Good Bike Lanes 1

This article includes this picture of a bike lane:
Notice that there is a buffer between the outside edge of the bike lane and the parked cars. Also notice that while the biker is riding down the middle of the bike lane, he seems to be out of the door zone since the lane is positioned properly. The buffer next to the car lane also seems fine in this case since the biker obviously won't be turning left at this spot.

This design requires a fair amount of width on the road. However, if need be, the bike lane itself could be made narrower if a similar buffer is kept on either side. The buffer between the bike lane and the car lane could also be narrower to save some space, however narrowing either would certainly see a slightly smaller number of bikers because of a higher perceived risk.

The only thing I wonder about in this image is the design of the moving car/bike buffer. An ideal buffer would indicate to cars that they should only use the bike lane when turning right and when parallel parking. However it should also indicate to bikers that they are vehicles on the road and if a car is double parked or if the biker needs to turn left, they can and should merge into the wider left lane. I think almost everyone in the United States knows the basic rules of the road since we are so fond of automobiles. Why make infrastructure that contradicts that knowledge?