This past Wednesday night, I was on the B-12 (ie 12th Ave) route headed in the direction of downtown when I came across a disaster of a bike lane. It started just West of Colorado Blvd. at Madison, and ended toward the top of the hill, at Clayton. This used to be an amazing section to bike through, thanks to big wide lanes, plenty of other cyclists, and a general sense that bikes belong there.
That’s changed, thanks to a relatively new (sometime within the past couple of weeks), unwanted, ice-filled door-zone bike lane. Whoever is responsible for this bike lane is sending a message that bikes don’t belong, and that they should stay out of the way of “real” traffic, even (especially?) if that means being in an extremely dangerous part of the road.
BikeDenver celebrated this as one of 12 new bike lanes announced by Hickenlooper in June. With friends like these, who needs enemies?
Through Polarized Eyes 
This time of year, between piles of leaves and ones of ice, I usually avoid bike lanes like the plague. Instead, I stick to nice wide lanes like 12th Ave apparently used to have. My nice, wide, non-bike-laned road is 29th, and I'd be pissed if it was compromised by a well-meaning but poorly executed bike lane.Your post here, and my own experiences, are all starting to make me believe more strongly the precepts of Forester's Vehicular Cycling code: no need for separate lanes or special infrastructure. Cyclists will be safest when they, and motorists, consider bikes to be valid vehicles with equal access to the road.I'm not sure what the answer is when having more bike lanes means attracting more riders, but only at the cost of comfort and safety.