Universal G-spaces for proper actions of locally compact groups

We establish the existence of universal G-spaces for proper actions of locally compact groups on Tychonoff spaces. A typical result sounds as follows: for each infinite cardinal number τ every locally compact, non-compact, σ-compact group G of weight w(G)⩽τ, can act properly on Rτ∖{0} such that Rτ∖{0} contains a G-homeomorphic copy of every Tychonoff proper G-space of weight ⩽τ. The metric cones Cone(G/H) with H⊂G a compact subgroup such that G/H is a manifold, are the main building blocks in our approach. As a byproduct we prove that the cardinality of the set of all conjugacy classes of such subgroups H⊂G does not exceed the weight of G.