Chicago recently added separated bike lanes to one of its streets, and it's definitely much more enjoyable and less stressful riding on that street than the rest of the city. In fact, whether or not I can spend most of my commute in that bike lane plays a huge factor in deciding if I'm going to bike to my destination. Unfortunately, even that bike line is flawed. For one, it relies on painted lines to separate the lane, which as the video in the article says, isn't that great a solution, since it doesn't physically keep the cars out. Taxis are the worst offenders and tend to treat the bike lane as their personal parking space.
Chicago also implemented dedicated traffic signals for bikes, as the article recommends, which sound amazing in theory. Unfortunately, most cars seem to completely ignore them and drive as they would on non-protected streets. For example, when the bike lane is green, the turn signal for cars is red. I rarely see cars actually obey that red light and regularly turn into oncoming bike traffic. Even worse is pedestrians who view the bike lane as an extension of the sidewalk, and will wait in the bike lane to cross the street.
These problems won't be fixed until protected bike lanes are the norm, rather than the exception, and following bike lane laws are taught in driver's ed and heavily enforced by police.
Unfortunately, nobody really cares about bikers. The New York Times had a great article last year about how hitting bicyclists isn't considered that big a deal[1].
1: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/10/opinion/sunday/is-it-ok-to...