Up until recently the only place to look for good practice was continental Europe. That is beginning to change, but it remains the place to look for widespread usable cycling infrastructure. Of course to see widespread best practice one must look at the Netherlands.
Think of transport infrastructure as a house. The component parts are items such as bricks, windows, and tiles. The quality of the finished product will be dependent not just on the quality of the components, but also how they are put together. This article will describe some of the important component parts of Dutch system infrastructure that are relevant to cycling, but not how the component parts are put together.