> I still find that Louvain-la-Neuve have failed to build a city for cyclists, but I can't pinpoint exactly why.
That is definitely the case. I think they planned for a very walkable/human-scale city but made many of the passages just a bit too small, I remember side-roads where you can only walk two abreast and you have buildings/walls on both sides (at least some of the time) with pretty sharp cornering, that makes it very inconvenient and unsafe for cycling beyond a walking pace, definitely not safe to have pedestrians and cycles both going in both directions.
I guess the planning could have benefited from a few cyclable "arteries"/ring roads.
That is definitely the case. I think they planned for a very walkable/human-scale city but made many of the passages just a bit too small, I remember side-roads where you can only walk two abreast and you have buildings/walls on both sides (at least some of the time) with pretty sharp cornering, that makes it very inconvenient and unsafe for cycling beyond a walking pace, definitely not safe to have pedestrians and cycles both going in both directions.
I guess the planning could have benefited from a few cyclable "arteries"/ring roads.