The £1.4bn question: 1,800 miles of cycle routes or 10 minutes off a car journey?

Greater Manchester's Bee Network has just 160m of the cash it needs, unlike a junction near Bedford

Almost exactly a year ago, Chris Boardman - the Olympic champion turned walking and cycling commissioner - unveiled a bold vision: Greater Manchester was to turn itself into a Dutch-style cycling paradise by building a 1,000-mile network of walking and biking routes called Beelines, after Manchester's civic symbol, the worker bee.

A year on, the scheme has changed its name to the Bee Network after a rather embarrassing copyright infringement, and has expanded to cover 1,800 miles. Yet so far, work has only begun on one tiny section - a bit of towpath in Wigan known as the "muddy mile" - and the first wodge of money has already gone.