I was at a table outside a bar in Manhattan in 1997. The street was rammed with wheezing and spluttering V8 beasts. An SUV nearly took the back off my head as it parked. The engine roared, belched a bomb of black soot and died. Its occupants piled out and sat two tables away.

My beer arrived, I lit up. “Ew, that guy is smo-king! Let’s go,” they yelled. I was incredulous. Here, in this polluted street, these nincompoops, high on the sulphurous fumes belching from exhausts, objected to the whisps from my cigarette. Talk about skewed priorities.

Fourteen years later, I no longer smoke. New York has banned smoking, and, for all their odd priorities, they have got one thing right: the art of bicycling.

Once, the car was king. Only freaks and low lives sneaked through the gutters on two wheels. These days, six-lane roads have had a lane removed and converted into bike avenues. Manhattan is criss-crossed with bike paths.

I lived in and drove around Barcelona 20 years ago. Beautiful, bustling, yes. Bike-friendly? Ay caramba, no! Yet today, Barcelona has a massive bike hire system and Catalans of all ages and sizes cycle to work and play on an excellent cycle network.

This bicycling renaissance is repeating the world over – Paris, Seattle, Bogotá, even London.

In all of these places, cars used to rule. But somehow, someone somewhere in power had a vision of their city cutting congestion and increasing the fun with bicycles.

People have cycled in Oxford for 100 years, and about 20 per cent of journeys to work in Oxford are made by bike – the national average is about two per cent. Most councils would give their right arterial for 20 per cent.

Oxford City councillors would, I am sure, be delighted to paint cycle superhighways everywhere. But it isn’t up to the city council what happens on Oxford’s roads; it’s up to Conservative-controlled Oxfordshire County Council.

Boris Johnson wrote in 2006: “When Cameron’s Conservatives come to power it will be a golden age for cyclists and an Elysium of cycle lanes, bike racks, and sharia law for bike thieves.” So you’d think that the county council would be well into providing for bikes.

Think again. There is a massive appetite for cycling in the city, and we could see numbers double if the political will was there. Yet while many millions have been spent on projects for driving into or circumnavigating the city, the county council is reluctant to spend anything on making Oxford a smooth ride for cyclists.

This begs questions about local democracy and accountability. If 20 per cent of us cycle to work, should they not spend 20 per cent of the budget on cycling?

The paltry sums scrabbled together for the odd new cycle crossing and so on must amount to, what?, 0.2 per cent of the budget?

Councillor Ian Hudspeth has been forced from the Tory county council cabinet. This is a disaster. He was the only cabinet member who showed an interest in improving the transport network for those who live in the city. Mr Hudspeth’s Tory cronies were incensed about the £300,000 spent on the 20mph zones, wanting that cash for their own areas, and it is to his great credit that he convinced them that 20mph is right for the city. Now he’s gone, we need another senior Tory with the vision to champion cycling – anyone?

The council owes it to the city and to the county, to Cameron and to Johnson, to give our world-class city world-class cycling facilities. If New York, Paris, Barcelona and London can push bikes, Oxford surely can.