My issue really isn't with bike lanes per se, it's really about integration versus separatism.

In the South there used to be laws separating blacks and whites with respect to water fountain use. I don't mean to trivialize the horror of racism, but to a point the analogy works. Back then the courts accepted the argument that such separatism was not violating anyone's rights, because no one was being prevented access to water. Blacks had water, and so did whites. So whose rights were being violated? For the people who accepted this view, the insidious nature of the separatism was not obvious. The problem of course was the underlying assumption that blacks and whites should be separated, or that it's okay to treat them separately, and the effect this underlying assumption had on the thinking of people about each other, and their respective roles in society.

This is essentially my problem with bike lanes (and in particular mandatory bike lanes): the underlying assumption that cyclists and other drivers should be separated. It is the insidious nature of this underlying separatist assumption of bike lanes that is my greatest concern, and the effect it has on the thinking of cyclists and the public at large with respect to what proper cycling in traffic should be. Yes, sometimes, when cyclists are traveling slower than other traffic and there are no good other reasons, cyclists should keep to the right, just as all drivers of slow vehicles should. But there are many, many other times, particularly (but not exclusively) at intersections and their approaches, when cyclists should be integrated with the rest of traffic. And even when they are riding off to the right, a separate and narrow (4-5 feet) debris-collecting lane does not alleviate passing motorists from passing with a reasonable speed differential and adequate passing distance, yet the stripe, and the separatist mentality, dictates that motorists could and should blow by cyclists riding off the side as if they are not even there. Just like whites can ignore blacks using "their own" water fountains, motorists can ignore cyclists use "their own" lanes. It's not as wrong as racism, of course. Not even close. But it's still wrong.

And please don't try to argue that just because bike lanes support the notion that cyclists should be separated some of the time doesn't mean they should be separated all of the time, unless you're willing to defend race separated water fountains on the same shaky grounds: "just because it's not appropriate for whites and blacks to drink from the same water fountain doesn't necessarily mean they should be separated all of the time". It's absurd when you really think about it. It might seem obvious to you now, but many in the south were just as oblivious to the separatism argument against separate fountains as many people today are oblivious to the similar argument as it applies against bike lane separatism.