Originally Posted by sggoodri

Between intersections/junctions, that works reasonably well.

But at intersections, destination positioning means that cycling with the corresponding vehicular traffic flow for your destination rather than beside traffic headed to the wrong destination requires leaving the striped curbside area, and cycling in traffic (rather than accross) to merge into the appropriate position.

As the intersection count increases, cycling next to traffic and experiencing more crossing events becomes progressively more hazardous than cycling in traffic. Vehicular cyclists prefer to choose between in and next to based on context without having to operate contrary to pavement markings.