Unfortunately, this hasn't been true since 1956, when President Eisenhower signed the Interstate Highway Act, consigning us to generations of escalating civic and private debt. (This report is a great primer on the topic.) Nowadays, about half the cost of the country's road system is paid for through gas taxes; the rest comes out of the general fund. The other half is paid for through taxes – sales, income, property, special levies – which means that we all pay for roads, whether or not we actually drive on them.

Bikes, by contrast, are a bargain for taxpayers and users alike. For a few thousand gallons of paint and a bit of signage and concrete, you can get yourself a bike-friendly city – and tens of thousands of smiling riders to go with it. It's been famously said (and fact-checked) that Portland's entire bicycle system, the one that makes us the most bike-friendly city in this country, the one that makes us one of the healthiest cities in the country and that has cushioned a few of the blows of the recent recession, has cost about $60m over the years. That's the same cost as – wait for it – one single mile of urban freeway.

As a result of this meager spending (every penny of which has been fought for tooth-and-nail, by the way), Portland enjoys one of the highest rates of bike commuting in the country, at 6%. In the inner-city area, where this bicycle infrastructure is best, as many as 30% of people ride bikes regularly. Some things these people are not doing when they bike include wearing down the roads, creating massive amounts of tailpipe emissions, competing for parking space, clogging up freeway traffic, and accidentally killing people.

Even in Portland, though, progress is slow and driving is still the norm. And even we can't escape the ill-effects of this. The fine dark particles that I wipe off my windowsills every few weeks during the summer? That's all accumulating in our lungs, as well. A new study from MIT has found that vehicle emissions cause 58,000 premature deaths a year – more than car crashes, industrial emissions or electrical admissions (though these are close runners-up).

As I've written elsewhere, emissions from cars are implicated in nearly all the chronic diseases that are currently hurting our population, including heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes, and even autism. That's to say nothing of the other health impacts of a car-oriented society, such as the lack of opportunities to exercise, zoning that encourages big box businesses and fast food consumption, stress, and social isolation and depression (pdf).

All of this is expensive. Bicycling's healthcare savings alone is spurring the city of Copenhagen, in Denmark, to invest millions in a network of bicycle-only highways to connect city and suburbs. Companies in the US are starting to pay employees cash to bike commute to work: QBP in Bloomington, Minnesota pays out $45,000 each year, and saves $200,000 a year in healthcare claims. And plenty of individuals are also figuring out that just a little light exercise every day – like biking to the grocery store – can forestall ruinous medical bills, not to mention save our lives.

Portland isn't the only place in the US where we're discovering this. New York, Washington, DC, San Francisco, LA, Minneapolis, and Chicago are famous for their bikey downtown makeovers in recent years. It's a bipartisan effort, too: did you know that Indianapolis' Republican mayor is investing heavily in connecting that city's sprawling landscape with bike trails – and people are using them? Motor City Detroit's activists and leaders are taking to that city's streets, now relatively bereft of cars, and remaking them to be more friendly to human-powered transportation. Houston, Texas is investing perhaps the most heavily, in hundreds of millions of dollars, with support from that city's major employers – including gas companies and airlines. Suburban America is up-and-coming in the competition to be the most bike-friendly.

When I travel, I no longer wonder when Portland's status as the most bike-friendly place in America will be overtaken; I wonder who has beaten us most roundly. In Portland, we've done the bare minimum, built one single freeway mile-worth of bike infrastructure, and created an iconic bike city. Some of these cities are investing two freeway miles' worth, or more, and their people are happier, healthier, and less broke because of it.

If progress is slow, it's because cars are in the way. But they won't be for long.