When designing infrastructure for new cyclists, ignore the existing ones, says study

[MrHappyCyclist]

Essentially what happened in Oxford is that people realised that they could never make enough room for cars, and they needed to find alternatives if they wanted the city to thrive. There was a whole lot done (bike lanes, bus lanes, quiet bike routes) to improve alternatives, and a lot done to make parking less available / more expensive. In two stages, traffic has been pushed out of the centre, with buses getting less congestion and faster routes as a result.

I'd say the hard part is getting started. And a key part of getting started is a belief that change is both possible & desirable.

I like this point. There is a difficult balancing act for councils here, though. Out-of-town shopping centres with huge amounts of free parking (e.g. Trafford Centre in Manchester, Metro Centre in Newcastle, Meadowhall in Sheffield) are drawing people away from the town centres. Making it hard for cars could have the effect of making this worse if there isn't some huge culture change happening in parallel, and I can think of no way to achieve such a culture change in much less than a generation (but I may be wrong of course).