Certainly a good point when you watch this video. So my comments below are not in disagreement with your observation nor meant to defend some of the poor design but to explain it as best I can.

First off, "they"- who are they? There are no "powers that be" mandating the use of this bike path. It's there to ride if you want it. It has it's upside and it's downside. I like thinking in terms of "we". Its somewhat disempowering to think in terms of "they". When I think in terms of "we" I feel like "we" can do something to change that. The "they" that designed it, built it, conceived of it are all more than likely long gone from this planet.

Second, this is an old bike path. Much older than the ones you most likely ride in Texas or many other locations. Without belaboring this post with a history lesson but in a nutshell it dates back to a man named Dr. Paul Dudley White and the Eisenhower administration.


Third, interestingly enough after riding this bike path for 30 years I've finally watched it vastly improved- even since I shot this video. Sections have been widened, guard rails placed between the traffic and the path, sections that were very much a sidewalk turned into a nice big wide smooth stretch. And why? Not due to the efforts of our local bike advocacy group (though they have since jumped on the bandwagon- thankfully) but due in large part to the efforts of a group called the Charles River Conservancy. This group was dedicated to improving and maintaining the land that runs along river and they had the open minded thinking necessary to improve things. MassBike spent years using the bike path as a prime example of "failed infrastructure" and as a justification for the "we have all the bike paths we need- they're called roads." Often "bike advocates" would deliberately ride in the narrow roadway along these paths as a form of protest and/or to prove a point- I was, for a very short while, one of these riders until I realized how counterproductive it was.

Fourth, now that these improvements have been made the path is more popular than ever. Busy with recreational and commuting cyclists year round. And pretty much all of these cyclists, like me, use roads to access the path and ride thousands of miles on the road and am not relegated to only riding bike paths. However, like all bike paths they are a victim of their own success because they rapidly become crowded and opponents of bike infrastructure use this as an example of "failed infrastructure" and to support the old thinking that "we have all the bike paths we need they're called roads" (rather than seeing this as a success and a reason for more bike paths not less).