Comment by TulliusCicero

I've ridden bikes for transportation in a handful of regions in the US. It is essentially always bad, it's just a matter of some people being able to look past or tolerate the awfulness.

Yes, some people are okay sharing a lane with cars, or using a strip of paint for protection, but accepting a poor status quo doesn't stop the status quo from being poor.

Occasionally there's a route that's legitimately good, almost always due to having an off street trail you can use for the bulk of the commute. Those can be great.

But once you hit bike lanes in an urban area, it's virtually always terrible. A lot of Americans are just used to the terribleness and don't notice it anymore, the same way they don't notice how almost every neighborhood is designed to be unwalkable (and how most are designed to be economically segregated besides).