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It's just a way of forcing bicycles off the road and enable planners to continue planning roads just for cars. Way too often, those special cycle lanes are not safe to use at speeds >= 30km/h due to surfacing, width, amount of overview, parked cars / car doors, pedestrians & other obstacles. And to add to that, they are routinely maintained less in winter (or worst case scenario, covered in snow plowed unto them from the roads, that happens in Switzerland too). No thanks, I want to be able to ride on the road if I wish to do so. If the cycle lane is actually amazing, I am definitely going to use it without being forced to, I don't enjoy being stuck in the middle of cars. But as it is, roads are still designed first, and cycle lanes usually routed awkwardly around them.
SwissChap-
So it's not fundamentally a bad idea, but just implemented wrongly were you ride? Around here the council give bike lanes the highest priority when salting/clearing snow, the lanes are wider than the road in places and green lights are timed to speed of bikes.
But as it is, roads are still designed first, and cycle lanes usually routed awkwardly around them.
Not everywhere, fortunately.
But I totally get the frustration, I just wondered about the 'fundamentally bad idea', which I still think it's not.
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not safe to use at speeds >= 30km/h
Which of course doesn't stop people trying to ride that fast on them, to the detriment of everyone else's safety.
JesperXT
Brun
I don't think I've ever met a Dane who would argue that mandatory use of bike lanes is a bad idea. Could you try to explain why you think it's a bad idea? Implemented correctly I see it as a way to make traffic flow smoother and more safe. I'm fully aware that the quality of bike lanes in the UK and other places vary a great deal, but I can't see much wrong with the concept itself.