There are some brilliant examples of how good segregated cycling facilities can be on http://hembrow.blogspot.com/, including some videos.
I take a longer route to work, because there is a nice new well-maintained cycle path, rather than racing cars on the main roads.
Darlington Cycling campaign are about to start a new campaign calling for every main arterial road in town to have decent cycle facilities on or alongside them. The current council policy is to use side streets or off-road routes, but we consider these to be insufficient, because the lack of other people means they feel unsafe for female cyclists, and they're also sometimes unlit and are always ungritted in the winter.
This policy comes after working to encourage a group of non-cycling teenage girls to ride bikes, which has been a great success and recently won funding to increase in scale, and included the making of a documentary film showing the experiences of the girls as they started cycling, and on a trip to Bremen in Germany and of girls from Germany coming to Darlington.
"Decent cycle facilities" does not mean a painted white line or a sign pointing down a parallel side street but a lane on the road, going in both directions, which is physically separated from the traffic and which gives cyclists priority over side roads.
If you want to get people out of cars and onto bikes then you need to make is more convenient to go by bike. 1 in 3 trips in Darlington is short enough to be done by bike, is made by someone who is physically able to ride a bike, do not require heavy or unwieldy things to be carried and is made by someone who owns a bike, yet only 2% of trips are made by bike.
Making main roads safe for cyclists may mean getting rid of protected right turns, making pedestrian crossings one stage rather than two, reducing the number of cars lanes at junctions, getting rid of on-street parking and reducing the speed limits in urban areas. This can be done, but it needs the political will to do it, which will only come as a result of sustained campaigning.
We've been told this is impossible, because of the narrow roads, but we've seen roads of an identical width in Germany where they have found space for pedestrians, cyclists, cars and trams.
