I am not in favor of bike lanes (the stripe in particular) but any extra rideable pavement width is good to have. This was not an improvement.

If all they had done was instead to remove the stripe and then some additional width of the pavement would have been 'swept' by motor vehicles. That would have been a one time cost to remove the stripe (or free if done during routine re-surfacing) instead of a regular (read: unrealiable) maintenance budget.

Al