We spent much of the last decade struggling to bring standards up for cycling infrastructure in this country. We got astonishingly far.
It's tempting to extrapolate, and try to shout even louder to get standards up even higher, but you hit diminishing returns very quickly. https://twitter.com/psimonk/status/1278245546688499727

There is a battle cliché used in a lot of films to add tension: a defending army readies its bows or muskets or what-you-will, and has to watch the other side charge toward them. A general calls out "HOLD...HOLD...HOLD..." until the other side is in range, and then "FIRE!"

The point of this is that there's a "sweet spot": shoot too soon, and you waste your shots on a target that is too far away to hit. Wait too long, and you've wasted opportunities to fire and keep them from hurting you.

So I suppose in this analogy, in the 1990s we wasted loads of our "arrows" painting little bicycles in the road and putting "cycle network" signs up. And mode share shifted by the vast majority of about nothing at all.

But we gained a voice in the 2000s, with good explanations of Dutch layouts coming from @BicycleDutch and @DavidHembrow helped us realise what we needed to aim for. Once we saw that, we started telling our archers to "HOLD" and drew the target in.

We were right not to settle for things that were unhelpful, but should we continue to wait until we're crushed? Should we not accept things that are MOSTLY helpful? Is perfection the only acceptable outcome?

Sure, Dutch roads show us what is POSSIBLE, but we're still dealing with political realities here. We're fighting for what's ACHIEVABLE. And sneering about how someone else did better isn't helpful. This isn't a purity contest.

Let's remember that we're doing this to save lives. The more people cycle, and the better protected they are from motor vehicles, the more lives we save from collision and inactivity-related health problems. Doing NOTHING isn't an option.

And responding to every B- scheme we fight for with "IT IS NOT A+ LIKE THESE DUTCH ONES!!! YOU GUYS ARE TERRIBLE!!!" only gives opponents of these pretty-good schemes ammunition to sink ALL road safety projects.

These pretty-good schemes are already pushing cycling up in this country, and the more people from all walks of life cycle, the more voices we have calling for better. So let's stop belittling progress in the name of perfection, yeah?

One last comment: we're still educating decision-makers and implementers, and that's a long struggle. We have to train them up.
I was "taught" to cycle via "sink or swim" and it was a disaster. I LEARNED to ride by noodling on a kids' bike until I worked it out. This takes time!