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@hoonz
Good luck finding a reasonable cycle lane in london.
Infrastructure is a big part of the problem, however I don't believe that cycle lanes are the holy grail. Where there is room near large A roads etc feeding into the city it could be worthwhile, however along many roads there simply isn't space for this, and if an attempt at installing a cycle lane is made it creates more danger. So at that point the road design itself is crucial to giving the most vulnerable road users the best chance of arriving alive at their destination.
Big multilane gyratories and multilane roundabouts are not very safe for cyclists as Oliver and others continue to point out, and these need to be redesigned as a matter of urgency IMO. The road network we currently have in london is a mish-mash of old medieval streets and lanes and 20th century thinking "car is king" A roads.
This 20th century thinking has got to be the biggest hinderance in making the roads a safer place to be. Far too many people are driving around needlessly when they could be taking other forms of transport, therefore clogging the roads up and turning the traffic into the shit-fight it is every day.
Just throwing something out there, flame me if you will, but 1 possible solution would be to extend bus lanes to make them continuous and redesign all junctions to give priority to buses. Make public transport half the cost it is now. Buses would be fast and convenient, and we would have wide, continuous lanes with priority at junctions. Sure, we'd have to share them with buses like we do already, but i find that the bus lanes are generally a fairly safe place to be.
What do people think? Good idea or hair brained scheme?