[bunderbunder]

I'm actually not fond of separating cars and cyclists using dedicated lanes. My experience has been that roads with bike lanes tend to be more dangerous - cars stop paying as much attention to bikes, so you get a lot more instances of them forgetting you're there and making a right hand turn right in front of you. Not to mention that they often force cyclists to ride within swinging distance of car doors - which is a far more popular way to injure cyclists than actually running into them is.

My preference would be to have designated bike thoroughfares where cars are permitted, but the speed limit is kept to something low enough that cars and bikes are going at approximately the same speed so bikes can ride in the lane without (reasonable) motorists feeling obstructed.

[benjiweber]

Bike lanes are often more dangerous, but that is generally due to poorly designed bike lanes .

There's lots of informative explanation on this blog http://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/search/label/subjective...

[ygra]

Since bike lanes integrated into the road are common enough, I think when people demand dedicated bike lanes, they mean »not part of the road, but instead physically separated«. And those are indeed better, safety-wise.