Christopher pointed out yesterday that a few fading "sharrows" on the pavement makes for a pretty lousy bike path.

I agree with Christopher: that's not really much of a bike path. Sharrows are better than nothing, but not by much. They do let drivers know that the city, at least, expects them to share the road; they also remind drivers that cyclists may be present even if there aren't any around at the moment. But they don't really do that much to make biking safer for cyclists. Now check out this bike path in New York City...

Instead of putting bikes—and sharrows—in the road between parked cars and moving cars, a dedicated bike path has been created by moving parked cars away from the curb. The line of parked cars forms a barrier between cyclists and drivers; it also makes the sidewalk feel more open. And note that there's space left—clearly marked space—between the bike path and the passenger side of the parked cars in order to prevent cyclists being "doored" by people exiting cars on the passenger side (and to prevent passengers being "biked").

Now that's a bike path.