Here in Oregon we call that the bike lane.

I occasionally e-mail the local roads department and ask them to sweep the bike lane somewhere or other. They usually tell me they'll put in a request but that it gets done on a regular schedule anyway. The thing is, in the winter there's usually a very clearly defined line that shows you where the street sweeper stopped, and it's usually very close to the line marking the bike lane. On the plus side, they sometimes actually clean the bike lane when I ask.