Why can’t London be more like Munich

Just back from a weekend in Munich, escaping from the grey, the rain and the Blair/Brown folderol to help a friend, about to take up the reins as president of the European patent office, move into her new apartment. Oh, the joys of a well organized German city. Standard issue recycling bins for every sort of waste and regular collections of same; cellar space for each apartment with room for all manner of cumbersome objects not needed on a daily basis; a shared drying room for wet clothes or snowy boots. And the bike lanes! I have bicycled around London for years but still feel that every time I do it may well be my last, what with the bendy buses, ferocious pedestrians and, worst of all, insanely belligerent fellow cyclists. In Munich no street is without a bike lane and, crucially, the system is allied to the pavements rather than the roads, with a traffic light network all to itself.