That sounds pretty great. Unfortunately in my area the bike lanes are straight into the door zone (see for example https://goo.gl/maps/nMnKZEVZduEfkups8) and this seems to be the general design for bike lanes in the South Bay.

In fact, the city of Sunnyvale's own bike map [0] says to avoid the four feet door zone, yet the bike lane is less than 4 feet wide and straight in the door zone.

It's frustrating. You'd think they'd favor the safety of the unprotected squishy humans over the ones in two ton metal boxes, but it seems like the opposite most of the time.

[0] https://sunnyvale.ca.gov/civicax/filebank/blobdload.aspx?Blo...

In my experience, the more in the way of cars you are as a cyclist the safer you are. You still need to have clear markings, but you should always be in sight of drivers IMO, as an active participant in traffic.

- Gives cyclist false sense of security, since they need to yield to vehicles turning across "their lane"

- Little notice given to drivers that they need to take care, since they have right of way

- Cyclists have to stop at every side road, which can make taking the bike path as slow as walking

Experience cyclists won't use them and novice cyclists are given an unsafe and slow route; they will drive instead. What a waste of public funds.

A better solution, as seen in NL and some parts of London, is to make the motorist give way or even remove the vehicle entrance entirely. The transport mix you get is the transport mix you build for.

I definitely agree with you that people on bikes should be in the way of cars because that's what gives them the most visibility, but I'd disagree with the marking parts. See the commute post I have a little bit below, the only markings on that commute on streets are a few sharrows, no bike lanes at all.

What needs to happen is for bikes to be perceived as slow moving vehicles, not unlike tractors in rural areas. People overtake the tractors as soon as it's safe to do so and don't honk at them. That happens as soon as there is enough of a critical mass of people on bikes on streets.

Junctions are where drivers tend to kill cyclists, so junction improvements are far more effective than anything along the "normal" road. Bike boxes and, ideally, dedicated light phases for bikes help far more than lanes.

We have that in SF and in the year before COVID I basically spent every morning commute berating at least one person that tried to cross in front of me on a bike-only light. It's really hard for Americans to give up the right-turn-on-red.

In NYC they just hand out tickets like candy to people who don't know that right-turn-on-red is illegal through essentially the whole city. In 2019 though I didn't see any enforcement at all of bike-protection lights and lanes.

Actually, let me show you my commute when I was a student several years ago. This is in North America.

1. Walk to the local park (https://goo.gl/maps/CdCinYAp24MgCBBm7)

2. Grab a bicycle from the local bike sharing system (https://goo.gl/maps/46vzmXzx5CPSPFRE9)

3. Bike a minute to the bike path (https://goo.gl/maps/gpkXGcXxMHYH4epn7)

4. Hop on a bike path, wave to the other cyclists (https://goo.gl/maps/JiRSC6yhwqanRn1K7)

5. Bike some more (https://goo.gl/maps/jvSoQQ2rmB1F2NNo8)

6. And then some more (https://goo.gl/maps/u2WyLVGvJBfNL5718)

7. And then even more (https://goo.gl/maps/LcxSoUZ9BzgsovU97)

8. Exit the bike path (https://goo.gl/maps/AyqzZUuo89osSEPf6)

9. Bike on surface streets, sharing the street (https://goo.gl/maps/NNyhCU9gZEXVxk5D8)

10. Arrive at destination, drop off bike at the bike sharing system dock (https://goo.gl/maps/qCy5GESLL4AxHuL99)

That's an example of good bike infrastructure. For the parts where bikes interact with cars on low speed streets, the streets are either narrow so that cars drive slowly, or there is another lane for cars to pass bikes easily.

Note the lack of painted lanes; bikes and cars share the street, and cars pass bikes whenever it's safe to do so. Also note that in most of these street views perspectives, you can pan the camera and see other people biking.