Pavement can last decades without potholes and only minimal repainting if it’s for pedestrians and bikes.
I would have agreed, but you should see the state of affairs that some of our bike paths are in, and it didn’t take decades for them to look like that. Our winters and the combination of salt + freeze/thaw cycles is what destroy asphalt.
Car’s don’t help, but they aren’t the main problem, or else you’d see highways crumbling after a few weeks with almost 400,000 cars and trucks driving on them daily (i.e. HWY 401).
There is a car-free island off of Toronto with pristine roads. Take a look at around the 2-minute mark of this Not Just Bikes video.
This is also why university campuses, which have tons of pedestrian pavement, aren’t full of potholes every spring. Same with outdoor malls, amusement parks, and on and on. The freeze thaw doesn’t help, but it isn’t the main problem.