I agree if people call the city planners the unsung hero's of the infrastructure and the cycling, and I don't want to blow my own trumpet, but I think the citizen deserves a lot of credit too. As a cyclist, as a voter, as a protester and as a driver or pedestrian. Most people are all of them, expect for protester, and they make it work every day. By yielding when they formally have right of way, by making eye contact, by communicating with their legs, upper body and front wheel, and if necessary, by bell, the drivers ride bikes on different occasions so they recognize all those subtle signals and the danger or nuisance a car can be.

It certainly didn't just happen. It's a lot of things coming together at the right time and the early 70's as a turning point was very important. Cycling had caught on extremely well in the 20's already and continued after WOII with not much money available for cars, so there was a lot left to be conquered by the car. In compact fortress cities with narrow streets, where kids traditionally play in, I assume a lot of young mothers and fathers with a rebellious 60's mindset who still thought the world could be made better wanted to get their kids out of the house, safely. That's always been important here especially for kids, just beeing outside, sun, rain, hail or snow, the kids have to play in the street. That includes riding their bikes, but I believe the most agressive protest was against so many kids getting killed or hurt by cars while on the streets, and much less about the specific interests of commuting cyclists.

In the early 90's there was probably a second turning point in the sense that the right wing went along with cycling and from then on the consensus lslowely grew even wider. In politics, in judges, in insurance companies, in the private sector who started building bike parks for their employees, everybody chipped in, including the car drivers. Now the consensus is about 100%, right wing politicians love to have themselves photographed while riding to emphasize they are just normal guys, but they like to ride a bike anyway so they indeed are quite normal.
I do see the irony of Shell's biggest oil refinery constructing bike lanes between the public road and their offices to get their employees in, but I wouldn't have noticed that irony myself. Of course Shell puts in a bike lane, most of the employees arrive there by bike.

But with all their good intentions and great infrastructure and city planning, daily city cycling is ruled by cyclists. They make their own rules, but they make them together, it's anarchy in the sense there's order and there are rules, but the rules are not top down but come from the grassroots. City planners, legislators and the cyclists are working it out together in a dynamic process where they interact and take turns in leadership. There is planning, but within things that just happen. It's like the behaviour of crowds in and around airports and stadiums etc, they don't bump in to eachother either and don't need many top down rules for that. Cycling just speeds to movement up and that makes it much more complex, but not much more difficult. The city council of Amsterdam has supported cycling since the seventies, but it's mainly the cyclists taking over and the council reacting with plans to smoothen things out. Hypothetically, if the council should stop doing that the drivers and maybe pedestrians would be the victims, cycling has become too independent. In my city it started in the 70's with the council with a specific and infamous plan, but also here the city planners have to adapt the infrastructure to facts on the ground and cyclist behaviour. For example, it starts with pedestrians walking in the middle of the road or cyclists riding in pedestrian zones, and the council reacts with putting up a 'shared space' sign, because it already worked. With the sign it works better, because no one feels the other is in violation of the rules so everybody gets more polite and patient.

For me it's a bit strange, because I think it's fascinating to, but it's easy not to be fascinated when you're in the middle of this daily normality. Often over the past 25 years foreign visitors or foreign inhabitants have reminded me of the fact that it's not normal everywhere else, but still I tend to forget about it. Also when I'm in a foreign country, it's not like I am noticing the lack of cyclists all the time, it has always been like that on vacation. And allthough foreigners tend to be and stay a bit behind on cycling and traffic skills, the switch between percieving it as normal instead of exceptional is very easily made by them also. After one week or a couple of days (back) in town, they're just in the middle of it like it's never been any different anywhere. That's one of the reasons I'm very hopeful for cities everywhere, mentally it's a very easy switch to make, people and bikes are just a natural fit.