> special cycle lanes

Hear, Hear. The English approach to producing cycle lanes in towns appears (from bitter experience with the result) to be "let's use paint on the existing road or pavement" for cheapness, with two effects:

* Car space gets squeezed, and cars inevitably encroach on cycle space (resp, pedestrians hog the cycle lane);
* Cycle lanes tend to disappear just when they would be most useful ("we've done the easy bit for you --- now you're on your own, sunshine").

An especially gratuitous example of the latter appears in Station Road in Witney. For most of its length, the cycle lane is on the pavement, but there's a short and narrow flat bridge (a leftover from the railways). At this point, rather than widen the bridge, the cycle lane abruptly jinks sideways into the road for several yards, with no obvious warning to the car traffic. Cyclists have a straight choice between illegally using the pavement, and courting suicide by inattentive driver (who may not wish to play chicken with cars coming the other way).

We now return you to your normal programming. Apologies for the rant: that head of steam's been building up for a decade.