Originally Posted by
cyccommute
It’s not the tires that are the problem but the conditions that are the problem.
Tires that don't suit the conditions are a problem one can personally do something about. Some of the worst degraded-pavements conditions I deal with are
nowhere near cars. That's in part why they are bad - no-motor-vehicles paths don't get maintained as frequently as streets.
Just dropped by a Citibike rack and found 50mm Marathon Plus tires on them - that's what suits their habitat.
We also tend to place service access...manhole covers, water shut offs, various underground telecommunication ports, etc...under the parked cars because cars constantly driving over these kinds of access points tend to break the pavement. Simply moving the cars away from the curb puts those access points, which are seldom at street level, under the wheels of our bikes.
My recollection of anywhere I've lived is that this kind of stuff tends to be in the middle of travel lanes either because that is where the vaults are or so they don't have to tow cars when unplanned access is needed. With rare exceptions only drains are at the edge. And most of those exceptions were quite smooth. I've ridden over plenty of tree roots cracks on MUPs that are worse.
Update: just got back from doing a short survey in my current neighborhood and found that they're pretty well sprinkled - probably more than half in the travel lane, a few at the curb, a few in what would be the door zone of a parking protected lane. Most near the curb were impressively even with the pavement; some in the middle of ordinary lanes less so. I did see one suspicious looking iron structure between parked cars, but then remembered there's a larger and worse condition version of the same thing on the near end of the greenway that after initial caution years ago I now know I can routinely ride right over. Saw a couple of badly sunken curbside drains, and one with the bars the wrong way; those happen to be in places where the lane not only isn't curbside but isn't even exclusive.
Bottom line: The protected lane isn’t “designed” so much as just shoehorned into an existing system. It’s often shoehorned in by well meaning but poorly informed people who aren’t really bicycle riders. Traffic engineers are often car traffic engineers, not bicycle traffic engineers.
Overly squeezed lanes certainly happen.
But on the question of parking protected vs. traffic side, you are welcome to your opinion, but it happens our local cycling advocates are pretty vocal about considering parking protected lanes a higher class of infrastructure than paint protected ones, basically saying the DOT wimped out anytime they pick paint. I'd say I hear a lot less criticism of the downsides of protected lanes in those circles, than I have concerns about them in my own head.
I suspect the thinking is that real safety comes from numbers; numbers means getting hesitant people to try; and for that
perceived fears are just as important as actual risks; plus while less than the intersection risk, the mid-block risk is demonstrably real and not just perception too.