Replace that bicycles with cars and the argument still holds up. "historically" here is really an argumentum ad antiquitatem. Both cars and bicycles are fairly modern inventions which both appeared around the same time.
In fact, city streets were mostly dominated by pedestrians, horses and carriages up to the late 19th / early 20th century. Moreover, there was a backlash against early cars as well. The more interesting question is this: how did cars really ended up overtaking streets in cities and towns? Why did infrastructure / urban planning ended up favoring car use in the public space?
> I have seen some very ambitious plans to make city Centers free of anything that can go faster than 25kph and I root for such plans but they are all very naive usually
Why are they naive? I live in a historic city center. Streets used to be cramped with cars, it smelled horribly with exhaust gasses, soot covered historic buildings, parking space is extremely limited and small sidewalks were crowded forcing you to teeter into traffic.
Over the past decades, that all changed as car use was gradually disincentivized and in some areas downright banned. All I can say is that it has been a massive improvement. The city is far more appealing then it used to be... and these days I know few people contesting that it's "unfeasible" or "unpractical".
Would it work everywhere? No, not really. Let's be realistic. But let's not venture into the other extreme dismissing wholesale as a naive idea either.