Cycle lanes might not seem exciting, but they are important to cyclists, even if often they are nothing more than green paint on a pothole-pocked strip of crumbling road, accessorised with swept-up broken glass, blocked by inconsiderate parking, and invaded by the wing-mirrors of cars passing too close for comfort.

Two stories about cycle lanes have pedalled into the headlines in the past few days.

Last week, reports from Birmingham said that motorists were complaining that a new 2.5-mile cycle highway was causing “traffic chaos” on the roads after the local council spent nearly £10m on it.

It is a rule of life that any money spent on improving cycling facilities will nearly always raise a grumbling chorus from motorists. In Brum, the complaints were typical: cyclists go on the pavement anyway, no one’s using it, that lane has made the traffic much worse – “It’s an absolute nightmare,” according to one fuming motorist.

Well, motorists habitually fume about cyclists and other ‘impediments’ to driving everywhere; it goes with spending too much time sitting in cars. Too much driving to work isn’t good for anyone (sadly, I know this to be true).

Cycling to work, on the other pedal, is a liberating pleasure. It is even better if you arrive in one piece.

I have never cycled in Birmingham and feel I never will. But well done to Birmingham City Council for attempting to think of cyclists. If more people cycled instead of driving, the world would be a better and cleaner place. Cycling isn’t an option for everyone, but usually it is the best way to get around a city. This is certainly true in York, a city that is cycle friendly up to a point, but not as cycle friendly as it likes to pretend.

Many of the cycle lanes in York would fall under those criticised in a Guardian story today by Helen Pidd (northern editor and keen cyclist around Manchester).

In her story, Pidd reports suggestions that the government has wasted hundreds of millions of pounds painting pointless white lines on busy roads and calling them cycle lanes.

Those making this allegation are Britain’s cyclist and walking commissioners. These champions of pedal and foot have written a letter to transport secretary Chris Grayling – to which the only possible response must be, good luck with that. That man sure knows how to frustrate and infuriate.

Chris Boardman, who speaks up for Greater Manchester, has joined his fellow commissioners Dame Sarah Storey (Sheffield City region) and Will Norman (London) to complain that painted cycle lanes are little more than a gesture. They also argue such lanes don’t make cyclists feel safer – and may even make them feel less safe.

At the same time, Andy Burnham, the mayor of Great Manchester, has called for northern bus fares to receive the same subsidies as fares in London. He argues, basically, that there can be no such thing as a ‘northern powerhouse’ without increased fairness in the way transport subsidies are managed.

This is obvious and true – and further proof that England needs to be less London-centric, as pointed out last week when 33 northern newspapers ran the same front page as part of a joint campaign to “Power Up the North”.

This is a fine idea. Once newspapers only ever saw each other as rivals to be spat at. Now they are happy to act in useful unison. Newspapers joining together, in this case to speak up for the north, shows they still have a combined force.

Better cycle lanes and cheaper buses won’t transform the world. But both would be an encouraging start.