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Part of the reason maybe that many of these cycle lanes are not fit for purpose. There are places in the UK where cycling became popular for the simple reason that the layout was already bike friendly. This craze of adding a bike lane, regardless of local conditions has, indeed, been a total failure.

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One thing I see is that once a lane is added and immediately not a hit, it's deemed a failure.

But if that lane is only a small stretch of someone's commute, they won't suddenly start cycling because one of many stretches got a cycle lane. Or change which road they use if they already cycle.

But that lane is a start. When the next street and the next street and the next street all get lanes, you suddenly have not only lanes but a connected network. Only then do you get new cyclists or change of behavior.

There is in general a lack of understanding that bad cycling infrastructure can be significantly worse then no cycling infrastructure as it often create more dangers, here the better solution would be to design for lower speeds and shared road usage.

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