Originally Posted by
gerv
Bike boulevards kind of impress me as the cheapest of cheap bike infrastructure. Not sure what the difference is between them and "Share the road" streets. In reality, any side street would make a good bike boulevard, if there is an easy way for cyclists to share their knowledge about the route's benefits. For example, the street I live on is very popular with cyclists because it's got very few cars and runs parallel to a very busy car route. There's no signage, but cyclists seem to have figured it out.
I guess that's the thing: any street is a joy to ride on when the cars around you are kind to bikers. The main thing I like about the bike boulevards is: if more and more bikers start riding them (as I've seen in my area) cars avoid them more and more because they don't want to deal with a steady stream of bikers (and usually they run parallel to busier car throughways). Plus, there's now so much signage in Portland (we have all these route signs for bikers based on which area of the city you're trying to get to) it makes the barrier to entry a little easier for people to get in to biking.