Cycle campaigning

Well. It's hard to know what to reply. ASLs .......

Thirdly, they were devised in response to an existing state of affairs that people wanted to change (lack of stop line compliance by cyclists, cyclists mixing it up in traffic queues, which can have the effect of making queues move more slowly, and the hope that if cyclists were got to the front of the queue you'd get fewer left hooks, etc.). You go right ahead and try to show that ASLs are not the right response--it's not that easy. The problem is that there are no alternative 'standard' measures designed to address the above issues, so what are you going to come up with that makes a difference?
In Europe ASLs were developed to make cyclists more visible at junctions and also to give space where there is a demand for making offside (=right in UK and =left in EU) turns.
In London they began to be adopted after a coroner criticised the layout on Penton st, N1. A woman had been killed by a left turning skip lorry where there was a near side cycle lane which ended about 4 metres before the junction. The theory is that if there was an ASL she would have been visible at the front of the relatively small lorry.
There is no real evidence about how good they are, partly because serious injury crashes are relatively rare events and ASLs have never been properly enforced. When riding, I quite like them but I think I am aware that they don't reduce risk but tend to re-locate the risk area. Teaching cyclists and drivers how to use them well is difficult.