I've never been anywhere with *comprehensive* bike infrastructure - is there even such a thing in North America? - so I can't say what that might be like. But in the spotty, poorly designed, counterintuitive, law-defying, unpredictably disappearing "infrastructure" we have now, I feel much, much, MUCH less safe. No one knows what the rules are, traffic is completely unpredictable, people feel like they don't have to develop traffic skills so that when a bike "lane" suddenly ends they ride on the sidewalk, or against traffic, or dart out across the street to get where they're supposed to be next, or hug the curb and invite cars to take the middle of the road and run not only the cyclist but oncoming traffic off the road. It's not only dangerous for cyclists, it's dangerous for pedestrians who are forced to take the road because the sidewalks are full of bicycles.

There's no way that even in a flush economy like we had 50 years ago they would've ever sprung for comprehensive infrastructure, and in today's economy it's absolutely never going to happen, so I think everyone would be MUCH safer if they did away with all of it.