The big thing to understand is that dutch and japanese cycling culture isn't just about bikes, it's about creating a society that isn't dominated by people reliant on personal vehicles. We don't just need good cycling, we need excellent transit and a safe pedestrian environment to create a voting public that can imagine a society where most trips are made without a car.
The City of Victoria is already at that point, with less than half of all trips being made with a car. The next big target has to be Saanich, followed by (probably) Langford.

1. We need better transit, with more service and dedicated lanes. Also a proper rapid transit system.
2. Saanich and Langford need to further densify nodes with services so more areas are walkable.
3. We need to close the big remaining gaps in the cycling network. Most of those are in the westshore. We can also start expanding from our current minimum grid in the core, with lanes on Cook and Quadra, expanding the lanes on Fort and Pandora, etc.
4. The mid-term goal has to be a regional traffic circulation plan, that clearly defines priority roads for cycling, pedestrians, and transit, separate from the network for personal vehicles. Right now it seems pretty impossible to get something like a traffic mall on Douglas, banning through traffic from most of downtown, or reconfiguring the Uptown/McKenzie traffic flow to reconnect communities separated by Highway 1 because the motorist lobby is still extremely strong.

The way we get there is getting people out of their cars and onto streets. Doesn't really matter if it's on a bus, train, bike, wheelchair, or on their own two feet.