This is literally how 99 percent of the separate bike lanes in NL are built. Check Not Just Bikes on Nebula.

I think the idea is that the cars shield cyclists from potential accidents on the road.

Though IMO anyone on a bike in areas where they must interact with cars should anticipate right turners going through their lane without even considering if there's a cyclist about to enter that space. Right of way only matters when looking back at an incident to determine if anyone should be fined or arrested.

I do the same shit while driving, just assume that anyone around me might actually be completely incompetent and could try changing into my lane at any moment.

I would guess that Boston Massachusetts has the best bike lanes in America, but there are many American cities I haven’t been to. I have bike lanes in my town, but nothing like I saw in Boston. That city takes biking very seriously.

I hear America is full of cycopaths

Wow, here in Germany, the bike path has to be cleared by the residents in many places. You can imagine how well that works. In other words: I've been driving my car instead of riding my bike for the last 3 weeks.

One of the best things about recumbents is I'd go right under it

yeah there's a bigger tree further up this stretch that I constantly have to duck under

There used to be a few branches like that on the sidewalk to my grocery store. I just bought a pair of shears and read up on how to prune safely.

Yeah but those would never work in American because our needs are special. We’re “special needs” /s

Post pics! It's not that I don't believe you, I just want to be more depressed with my country

Appreciate your view and I would love to see more of it.

I live in NJ, which is probably the most suburban state in the US, and so we were built with cars and houses in mind. Fortunately, we are seeing a shift toward biking infrastructure, albeit a little slow, but progress is progress. Jersey City certainly leads the way, and new developments that come online, which there are many, are often required to put in protected bike lanes.

Beyond that, we've seen work started on a Greenway connecting Montclair and Jersey City, nine miles through very dense, urban landscape, where there will be dedicated bike lanes throughout. NJ has so many old rail lines that there's been an effort to turn into pedestrian ways. There's one that comes to mind that's 20 miles. Ideally we would also take some of those old railways and make them unold, and add additional rail lines, but things move slowly in a tiny state with 565 municipalities.

All I know is I'm fortunate to be part of the Northeast Corridor of the US, which is seemingly one of the few places that tries to do some forward thinking.

Yeah so this wasn't easy for the Netherlands either. They just started trying earlier, so they had more time to fail and try again. This would maybe not fly anymore in a newly designed street in the NLs now, but it sure as heck looks a lot like some older roads in the Hague that are still waiting on their update to the new guidelines.

So well done guys, you are def. going in the right direction with this 🙏.

The only thing you could maybe argue is why they are not just asking for a bit of help from a Dutch road designer during the design process. I mean, the knowledge is all there already, why not use it? 😉

From the Netherlands myself. I'm always really happy to see improvements like this elsewhere. I know what it looks like in other countries.

If that somehow magically happens in Massachusetts, I will personally go and slash their tires daily