the challenge is that this needs to be done consistently - in my town, they built a raised bike lane beside and level with the sidewalk but only for about 100m.

the challenge is that this needs to be done consistently - in my town, they built a raised bike lane beside and level with the sidewalk but only for about 100m. it's red concrete and marked with signs and paint, but everywhere else in town bicycling on sidewalks is illegal. If you dare ride your bike on this "bike lane", you get anything from scowled at to sworn at by pedestrians who think you're biking on "their" sidewalk. and of course, the challenge with doing it consistently, even for a small town, is that it's expensive. retrofitting a bike lane on the asphalt only costs as much as some paint. the cheaper, easier, and move obvious solution is to simply pour a curb separating the bike lane and the car lanes. you don't have to raise the whole bike lane up to sidwalk level, just 6" at the edge. and that's what many cities are doing.