I like riding my bike. I suppose the proliferation of bike lanes is a good thing. However, many of them are only marginally safer than no lane at all.
Bicycles are good for commuting short distances, three or four miles. Any farther than that and it starts to seem more like work. Note in the video they mention an average daily travel distance of less than 4 kilometers. That's like two and a half miles. You also need to realize that the Netherlands is a very small, and very densely populated country. Some of our East Coast cities may approach the density and area of Holland. I am sure that anything West of the Appalachians is way more spread out and probably only a tenth as dense as Amsterdam. So while Amsterdam's solution might be good for small, densely populated areas, it is not going to work for the whole world.
One of the popular places to put bike lanes is between a travel lane for cars and a parking lane for cars. This can work fine if everyone minds their P's and Q's, but when someone gets out of their parked car they are going to open their door, and that door is going to swing right into the bike lane. Any biker who happens along at that moment is going to get a nasty surprise. If they are really quick, they might have time to decide whether to run head on into the door, or swerve into the traffic lane where they can be run down by the electric car they did not hear coming up behind them. Running the bike lanes the other direction might alleviate this problem, but that would be sacrilege.
Out here in the boonies, we have bike lanes alongside some high speed rural, two lane blacktop roads. I suppose there might be a couple of commuters that use them, but mostly they are for the spandex crowd that goes for a ride at lunch or on the weekends. I'm not sure I approve of spending tax payer dollars to give these muscle buns a place to play. On the other hand, it might save on cleaning bills. Dead Man's curve even has bike lanes. I am dreading the day I go through there and find a mess.
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