Just what is the difference?

My city's bike lane network has improved dramatically in the past few years (although, i can agree with those who don't like them). They are swept just enough to not piss me off. However, while the system is getting better, there are frequent gaps, which wouldn't be a problem since i prefer riding in traffic.

My biggest complaint is the signage. When a bike lane begins, a sign either says "bike route" or "yield to bicycles" (the latter is great!). However, at the end of a lane it simply says "bike lane ends". This seems to imply that i no longer have a right to continue on that road, even though another bike lane picks up a few blocks down.

I've had several motorist try to squeeze me off the road, even though i have taken the lane well before they approach me.

Bike lanes are terrifying. They spit you out into traffic regularly, direct you to cross at crosswalks and will often just end deep in "carland". The signage is terrible - I have gotten lost every single time I have explored a new bike route. Every single time.

The surfaces, nearly always paved, are not maintained at all and the roots from neighbouring trees push up the pavement into a washboard that threatens to shake loose your fillings, even rocking squishy 28s.

They're nearly always multi-use, so you have to dodge pedestrians. Somehow drivers get slightly more ******** when they get out of their cars. How can two small women take up an entire two-lane path? Why?

I'll stick to the roads, thanks.

We have a 1.25 mile bike lane on the Mississippi bottom road that leads to nowhere, a .9 mile bike lane that goes nowhere, and another 2.2 mile lane that goes out to nowhere. They're nice for when I'm out on a ride on my road bike, but nothing in town for commuting purposes. Every time an intercity bike lane is proposed, someone will complain about tax money or parking spaces at the city hall meeting, so I don't see that expanding in the future. Luckily, the drivers are usually nice and the roads are fairly wide.

Here in Orange County, CA we have about 1000+ miles of on street bike lanes. I can pedal along almost any major artery in the central and southern part of the county and have a reasonably wide bike lane to travel on, which keeps me from having to compete for road space with the abundant car traffic. These bike lanes all connect to other main artery bike lanes and provide good routes across cities and towns in all directions. IMO, thanks to the well designed bike lane network, Orange County bike riding conditions are better than most other large metro areas (of more than 3 million population) in the US. On street parking is usually prohibited along many of these main streets, so door zone sections are not too common except going through some of our busy coastal communities on Pacific Coast Highway. The streets are for the most part in good condition, and since it almost never drops below freezing, potholes on the roads are uncommon. The cities in OC are required to keep the streets clean to prevent trash and contamination from entering storm drains and creeks, which all drain to the nearby ocean beaches. So there's not much junk in the bike lanes.

Of the few bike lanes we have, most tend to be in the door zone.

I forgot to mentioned,that all of are bike lanes are in the door zone.

I've only ever seen contraflow lanes on one way roads. They usually exist to allow cyclists to go two ways on narrow, one way residentials.

This link is an example of a contraflow bicycle lane. Notice how the right lane is wide enough for cars, and the left lane isn't. The narrow lane is the contra flow lane, to facilitate cyclists east bound. The wider lane is for all west bound traffic.

Running a few errands on the way to work this morning had me on the roads more and on the MUP less. As I rode down one of the bike lanes, I was thinking of this thread and remembered a sad but true "double parked in the bike lane" situation from the last couple times I had taken this particular route.

The bike lane passes right in front of an EPA office building in Crystal City (Arlington, VA). For several days in a row earlier this year, there was an EPA shuttle bus parked right in the bike lane forcing riders into the traffic lanes. I'm fine taking a lane, so it was more an annoyance than anything else, but the irony of it being an EPA vehicle blocking the lane was pretty funny. EPA <> always environmentally friendly, I guess.

Fortunately, there are no bike lanes on the roads I use for my 6.5 mile bike commute. Some of the roads have 14' wide outside lanes and I ride on the right side of those; the others have narrow lanes and I ride in the center of the lane without any significant issues.

A few low-volume, low-speed collector streets in Cary are striped with bike lanes. These markings are generally useless (given the low traffic speeds and volumes); the lanes fill with debris and stay curbside up to the stop line of intersections (right hook position). I usually ride on the stripe and merge into the normal travel lane when approaching an intersection or going downhill. I ride in the bike lane when going uphill away from any intersections.

I think this is the big issue with bike lanes. If they are situated next to parked cars, you have to extra vigilant about people getting out of their cars. What usually happens is they open the door, you swerve left to avoid a crash and end up being nailed.

I'm trying to figure out if this technique actually works. When passing parked cars, move out to the left side of the lane, or directly into the adjacent car lane.

That's all I can figure. Some people think you may be able to figure out if a door is about to open by looking into the parked car. I think this is the worst thing you can do.

On the up side, my city finally stopped telling property owners to illegally dump their leaves into SOME of the bike lanes this past year. However, the city still refuses to put the bike lanes out of the door zone (it actually added to this problem last year) or keep the cars from using the bike lanes. (It is always fun to be squeezed between a car that is two feet into the bike lane doing 35 mph and a parked car that is parked 1 foot into the bike lane on a curve. The police said they will issue a ticket if a motorist crosses over all of the bike lane and actually hits a parked car.) Since the bike lanes are added as an afterthought, they are on the low side of crowned roads and are generally full of water most of the year. Like everyplace else, most bike lanes are "bike lanes to nowhere" that simply cease to exist at the places where they are most needed. My favorite Eugene innovation is the bike lane on the left side of a busy one-way street that simply disappears at a busy intersection and reappears on the right side. Beam me over, Scotty!

Our bike paths are slightly worse than a bad joke. There are several places where, to save money, the path runs under a roadway at the side of a creek. It is thus flooded for much of the wet season and is full of very treacherous mud for months at a time. Of course, these underpasses tend to be narrow blind curves with homeless folks trying to stay out of the rain taking up a fair portion of the surface. On the rest of the paths, the city runs trucks on them so much that the pavement is mostly broken and much of the surface has as much as 18 inches of standing water when it rains, and we get a lot of rain. None of the bike paths connect and where there is a road crossing the path has either a stop sign, yield sign, or a (flooded) underpass.

It is a chicken/egg issue, but during the wet months I often see more city trucks on the bike paths than bicyclists. Is the infrastructure allowed to be horrid because no one rides in the rain here, or does no one ride in the rain because the infrastructure sucks?

We dont have much in the way of bike lanes - anywhere. Allright, lets be frank... there are none. There are a few miles of paths, here and there, but they are more like Multiuse Pathways, not dedicated bike lanes. Joggers, dog walkers and stranded cars all share the same space.

In fact, now that I think about it, there arent any labeled and striped bike lanes around here that I know of.

VERY NARROW!
Want me to post pictures?

It is ridiculous. I do not ride in them. It is a recipe for death. I see cyclists in the lanes and I ALWAYS see a car veering into the lane. Guess why? Texting or talking on the cell phone.
:(

I hate the bike lanes in SFlorida. Horrible!