Originally Posted by UniChris

It's sadly quite common - I'm strongly arguing against some local plans, but it's clear they're going to go ahead and do it anyway, because they're landscape architects who imagine it would be fun to go for a bike ride, but have no actual cycling experience to inform understanding of the problem.

Once they start talking about physical barriers and creating an experience that doesn't feel like riding on the road, they tend to put the path in each direction on the same side of the road so it can use a single barrier.

But it unsafe in ways most users don't realize - it's almost as if the plan is to trick people into using it despite the danger, and then hope the volume of use is enough to force it to work against the uphill battle of it being illogical.