I don't need to explain how anybody's study reached its conclusions. I'm not publishing an article here, just posting some existing studies for your information. We're all still waiting for some equivalent studies in support of the other side. Please share them.

Meanwhile, more interesting bike lanes today. I rode my bike in the Valley today. We road down Balboa Ave. The right lane had cars parked in it. Apparently that is allowed only on Saturday and Sunday. If you are not aware of it as a driver you can find yourself stuck behind a car parked in the lane. But it made for a nice bike-only lane for us cyclists today.

After Balboa, we turned to another street that had a very interesting bike lane. It was almost as if this street (I didn't see what the name was) could have been made as a 6 lane (3 in each direction) road, but instead it was two lanes (1 in each direction) with a landscaped median, then a bike path/pedestrian facility in the center, then another landscaping median with an impenetrable wire fence, then a two-lane road only for the orange line Metro buses. I can just imagine how beautiful it is during rush hour when all the single occupant vehicles are stuck in traffic and the bikes and buses are passing them all in plain view. I know the configuration sounds awkward but it actually was not awkward at all, even at intersections.

Then we turned and took another couple of busy, 6 lane streets and simply took over the right lane when there was no bike lane, and used the bike lane when there was one.

There is room for many kinds of systems. The anti-bike lane people only want to force a single system thinking it's one-size-fits-all. That system favors single occupancy driving the most, which is the least sustainable system in the long run. It doesn't fit all.

I have to tell you the bike path street was the most pleasant, the bike lane street was second-most pleasant, taking the lane was the third most pleasant, and taking the lane that had parked cars was the least pleasant of all 4 options we did today.

Thanks for posting your experiences, gcl8a. My original post wasn't to say look at how perfect all these bike facilities are, but simply to show some ideas that are new to us over here. It is good to hear some first-hand experience with them.