Originally Posted by
rsbob
My apologies. I thought NY was in the real world. There is no optimal solution for cities with multiple intersections and driveways, but what has been implemented can be made safer by adding additional features to aid visibility. Is it a waste of money? That is purely subjective, but accident figures don’t lie. You may live in an area where it was poorly implemented, but projecting you community to all of the US seems a bit much. But you are certainly entitled to your belief/s. Heading out for a ride now. Be safe.
Agreed--enough with the "half empty is worse than empty" rhetoric.
I think where the discussion on bike lanes always goes bad is when people treat the damn things like they're some sort of ideological statement about the hierarchy of vehicles rather than being an engineering solution to the problem of roads that were poorly designed to handle diverse traffic. There are good implementations of this solution and there are bad ones, I tend to use the good ones and avoid/ignore the bad ones.
NY is a bit of a special case in that you have to use the bad ones whether you want to or not, but it's definitely as real as the world gets when it comes to urban riding.