So I’m back from a long weekend criss-crossing Flanders by bike to catch the Opening Weekend cycle races which (used to) herald the start of the professional road cycling season. The Belgians take this very seriously in a very fun way – beer, frites, waffles, banging house music, fan clubs etc – on the key cobbled ‘hellingen’ which the pros fly up nonchalantly (I tried riding a couple, they are really hard). With a bit of careful planning using the Komoot routing platform, I managed to see both races at two key locations each.

All this pedalling taught me one thing – Belgium has excellent cycle infrastructure. Riding on the equivalent of an A road or a B road? You will always have a segregated cycle lane (sometimes shared with pedestrians), and ‘Dutch roundabouts’ or cycle lights at every major junction. Toodling down a side street? Massive signs make it clear cyclists have priority. Cutting across farm tracks? Cars are prohibited by way of brutal (and scarred) concrete blocks which will rip the bottom off a car but not a tractor. And everywhere there was cycle route signage (right) – even at junctions in dirt tracks in the middle of nowhere.

It’s a bit frustrating to come back to the UK where cycle infrastructure is the exception rather than the rule, and losing a bit of car space for other road users is seen as some kind of heresy. On my ride home from Newcastle Central Station last night, one set of lights gave motor vehicles priority over cycles – that would never happen in Belgium. The UK officially has a transport hierarchy that supposedly puts pedestrians first, cyclists second, public transport third and private cars last, but road designers and policy makers seem to read it upside-down.

And here’s the rub. If we want people to behave in an eco-friendly way, we have to make it easy for them to do so. You won’t get an uptick in cycling without widespread safe and signed cycle infrastructure. You won’t get a shift to buses if those buses get stuck in queues of cars. You won’t get past a certain level of EV ownership without a widespread, reliable and affordable charging infrastructure. We won’t get mass uptake of heating electrification in new housing without the required grid connections.

This may be stating the bleedin’ obvious, but too many decision-makers seem completely oblivious to it. Do the same thing, you’ll get the same results. If we want carbon emissions top fall, we’ve got to start making low carbon the norm, not the exception.