reducing fear when cycling?

I know quite a few people who do, I did eight each way because:

1/

If you're not at Leytonstone station before 7am you don't get a seat, so you stand next to Mr Garlic Breath for half an hour and

2/

i saved £140 a month. It was like a pay rise, I was never delayed, I enjoyed it more and I always got a seat.

You mean you do not notice the number of middle class people commuting on their bicycles?

It's a reasonable point, and not everyone is going to want to cycle all of their journey, but with better conditions they might want to cycle some of it, e.g. to/from the station. Average commute distances have increased, but people still make a heck of a lot of short distance trips that could easily be cycled - to the shops, the school run etc. So cycling could take a lot of pressure off the public transport network, as well as making people healthier and better off, without getting them all up to SuperCommuter standards.

Are you going to convince the average joe to ride to work when they now can only afford to live in zone 4 and have a 12 mile ride to work?

Enough of them will be convinced by the overcrowded public transport that they'll cycle to escape it.

Once enough of them are convinced to cycle then public transport isn't so overcrowded. It's kind of self regulating.

I know when I used to regularly get the train from Putney to Waterloo at ~8am I often had to wait for the 3rd or 4th train before I could get on one (and I'm not shy about cramming myself in), the first two or three were just so full.

My choices were:
a) Start my day by traveling one or two stations backwards (Barnes, etc) to increase chances of getting on a train
b) Go later/earlier
c) Cycle