There's a paint lane under all that crap. Most cars stay left of it, so they push snow and slush from the road into into it. At this point this is worse than an adjacent street that has no bike lane. Without the bike lane, the clear area is wider. This time, a thaw will clear it, but later in the winter the bike lanes become a net liability.

Was that taken today?! If so I'm excited as hell. Its super melty.

Is this Chicago Ave? Or where is this?

As I just stated elsewhere, it's worth underscoring that you are not required to ride in a bike lane -- and even in states/countries that require it, you wouldn't be required to ride in it if the conditions are hazardous, or significantly worse than the travel lane.

That said, I do acknowledge that cars can become very irritated when you're in their way, when a "perfectly good" bike lane or shoulder is available. Still, I think it's best to take the lane, perhaps occasionally moving over to let queued cars pass you if you really want to be nice.

And I don't think this problem is a reason to hate bike lanes. It's a reason to want better ones. Curbed cycle tracks -- or parking buffered lanes -- don't suffer from this problem, since there are no fast-moving car tires close enough to spray onto them.

Yes, Chicago. Right, we don't have to ride in the lane and yes, drivers get aggravated when we don't. My point being I'm actually worse off having this lane than I would be without it, because the net effect is to narrow the usable, rideable road by several feet and force me into conflict with drivers.

Cycle tracks sound great but are prohibitively expensive - they'll only happen on limited stretches of very popular routes. They're showpieces, they generate favorable media coverage, political support, and pump up the "bike friendly city" score. So we'll eventually get a few, but it's sooooo much cheaper to just spray the paint.

I become more of a cranky old Forresterite all the time.

Well, actually you can test this theory right now, since Chicago south of 49th and north of 46th are the same width, but the northern portion does not have bike lanes and the southern portion does. Does the portion north of 46th actually have less crud on the pavement? I was on Chicago on Tuesday, and the whole thing seemed like a mess.

Drivers will choose the tracks of least resistance. I'm not sure the bike lane markings are keeping them all that limited.

And a true Foresterite should be happy to be in the path of cars when the circumstances require, right?

We really did not get very effective plowing after this storm - maybe it wasn't possible.

From what I see in the image it appears they didn't plow yet.

As far as that goes it's all about the money.