[_Codemonkeyism]

If not about painted or not-painted. It's about is the bike lane 4m wide or 1m.

Painting 1m wide bike lanes is just because cities don't want to take away from cars.

Painting 1m wide bike lanes is trying to eat the cake and have it. There is no free lunch.

In Berlin most bike lanes are very narrow [1] while in Copenhagen most bike lanes are wide enough to feel safe and have two bikes next to each other. No one cares about paint.

[1] ... and winding, and blocked all the time by delivery trucks, parking cars and construction sites, and taking 90 degree turns around obstacles, and full of overgrown bushes ...

[dsfyu404ed]

I can think of several states in which bike lanes are basically nonexistent that are better for cycling than my state which goes somewhat out of its way to put in bike lanes simply because the former require an approximately lane-wide shoulder on all but the smallest roads and it is the de-facto bike lane when bikes are present.