I'd like to have wide streets where bicycles and motorised traffic co-exist on equal legal terms.

The solution to the issue of kids riding in traffic would be to allow people to ride on sidewalks, and then to do so on the pedestrians' terms. Much in the same way as there is a street classification here where all vehicles are allowed, but peds always have the right of way, and the speed for any vehicle is limited to walking speed, or close to walking speed. Which in effect means about 10-15 km/h in most cases. Such a reclassification of sidewalks would solve that problem, and leave "mature" cyclists with the choice of the much more efficient and predictable streets.

My beef isn't really with the existance of bike paths as such, but the fact that I'm forced by law to use them if they're there. I'm not allowed to use my judgement as to which is the better option for me (in almost all cases the real street). If they got rid of that law, then by all means, build as many bike paths as you want. But a related issue is that bike paths are often built using space taken from the regular street, which means that there is less space available in the street for traffic to pass me safely.

During the winter, all bike paths (but not bike lanes, thankfully!) have thousands of tons of gravel (highly angular grains between 3 and 15 mm in size) poured onto them. Gravel + hard surface + two-wheeled bicycle = disaster and highly inefficient transportation. Emergency braking becomes dangerous, and turning at more than walking speed is a sure way of sliding and falling. The effect is somewhat akin to trying to walk on a floor covered with balls from ball bearings. The gravel is always there, making it extremely dangerous for cyclists, but the very thing it is supposed to protect against, is only present a few weeks during the average winter, and the gravel is only effective when the ice is thick enough to submerge the gravel about halfway. If there is less ice, the gravel still rolls around, making you slide all over the place, and if the ice is thicker, the gravel doesn't reach up to the surface. And then they leave the gravel there until May, when it's common to ride with bare arms and legs!

I can go on and on about this...