I'm having trouble understanding the argument against bike lanes. Here's a picture I took from my apartment balcony illustratiing what a typical road in my city (Davis, CA) looks like.



You can see that there are separate sidewalks for pedestrians. On each side of the street there is a bike lane. You can see that a car is parked in the bike lane on the close side of the street. The bike lane is wide enough for a cyclist to comfortably and safely ride in the bike lane, even with a car parked there. On parts of the street where there are no parked cars, the cyclist has as much room to ride in as cars do.

This system does not prohibit a cyclist from using the lanes whith cars when needed. If a cyclist needs to turn left, he can move out into the lane for example. This system does, however, make many cyclists more comfortable riding on the street, as they don't have to worry about being hit from behind by a bigger, faster moving car. This system is also good for motorists - they don't have to slow down behind cyclists very often and wait for appropriate places to pass.

I don't see the disadvantage here. This city, which has most of its streets laid out this way, has the largest group of bicycle commuters I've ever seen, and I've never seen any animosity between cyclists and drivers. Sure, it's not neccesarily the bike lanes that make this possible, but something seems to be working.