Originally Posted by
mcours2006
There is one protected bike lane where I commute. Oddly enough, it turns into a non-protected one, but I prefer the non-protected one. Crossing intersections is safer, IMO, with NP bike lanes as drivers coming out of a street would focus more on the road than they would a bike lane that is segregated.
The first protected bike lane installed in Denver was on 15 Street in Downtown. It was placed on the left hand side of the street because 15th has a lot of bus traffic. No one expects bikes to be on the left side of the street so people pulling out of business and hotels (especially visitors) don't expect a bike to be going down that side of the street. Another, even worse, problem in that once it gets to Larimer Street, the protected lane ends and the cyclists are expected to return to the "normal" right side of the street in the distance of a 3 lane intersection to a nonprotected lane across a busy intersection.
At least this one isn't designed around floating parking lanes which are almost worse. And heaven help you if you don't want to ride in the protected lanes.