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While not a big fan of the blog, aseasyasridingabike does show some perfectly good examples of redistributed road space in favour of non-motorised traffic that would still allow as much emergency vehicle access as they did before.
As for deliveries? We seem to have become a nation obsessed that Ocado be able to park their truck right outside our front door in order to be able make a delivery of food to our home because going to the shops for what we want is the worst experience in the world ever. We might have to accept that this may not be the most accurate reflection of the truth. I could ramble endlessly about my experiences as a driver's mate/delivery assistant if you want. However, in short, it really isn't that hard to make that final stretch of delivery to a customer without the aid of a motor. In those actually rare instances where it isn't a feasible exercise, application of exception over rule is the case. Refusing to eliminate common vehicular traffic on the basis of "oh someone might want an awkward delivery one day" is the kind of shitty decision making that got us into this godawful situation in the first place. As a cyclist, if I occasionally had to cope with an obstruction on an otherwise traffic free route then I hope I would be reasonable minded enough not to be an utter asshat about it. Perhaps you might be inclined to do the same. If not, fuck it, I hope those responsible for deciding this stuff are thick skinned enough not to lose sleep over the infrequent inconveniences of a bunch of bed-wetting whingers.
The_Seldom_Killer-
As a cyclist, if I occasionally had to cope with an obstruction on an otherwise traffic free route then I hope I would be reasonable minded enough not to be an utter asshat about it. Perhaps you might be inclined to do the same.
Ok.... just to clarify here I was being quite literal about having cycle only streets linking the major routes, I think you've taken me the wrong way. The reason I mention delivery access (for business) is because of the industry I work in.
We use a plethora of security/bullet proof vans or whatever you want to call them to go between our offices, these absolutely have to have direct internal access to our complexes so we have to have a road network. They need to drive straight into the building have the blast doors close behind them. These guys cant be unloading a few streets up, they wouldn't last five minutes, I'm just covering all the bases here.
What I'm saying is if you were to close some slow pointless one way roads to cars then you could great thriving streets with small retail and independent businesses setting up that don't have humongous deliveries every day, plenty of bike parking as well, not having to be put off about going to these places because you can't park the car, it could work.
P.S Just for the record the business I work for is located on a narrow one way route, we are the second only firm on quite a big one way system that needs on sight delivery. The six floors above us for example are all trading or HQ offices for big business and that's just one corner.
This whole and quite vast one way system would be brilliant for a cycle only scheme. Most of the time this road is only used as a rat run for taxis.
Antidotes
Yeah that's true, if possible the link ups could be formed by scrapping these narrow central one ways and turing them into cycle only lanes, providing that delivery/emergency access is still possible of course.