It's going to depend on the situation and circumstances whether I feel it bad or good to use a paralleling bike lane. All sorts of things will come into play as well as the type of other traffic, amount of traffic and even time of day along with many more considerations.
Your bike path is probably different than mine. So I'd never make a blanket statement for all. There are short sections of access to the main trails that I refuse to ride because when encountering walking traffic, I feel them more unsafe as I would have to slow way down or even stop. One comes out of my own neighborhood.