In reply to mutt:
Cycle lanes are one of the current battlegrounds MPs seem to have chosen to focus on and there is a definite campaign strategy for local Tory MPs to paint the implementation of better pedestrian and cycling facilities as a local labour council policy instead of a central government tory policy, claiming the "money would be better spent elsewhere" whilst denying the fact central government have repeatedly cut local funding and active travel schemes are often funded from a ringfenced pot dedicated for that use.
It's pretty depressing the speed at which these schemes are installed. Within towns and cities, without an affordable, regular and reliable public transport network, without a coherent network of cycle lanes and without a concerted effort to improve the pedestrian environment we will never convince people to make short journeys using other means of transport than private vehicles. We have had a generations being sold the dream of the private vehicle, the status is endows the owner, the amount of money people throw at a massive lump of metal that sits in one place, unused for 22hrs a day, we, as a nation, have totally bought into the necessity of a private car per person and it's an addiction that will be hard to break.
You look across at what Anne Hidalgo has managed in Paris, and the vision laid out for them, and compare it to the paucity of vision of our elected officials, who seem to strive to return to the status quo, for nothing to change, it's all quite depressing.