Yeah but look at population density at England vs NSW - we've got probably 90% of the state is sparsely populated, and 10% is super-concentrated.
Not saying that something that works there would work here - I'm meaning more that how they've made changes to gaps needing to be left; are their roads wide enough to accommodate that and still maintain traffic flow? As an example, not many people ride up Newbridge/Milperra/Canterbury/Old Canterbury roads, and I'm grateful for that - traffic is shithouse enough without having the drop to merge to one lane then back out to two.
I'm all for separate cycleways, I love how they work in Europe, but the infrastructure in Sydney just wasn't built with that in mind all those years ago.