We rode our bikes to a party across the city last night. As it turned out, there was a route that comprised all protected bike lanes and back streets, so I felt very safe the whole way (about 10km). We popped into a few stores on the way, which just took a few seconds.
The 10k distance by transit would have taken an hour; by car about 45 minutes (due to traffic — and with no parking at the far end) but we rode it in just over 30 minutes, passing scads of cars backed up in their lanes.
It occurred to me as I was riding past that although the car lanes looked full, they were actually mostly empty — if you think of it like a theatre. Eighty percent of the available seating in the car lanes is sitting empty, but still occupying a lot of shared space, and burning huge amounts of fuel getting dragged around unneeded.
More protected bike lanes means more people feeling safe to bike, means fewer cars on the road. And, we know from research that protected bike lanes increase the safety of EVERYONE on the road — not just bikers.
