Unfortunately cycling advocacy organizations in the United States tend to be opposed to physical separation.
Even very serious and activist cyclists around here are still most likely seasonal/recreational riders, and still want to use their cars, at least in the winter. (See “share the road” bumper stickers). They are not necessarily wild about reducing vehicle access.
But I strongly dislike Critical Mass and bike activists in general. They are hateful (especially towards pedestrians) and don't know any other topic of conversation.
And they have this attitude where incremental improvements don't count, we need to have a day X where all streets are torn up and bike utopia is built overnight.
But if there are 6 lanes and cars are driving 55mph, adding a bike lake with a dash of paint just isn't enough due to the dangerous speed differences. It's like adding a sidewalk and crosswalk to an interstate: safer than nothing, but don't expect it to work well. Bikes really should not be on roads like this.
One thing I would change is to mandate proper turn signals on bicycles. Some people aren’t good at hand signals, and you have to take your hand off the brake to make them, which just seems ludicrously unsafe to me.
- Cars emerging from side streets don't stop at the cycle track so there's a constant T-bone risk.
- Parking (the only parking lane on the road) obscures drivers' vision leading to a high right-hook risk.
- The grade separation disappears at driveways and side streets so you're constantly going up and down like a rollercoaster.
- Because the city plows it and homeowners suck at shoveling their sidewalks, people walk in the cycle track like it's a sidewalk.
- Actually, people walk in the cycle track regardless of the season.
- The "entrance" is marked by a seriously deadly right-hook risk at a Y-shaped fork. And when you're not at risk of getting hooked, there's probably a car blocking the entrance while waiting to turn into traffic.
I mean it is a seriously deranged and broken cycle track. Even with cars road raging, honking, and revenge-cutting-off me, it's better than getting smeared against someone's door panel.
Also, while your points are all valid, they also apply to pedestrians. The difference is that a cyclist needs to slow down on each side street or driveway to make sure there's no car coming and many cyclists for some reason think they are in a race.
When you see people out on the sidewalk, most of them are walking ... some of them are jogging ... and some of them are running. I don't think the runners think they are in a race (though they may or may not be training for one.)
Even though I actually haven't ridden that way since they built the cycle track, I live in the neighborhood and the cycle track has looked awkward to me since they put it in. Back when I commuted home down Beacon I would bomb down the slight downhill to the Star Market at 25 or so, pretty far out into the "car" lane, because I wanted to be able to see, and have time to react to, any cars attempting to pull out of the side streets.
To the grandparent's point, the cycle track is really only compatible with laid back putt-putting. I think if you were to carry any speed at all, you'd eventually get T-boned by a car pulling out of the many poor-visibility side streets ... or you'd T-bone the car yourself ... with your face.
So if I'm out on a ride (not just going to the store or something) I think I'll avoid the expensive new cycletrack, thank you.
Going downhill (cycle track side), I have no problem keeping up with traffic. During rush hour, I usually end up having to slow down for cars in front, which sucks a lot but that's life.
I'm not sure how expensive this project is (it's still not finished!) but it must be at least a million dollars flushed down the drain. And that's not even mentioning those dumb HAWK lights that will be ripped out because no one knows what to do.
The US simply isn't going to tear up a significant chunk of streets in any city and lay down enough bicycle-only infrastructure any time soon.
So, it's a lot more effective to co-opt the existing infrastructure and lobby for speed limit changes, access changes, road humps, etc.
> I've seen that: dedicated, separated bike paths are unused, and cyclists continue to ride in the street with the cars.
Generally this is on bike paths that were put in to satisfy some "green initiative" but don't actually go anywhere useful. It also sometimes happens on "bike paths" that cross too many roads; you're better off riding on a parallel roadway that's actually optimized for traffic flow.
I have rarely seen idle bike paths when they exist in a downtown where people work.
Sheltered from motorised traffic, they cater to a wider age, experience and ability range, and the fact that they are typically narrower than roads exacerbates problems that arise from mixed-ability/experience users sharing same facility.
Features of cycle lanes[1] tend to put cyclists in closer proximity to pedestrians than they would be on a road, and this creates a lack of physical and psychological separation that further reduces practical speed (and utility). They also create new challenges such as situations[2] requiring a cyclist to observe a 270°-arc on the approach to a junction. In the last example, it doesn't matter if I have right of way, and it doesn't matter if I'm wearing a helmet; all it takes is a motorist not to be paying attention or to misjudge my speed and I could be the victim of a fatal accident, and that's not a risk that I'm willing to take.
[1] https://i.imgur.com/CkAxcE5.jpg [2] https://i.imgur.com/0q9PadV.jpg
But multi-use paths where pedestrians mix with cyclists should be avoided at all costs.
About the second example: The problem is legality. First, note the setback. This already greatly improves visibility. Second, the cyclist doesn't need a 270-degree arc: due to the setback, the cyclist (with right-of-way) will be visible to the driver at a 45-degree angle. Hitting them would be gross negligence.
I agree that it's not a risk you should be willing to take. The problem is fixing the traffic laws. Cyclists (and pedestrians!) should be considered as vulnerable. In The Netherlands, the driver will almost always be considered to be at fault in car-cyclist accidents, unless gross negligence by the cyclist can be proven. Killing a cyclist can easily result in a 2- to 4-year jail sentence if the driver is at fault. "He had right-of-way, but I just didn't see him" should never be a valid defence.