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@clubman
Parallel cycle paths on dual carriageways would probably mean the end of fast time trial courses.
But more importantly:
Cycle paths tend to threaten our general right to use the roads.
I sometimes use the Great West Road going past Brentford and Hounslow, and this has a cycle path which is a complete nightmare, but even early on Sunday morning when there is almost no traffic I find I get abuse from motorists if I don’t use it, and if a motorist did hit me it doesn’t take a lot of imagination to think what his defence would be.
Why don’t I want to use that cycle path? Apart from the minor problems like the cars parked on it and the coating of grit, the major fault is the frequent side road intersections where traffic from the main road has the right of way, and these turn any attempt at rapid progress into a rather dangerous form of interval training. I have already had one moderately bad crash on this path (with another cyclist – his fault, but I smashed a good front rim), and a few near misses with cars. It’s not just the A4 path that has this problem.
Compared with the length of time that roads have existed it is only relatively recently that pedestrians have not been able to walk on the highway, but that is certainly not a right I would like to try to exercise today.
Let’s be careful what we wish for.