Bicycle network development faces complex challenges, both politically and technically.

We first present a recent finding on cycling politics in Paris, of right-wing votes relating to delays in bicycle network development, providing evidence for a local obstruction hypothesis.

Then, we discuss our insights on complexity and challenges in the ongoing development of the open-source bicycle network planning software BikeNetKit. This digital toolkit compiles state-of-the-art bicycle network growth algorithms that we developed since 2019, packaged as a Python software suite, aimed to bridge the gap between research and planning application.

Finally, we showcase the current prototype of the application, to be launched at bikenetkit.org, and invite community feedback and contributions.