Originally Posted by Unca_Sam

When did you leave?

Columbus has implemented a road diet to add bike lanes on a significant number of major routes downtown. To address the problems of making lefts from 3rd and rights from 4th (because the bike lane is the leftmost lane ) they painted two stage turn boxes where needed. It's a little box in front of the traffic heading in the direction of the risky turn, so you aren't forced to try and merge across 2 or more lanes of higher speed traffic to go the direction you want. I think the boxes are more for training cyclists to learn a new trick if they have car-brain.

For a left, you would stop at the front of traffic heading left of your direction of travel on your side of the intersection and wait for the light to change. For the OP's question, I don't see much of an issue with using this method when there is no turn box or bike lane, unless folks frequently fail to stop make a right turn on red where you are. I imagine in most scenarios a rider will wait in the crosswalk for the light to change in their desired direction of travel, no U turns needed.