On Sunday, September 8, 2019 at 12:52:55 PM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 9/8/2019 2:09 PM, AK wrote:
On Sunday, September 8, 2019 at 12:27:49 PM UTC-5, Tom Kunich wrote:

I ride with my outside handlebar overlapping the outer bike lane line. In some cases I take the car lane if there are problems with the bike lane such as roots of trees causing bumps of the lane being filled with leaves so that you can't see dangers such as pot holes or boards of the like.

I have to dodge a lot of glass both in the bike lane and sidewalk.

We have street cleaners, but are lucky if they come once every couple of months.

In other words, both Tom and AK are pointing out that bike lanes aren't
the wonderful paradise that so many people claim. Maintenance is often
crappy, debris is common, and around here (as where AK lives) sweeping
of debris is rare.

So riders often ride as close to the stripe as possible. This results in
closer passes than there would be if they removed the damned stripe and
kept the same pavement width. Then the occasional car tires passing over
that rightward section of pavement would sweep debris into the gutter.

"Protected" bike lanes have all that and worse. A city near me installed
a few blocks of that nonsense, then hosted a visit from officials from a
different city. The foreign officials asked "So how do you keep the
pavement clean? Did you buy a special small-scale street sweeper?" The
host city official said something like "Um... we don't know yet."

And as a bonus, bicyclist are hidden far off to the side, out of the
view of motorists. Until, that is, they pop into view in front of the
motorist at an intersection or a driveway. Surprise!!!

--
- Frank Krygowski

I don't know where you come off with your idea that bike lanes don't help. We have a lot of areas around here where bike lanes appear and disappear intermittently and where ever they disappear the traffic IMMEDIATELY moves over and crowds bicycle traffic.