Is it OK for me to say I hate bike lanes?

We lost an 18 year old 2 weeks ago riding on a road with no shoulder......2nd kid in 3 years hit and killed.  I'm happy when mine leave the house and I know their route has big bike lanes.  It's not a guarantee, but it's better than the alternative IMO.

Yep, finished his first college XC, indoor and outdoor track season....pretty typical Freshman season.  Won a few races, got his arse handed to him a few times as well. He has his elite triathlon card and is racing a Continental Cup tri in Des Moines Sunday. Been living up there for a bout a month getting ready.....probably only triathlon he will do this year as he's on a summer run build.  He's not as well trained up as he would like to be for swim and bike, but he's learning to live alone while he trains, cooks his own meals, etc. 

The last hair brained scheme he had is to red shirt 2018 XC season and make a run at Collegiate Nationals in track cycling....4K pursuit. He's been hooked up with some heavy cycling folks who have been after him to do that for a year or so (he can turn some crazy watts)......I would bet he'll give it a shot. 

Pretty good life for a 20 year old. Thanks for asking.

I hear you.  Bike lanes are frequently filled with debris pushed from the road by the car tires, as well as, a favorite spot for smashing glass bottles.  In my town, and some others that I ride through, the budget cuts have led to pretty infrequent use of street sweepers to clean up the mess from the sides of the roads.

Bike lanes frequently get torn up for repairing/adding water pipes and laying down cables of one sort or another.  Almost without exception the asphalt patch job that follows is terrible compared to the original pave job on the road, making for a very rough ride for narrow tires inflated to high pressures and presenting a hazard with lateral edges along the direction of travel which can catch a tire and cause a fall. 

On top of that you have driver's that pull into the bike lane to park and text, sending you out into the traffic lane around their car.  Some of these bike lanes allow parked cars, some don't.  If cars are allowed to park in the bike lane, then that's not a lane.  It's parking for vehicles.  In my city, there are several stretches of road with marked bike lanes that consist of about 1-foot of pavement and the gutter.  Yep, the gutter is half of the bike lane.  Nice try.

And then we have the issue of pedestrians in the bike lane, alongside the unused sidewalk.  I get that people might choose to run in the bike lane due to the smoother surface and more forgiving impact of the asphalt than the concrete.  But I have seen a noticeable trend in the past few years of people choosing to walk in the bike lanes when there is a perfectly good sidewalk right there for them to use.  Walking their dogs.  Walking two-abreast.  I don't understand it.

Despite these problems, I'd rather see a bike lane than not.  I might have to ride the white line on the left edge of the bike lane to avoid the debris or bad pavement, but having the lane there is better than not.