Tandempower: I think I see where some of the confusion came from. When I typed that "they(motorists)'re the ones sharing the road with us", you read it as "the motorists own the road, and they've decided to share it with us", kind of like if someone brought a hoagie to work, and they shared a bit of it with you. Rereading my post,I can see how it might be read like that. I tend to view sharing as something equally, well, shared between those who are sharing it. I probably should have typed something more along the lines of "motorists and cyclists share the road together", but the bottom line is, I care very much about the thought processes of road users in general. So, yeah, I care what motorists think quite a bit, especially given that motorists operating automobiles make up, by far, the largest percentage of road-users in the USA. I think that we, as individuals, deserve equal rights on the road, but I think that we need to take into consideration the proportions of different user-blocks when we strive to change minds, opinions, and thoughts.

Moving on to bikelanes. I do not appreciate bikelanes, at all. Bikelanes don't bother me in the same way they bother motorists; bikelanes bother me as a cyclist. Best case scenario, they offer the illusion of safety. "I'm safe over here in my bikelane, b/c the cars cannot cross over that line and squish me." But, the fact is, the same motorist who would squish you in the shoulder or in the main traffic lane will still squish you in the bikelane. Safety benefits are an illusion.

The more common scenario is, you have an area with hundreds upon hundreds of miles of bikeable roads, with maybe 40 miles of disjointed bikelanes present. The typical motorist becomes confused, thinking that the bikes belong only on those stretches where there are bikelanes. (Please don't misunderstand; I don't believe this, but I have talked to dozens of motorists who think this, who ask me "why are you riding here? this isn't a bikelane.") In the minds of the non-cycling majority of the population, they aren't just bikelanes, but they're the only lanes cycling is allowed in.

This is why police have been ticketing cyclists for leaving the bikelane, for instance when a cyclist leaves the bikelane to make a left turn, or when the police park in a bikelane, and ticket cyclists as they leave the bikelane to circumvent the illegally parked police cruiser. You speak a lot about the laws, but in my experience, police do not know the laws of the road as they pertain to cyclists. Furthermore, in my experience, traffic laws in general, for all users, are seldom enforced. (One exception is speedtraps.)

When I likened bikelanes to sidewalks, i was specifically referring to situations where cyclists are limited to using only the bikelane when one is present. This is currently the law in NYC, with exceptions that some law enforcement personnel seem to be unaware of. Laws in other places, such as my home state of NJ, are even less clear. But, if we are stuck in bikelanes, and we cannot escape them to dodge detritus, make left turns, overtake slower cyclists, avoid collisions with parked police cars, deal with convoluted departures from logic at multi-lane intersections, etc, then we are no longer users of the road. We become users of the bikelane near the road, which (in my view) is a lot like a sidewalk.

When I started riding, bikelanes were a rarity. Things weren't perfect, but they were simpler when there were roads, and I rode on them, and there were no painted-on distinctions about the bikeability of a given road, freeways notwithstanding. In my area, they are still fairly rare, but public awareness of their existence has seemingly increased. This manifests itself as conversations with co-workers who know I ride, and they ask me "how do you get to work? There's no bikelanes around here" or they say "I can't stand it when you cyclists are in the road when there's no bikelane." It also manifests it with angry motorists screaming at me while I'm riding, demanding that I leave the road, and reminding me that this(the 25mph suburban sidestreet I was sharing with the motorist) is not a bikelane.

Laws are necessary, but they are hardly adequate, in and of themselves. I had broken no laws, but this motorist honestly believed that I had. There was no cop around to correct him. He wouldn't listen to me at the red light, when I suggested he look into the laws of the road in NJ to better understand bikelanes and cycling.

That's why I'd like to address the prevalent thought process, as regards cycling as transportation. To come back to your HIV analogy, I do think that if a majority of HIV-negative folks believed that HIV+ ppl shouldn't be allowed in public, those thoughts should be addressed. That isn't to say that we, as a community, should address it by truncating the freedoms of HIV+ ppl. It should be addressed by using information/education to promote understanding as to how and why those freedoms should remain in place. And so it goes with cyclists in the roadways; information and education will, in time, significantly reduce the resentment and hatred some motorists have towards cyclists. (Not all, but some.) It happened with HIV+ ppl; we're not where we need to be yet, but we've come a looooong way since the 80s, in terms of understanding and acceptance.