less disability-friendly

Trikes exist, and some even have a bench seat and storage behind the driver

can’t carry cargo

The humble milk crate begs to differ. Also you can buy a cargo trailer if you need to haul more than a panier's or a milk crate's worth of stuff

can’t transport passengers

Hook up a trailer. They start at just $100 on Amazon or get one from a garage sale or local buy/sell listings or even the local bike shop might have used ones. The one I use for all of the kids school pickups and dropoffs I got at a garage sale for $20 and it's also got space for cargo as well as children

You try to have a suburban family with just bicycles - especially if one of the kids has balance issues from early childhood onward

Mom and dad each ride a normal grownup bike, then each kid rides what's appropriate for their age, needs and abilities, whether that's a trailercycle, riding in a trailer, their own bike or even a trike

The automobile is viewed as the ultimate symbol of freedom because it can serve multiple roles and has a massive variability in speed.

Ehhh. Cars are great at what they do, but they're expensive as fuck to own and completely suck when too many people want to drive to/from/through the same place.

Honestly in the car dependant hellscape that is America I think the best possible balance is one car and a family of bikes for every family. You can usually take bikes on the bus, bikes don't require any meaningful amount of fuel (ebikes take like one laptop's worth of energy to charge) and they're freaking fun to ride as well as being good for fitness and mental health. But you also have the car for longer trips or trips on roads that you can't safely/legally bike on. Bikes are freaking awesome, and you can throw so many attachments onto them to make them carry just about anything