Originally Posted by billh
Serge, I see "current experience" is your forte. That's fine. But it is tangential to my main argument, which is an abstract one, namely that bicycle lanes and mandatory laws governing their use in general do not conflict with general principles of transportation, namely slow traffic keeping to the right, right of all users to the public roadway. They are just one possible direction for designers to go. WOL is another one. I honestly don't know which I prefer. And I'm perfectly willing to concede that all current BL have flaws in design, implementation, or maintenance, or any combination of the three. But that does NOT mean that the concept of the bike lane is therefore to be scrapped. How long have transpo engineers been designing streets for cars? How long bike lanes? I'd wager they have a lot more experience with motor vehicle design. All I'm saying is that it is somewhat of an over-reaction to condemn all bike lanes, when in reality your problem is with current design and implementation. I actually think your critiques of current design are good in that they may be used by engineers to come up with better and better designs. But it seems you are not willing to go that direction, or even to keep an open mind.
Actually his focus is primarily on San Diego BL with which he has his current experience. Bike Lanes in other towns, while still having but the name in common, may not represent the horrors he describes. Further, the implementation of Bike Lanes in other areas such as on 25MPH residential streets in Boston may be exactly the "greatest fear" that some envision.
I generally agree with your premise that (not "all") many of the current BL are early generation and should be updated based on more current, studied, views of traffic handling.