Originally Posted by cyccommute
Personally, if I had an intersection like that on my route, I'd be looking for a way around it entirely. I don't know where you live but Denver and it's suburbs are on a grid system (mostly), so any bad intersection has a parallel route that I can use to avoid the bottle necks.
The route I take is one of only three that go up the hill in my commute (the other two are less safe, IMHO). It's really not a bad intersection (for bicycles). It's practically a parking lot, and after the turn, I can just thread my way through and up to the next intersection, where I make a left. The intersection is actually a T-intersection, with the left lane turning left onto a street with one lane in each direction, and the right lane turning right. There's plenty of room to share the lane, and the traffic is on the street we turn on to is invariably completely stopped. All the drivers are regulars (since it is not a main throughway) so they are used to the fact that it is always stopped (Civil engineering...).
The cars that I pass take a good 5 minutes to catch up to me, and that's only because at that point, I'm climbing a 300 foot hill.