If you are involved in the process of planning a new scheme to help encourage cycling then this is *the* book to read. As a parish councillor I was involved in consultation on a scheme for our village and what this book had to say changed my views on cycle schemes and helped us towards a scheme which was better than that originally proposed.
It advocates a hierarchy of solutions which starts with making the roads safer, for *everyone* not just cyclists, through traffic reduction, traffic calming, and improvements to the layout of junctions and the highway in general and only when these solutions are exhausted moves on to things like cycle paths, both on and off road.
It provides diagrams of layouts for schemes, many pictures of existing schemes and provides ideas you may not have thought of for tackling knotty issues like junctions where most danger lies.
It also considers issues like cycle parking and integration with public transport.