I went to our local supermarket for the first time in months last night (we have had them deliver since just after the pandemic started) and was annoyed by this short bit of road.

A bit of background: a developer has got planning permission to build some huge (well out of keeping with the local area!) blocks of flats on what used to be part of the local Tesco Extra car park - I'm guessing since the pandemic started they've not needed as much parking space. One of the two supermarket access roads went through the site where the flats will be and has now been closed. From what I remember of the plans, the final position of the access road was to be pretty much the same route as the original, so I can only assume the new access road they've just built (pictured) is temporary.

So, we have a development and they've built an entire, fully finished access road with signage, pedestrian crossings and all the other stuff, presumably just as a temporary measure while the flats are being built. The space it runs through used to be buildings (old and run-down, but still), so they must have bought those and demolished them just to build this temporary road. And this kind of thing seems to be considered an "incidental" when big developments are happening. And it just reminds me - it's considered normal to spend quite a lot on facilities like this for cars. If anything like that amount was spent on bicycle infrastructure, we'd have amazing cycle routes everywhere, wouldn't have to share with cars anywhere, and *lots* more people would cycle! But the money doesn't get spent (in anything like the amounts it could be) because "people drive, so we need to spend on that". 🤷‍♂️

(I should say, yes, the road pictured does have a contraflow cycle lane on one side while being a one-way road for cars, but it's clearly built mainly for cars, not bikes.)