how are your cycle lanes?
 

where i live / commute the cycle lanes are nuts, half the time they just sop and you're left to fend for yourself in traffic and then suddenly it will just start again.. :notamused:

In Jacksonville, NC there is one bicycle lane...It's about 3/4s of a mile and doesn't connect to anywhere from anywhere else.

Indianapolis is trying to be bicycle friendly, but sometimes....I use about 3 miles of bicycle lane each way. Headed west (to work) it is very rough, Michigan Street (at IUPUI) is so bumpy it knocks my mirror out of whack every morning, too many bumps and too much traffic to avoid them all. On the way home, eastbound on New York Street, at first there are these cone shaped depressions in the pavement aobut 6 inches deep and about a foot in diameter. They are smooth and you can ride right over them but it is a very fast part and they are kinda unnerving, just gotta pay attention, but the lanes go thru downtown and whoever painted them painted them exactly how I used to ride and change lanes etc. But they are bicycle lanes, a few years ago people would get abusive because I was riding on the street. Now the drivers are much more tolerant I think everywhere because the bicycle lanes cause increased awareness. So overall I am thankful of the lanes Indy has put in so far.

I think I've observed seven categories of cyclist accomodation here ;
1. Bike route separate from walking/equestrian trails. No accompanying auto route.
2. Bike allowance through pedestrian area. Often in urban cores, sometimes with lane designation for bikes.
3. Separate pathway with sidewalk, curbs or garden separating bikeway from road.
4. Line designated lane, often with red coloured asphalt or bricks contrasting with rest of road surface.
5. Mix zones on major bike routes, side streets, and high streets, where speeds are low and bikes and cars alternate ownership of whole lane.
6. Faster roadways where cars expect to overtake, and cyclists accommodate them when possible.
7. Roadways/highways where bikes are prohibited. No accompanying bike path or service road.

Contrasting with what I've seen in other countries, riders on types 5 and 6 often receive lane or pathway allowance as they approach intersections/roundabouts. On occasion, I see accommodations morph from type 1 directly to type 6, but this is rare. More common are smaller number jumps. Type 7s are rarely a major problem as one gets from A to B, as there is generally a slightly less direct bike route.

I like your classifications. Here in Heidelberg we have a similar system, but not so much 6. HD is a pretty wealthy city, so the bike lanes from my experience are well maintained and quite smooth. The cycle lanes differ throughout Germany though, and in smaller towns/villages there are usually no bike lanes, but the bikes and cars usually get along pretty well.

Nashville has done a decent job of adding bike lanes in some areas. I am lucky that the side of town I live on has a mix of bike lanes and greenways(paved paths) to ride from my house to work 18+ miles and only 4 miles are on roads. Some of the bike lanes don't connect to others but I figure it is a good start. Our biggest issue here and it is the same for cars, is the river snakes through the city so there are many bridges and they haven't all become bike friendly, or you have a ride way out of your way to just get directly across where you want to go.

My bike lane on my commute route is full of broken glass, left over garbage and even a manhole covering half of the bike lane. It's ok to ride it after the day they sweep the road but not the day before.

Yea we have them,and there laid out ok,but there friggin minefields. Who ever cleans up after a vehicle accident uses these lanes to sweep all,the ,glass,brokes lens,metal and plastic parts right into the bike lane. I get so pissed. I have to concentrate on the lane 100% of the time or get a flat. It sucks. The street sweeping in this city was the first thing to go with the budget cuts. I see him about once a month. There are so many vehicle wreaks here it's not even funny. The bike lane up the main road I take leaving home and returning is nicily paved and wide,as is the street,but you would be a fool to ride in any portion of it except the extreem right hand. These idiot cagers cannot complete a simple turn without drifting into most of the bike lane.

Here, the only bike lanes are contraflow lanes. They're okay, but there seems to be a lot of confusion with drivers and new cyclists about the difference between a bike lane and a contraflow lane. While I was going in the direction of traffic a couple of weeks ago, a driver slowed down to call me an ******* and tell me to get in the "bike lane." There's also tons of salmon in the lane since the direction arrows have worn off. I've since exacted a promise from the city to repaint direction arrows and add sharrows on that road - they're supposed to get to that within the next week.

There's also lots of MUTs, and they are mostly wonderful pavement, though - since I live near the city centre - they are frequently crowded with pedestrians who have difficulty with the stay-right concept.

And I don't count the bus-bike-taxi lanes as bike lanes because I'd rather ride in the middle of a busy road than in the middle of a busy bus lane...

Rumor is we'll be getting our first with-traffic bike lane this year, so we'll see how that goes. I'm a little wary, as they seem to be a serious right-hook risk. We have a very comprehensive plan for bike infrastructure, which would be fantastic if it was ever built. Unfortunately, the city combined it with their plan for sidewalks and called the "active transportation plan," then funded it at 1/3 the required level. Seriously, we're building a single highway overpass as the entire 10-year plan would cost for both bikes and peds, but apparently there's no money for us.

When people aren't busy double parking in them around here, they are actually usually pretty good, if a tad on the narrow side (i.e., have to almost ride outside the bike lane to avoid the door zone).

I only have about 200 yrds in the "door zone", but it is a very heavy traffic area, I just go slow enough it wont hurt too bad when someone opens their door right in front of me.

No bike lanes in my immediate area. The LA River was repaved a few weeks ago yet has no lines. I will call the county today to see what is going on around here.

No bike lanes on my ride, and I'm happy about it. I have wide shoulders for the most part. All the bike lanes around here are in the door zone, and drivers get upset if you're not in them. I'm fine with traffic in those areas because they're the 25 MPH zones that I can almost keep up with traffic anyway.

Nonexistent. There's one road that I go on perhaps 3 or 4 times a year that has a bike lane. Mostly I'm riding on 50+ MPH roads with either an 18" or zero shoulder, one lane each direction.

There are entire counties around this area that don't have a single foot of bike lane.

Within towns with 30MPH or less speed limits, honestly I'd rather not have a bike lane.

Someday I'll have to do a breakdown on how much of each type of path I follow for my commute. I use a combination of suburban neighborhood streets, MUP, freeway access road, bike lanes and country two-lanes. The bike-laned route I follow is fine. A little debris, usually natural, and nothing my Marathons can't handle. There are a couple houses that overflow their driveways and have cars parked in the street; I just get in the traffic lane and go around. The road is not very busy so this isn't a big deal.

None in my general area. Not a big fan anyway- www.sameroadssamerules.org

Someone else took this pic yesterday, but this is along my commute. Note the mirror on the car. ;)

http://img411.imageshack.us/img411/5165/photo8jf.jpg

Karma is real.

In Geneva, Switzerland, there are bike lanes everywhere and they're even interconnected. The problem is street traffic is usually quite bad, so motorcycles and scooters use them to get through traffic. I know, I know, share the road and all that, but I really hate sharing bike lanes with motorists.

Our bike lanes in Seattle tend to be in "the door zone," where you can go from on your way home at a nice clip, to on your way to the emergency room in an ambulance, in half a second. They also tend to have more road debris in them. I tend not to use them.

What is a bike lane? A road shoulder? You're talking crazy talk here!

Quite good. However I find each time after a rain shower or storm or snow, cycling lanes get clogged with debris.

Quite nice actually. Denver's pretty good about keeping the bike lanes sweeped. They make 'em wide around here and well designed with right turns lane to the right of bike lanes, and where they're not, drivers know well enough to either merge into the bike lane or to look for bikes. I do love Denver's infrastructure.

The suburbs... not so much. I have a two foot wide bike lane on my ride home... I'll pass.

I've noticed too many places in Indy where the bike lane is the "dooring" lane.

They suck and are poorly designed and not maintained so not usable in many places.

They added 200 ft of bike lane both directions that END at the intersection. Ending at intersections is a pretty common theme in GA despite it clearly stating in the drivers manuals that changing lanes IN an intersection is illegal.

There is so much gravel pebbles on the bridges left from winter they are not ride able. I am seeing the same brake pads in one intersection as I saw the first time I commuted by bike 2 years ago.

I went to a commissioners meeting and introduced myself as a bicycle commuter and then asked what it would take to get the lanes removed since they are not being swept and designed poorly and endanger my life more so then if I was left to ride in the lane. The guy was shocked.

No such thing as a bike lane here. I doubt we have one in the whole state.

We do, however, have an excellent MUP system that follows the river and circles the city. Traffic on it is light enough that you're not constantly encountering pedestrians/roller bladers/etc. I usually utilize the MUP for at least a portion of wherever I need to go.