My wife and I used to work at a school that is less than three miles from our home. The main road to get there has a thirty-five mph speed limit with bike lanes on both sides and a two-way left turn lane for the entire length of the 1.5 mile road. After too many close calls we finally gave up on that road. Our alternate route was eight miles long with over half of it on bike paths. The upside was that we got more exercise and got to meet many of the homeless folks who spend their days keeping dry under the overpasses on the bike path (they became our own private security detail, always looking out for us). The downside is we had to allot more time for our trips and the defeated feeling of having been terrorized off of our public right-of-way.