Personally, I'd like to see a law introduced that if there is a cycle lane available, cyclists can be prosecuted for using the road instead. There's a long straight 60 near to me where all the full lycra crowd will use the road instead of the massive wide cycle path - I expect because they're recoding their activity on strava and want to get a good time (the cycle path is fractionally longer). Infuriating.
Cycle lanes are notorious for being poorly maintained and a dumping ground for road debris and other hazards like parked cars or street furniture plonked in the middle of them. Likewise they are often intersected by side roads which you need to give way to which you wouldn’t do on the road.
They are generally not fit for purpose which is why a lot of people who cycle for exercise don’t use them.
They can be a pretty hairy place when they are a shared space with pedestrians, you are dodging the dog, pram, turds, pot holes, debris, street furniture etc. Cyclists have to give pedestrians a wide birth like cars to a cyclist and generally slow down to a crawl as most don’t pay any attention to their surroundings, bells or polite calls to move over.
Shared spaces are fine if you are pottering down to the shops. If you are trying to exercise on a bike, they are generally not the place to be. You generally can’t keep the pace up because they are too narrow with too many hazards.
There’s a cycle lane that runs though my estate, I’d avoid it and use the road because it’s basically the local dog walking route. Every 100m or so is a dog on a long lead with an owner that has limited control over it. It’s bad enough on foot, let alone on a bike.
Edit: I forgot to mention the joggers and phone zombies! Likewise pedestrians with noise cancelling head/earphones (which is also almost all joggers) just wander about all over the place and you can ding your bell all you like but they can’t hear you…
