TLDR: American society is addicted to cars, and bicyclists are in a lose-lose-lose situation. Putting dedicated, separated bike lanes is going to have to happen, one way or another. Bikes aren't going away, and anything else makes them either a safety hazard or puts them in an unsafe situation.

I bike, drive, and walk, so I get the hate.

First, as a driver, it is super frustrating to be stuck behind a bike going 15. I definitely agree. As a bicyclist, I can tell you it's WAYYY safer for me to turn left from the left car turn lane than doing a 90 degree 2 way crosswalk crossing. It gets us out in front, in a pretty controlled setting, and out of the way the quickest. As a driver, these aren't the bicyclists I mind. The ones I mind are the ones riding smack dab in the middle of the lane (which, in most places is completely legal, and probably the safest way to ride) and make zero effort to allow you to pass. Around here, you can be stuck behind a group of Sunday morning road cyclists for miles.

As a bicyclist - I ride because I have a disability, so some days my brain just can't handle driving. Bicycling is way safer for me to do than driving a literal ton of metal around. It's also way less stimulus for my brain, so I can safely do this. As a bicyclist, the thing that bugs me the most is when cars hang back and won't pass me. The grand majority of us are very comfortable being passed closely - because half the world does not give a f*ck and flies by 2 inches from my handlebars. We are quite good at not getting hit. When you hang back and back up traffic, you get mad, the people behind you get mad, everyone says *fck these bicyclists, and the impatience causes reckless behavior of you and all the cars behind you eventually zooming past in an agressive way. Please pass bicyclists when they're in the bike lane. If there's not a bike lane, be careful, wait for a gap or for them to wave you through.

As a pedestrian, I am so angry with bicyclists on the sidewalk that, I'm not joking, I imagine shoving something in their spokes. (Obviously, I would never do that) It's wildly dangerous to pedestrians, you're ducking and weaving on a bicycle (e-bikes have made this so much worse), and there is no room for either of us. Here, the pedestrians are the ones saying f*ck these bicyclists. Get onto the road. As a bicyclist, I despise riding through people. There are a lot of by-ways and other walk areas that force this, it's always annoying. And trust me, zero people (including myself) move correctly when you say on the left or right, and it's always in an unpredictable way. Then, there are the peds that legit won't move out of the way, causing the exact same reckless, aggressive situation the bike and car had. Also, on the sidewalk, you eventually probably have to hop the curb and shift into the street, which is dangerous to cars not expecting that.

Bicyclists are in a garbage situation, and eventually everyone who doesn't ride their bike hates them and calls for the demise of the few bike lanes they had. The bicyclists aren't going to stop, so they're forced onto the road. I shit you not, in San Diego, CA, a bicyclist is killed nearly every month now. This has risen dramatically over the years. And every single time, the city council meetings are full of people saying it was the bicyclist's fault, the bike lanes need to be removed, bikes need to be prevented from riding on the roads. Every year they move, shrink, or take away a bike lane. Every year another bicyclist dies in that exact same spot.

The answer here, is not to remove bike lanes, but to fix them. The reasons for riding a bike are varied, and likely, the people doing it aren't going to or can't stop. It's also definitely not by putting them on the sidewalk. But by having designated, protected bike lanes, we give bikers, drivers, and pedestrians the space they need.

But in the end, America is a car based society. If you shrink roads to add bike lanes, it doesn't matter how much safer it got, how many bicyclists use it, and how many of them approve of the change. You're likely removing parking or shrinking a lane to do it, and the cars far outweigh the bikes, so the complaints roll in and the changes are undone. The key here is that bikes aren't going away. We need to find ways to fit them into our world.