Originally Posted by bostontrevor
Yes, Bill, you're right. If every bike lane is perfectly designed and installed; constantly maintained; never obstructed; well shielded from straying birds, squirrels, and dogs; striped only on roads where one would have no need of left turns; deiced any time the temperature dips below freezing; scrubbed clean of any automobile tail pipe drippings; grade separated from automobile turns; and essentially every unforseen circumstance forseen and corrected for...well then yes, mandatory bike lane laws might be feasible.
But even then, you would still have all the visibility issues as you approach any intersection, even minor intersections, associated with the fact that folks in cross traffic tend to look for potential conflicts in the vehicular lanes, all too often ignoring the bike lane.
And this is not an education issue. It's a fact of human nature. If you drive home about the same time every day, and make your left from southbound 1st ave to eastbound A street, you might be very diligent the first 200 hundred times to make sure the bike lane is clear. But by your 1,000th turn some time during your 4th year of making that turn and yet never seeing a cyclist in that bike lane, you're likely to learn to start ignoring it. Two years later some poor guy might be flying down it 20 mph and when you hear him slam into the side of your car after you cut him off, you will swear that you never saw him, and you won't be lying.
It is only reasonable to expect motorists to look where they expect potential conflicts - in vehicular lanes. It is not nearly as reasonable to expect motorists to look where potential conflicts are very unlikely (though still possible) - in a bike lane.