One topic often addressed by this blog is that of bike lanes due to their importance in creating complete streets to increase transportation choices, improve air quality, and decrease our dependence on oil. But, it also gets significant attention here because it is the subject of significant controversy.
One of the ways that a safe, welcoming bike lane can be provided to the public is by separating the bike path from the auto lanes. (Want to see the study on separated bike lane safety? Here it is from Injury Prevention.) These separated bike lanes not only make clear the place where bicycle riders are to be, but also exclude dangerous elements, such as moving automobiles or stationary ones with their doors suddenly opening in the path of a biker ("dooring"). And, yes, it does happen, and it can be fatal.
Spokane has a separated bike trail: the Centennial Trail. However, that's more of a bicycle highway, which allows people to travel long distances undisturbed, but also fails to successfully deliver bike riders to their destinations without, as Danish architect and infrastructure consultant Jan Gehl says, "[letting] people fend for themselves once they reach the city." Nevertheless, it's a commendable achievement that we should build upon.
The true usefulness of separated bike paths is when they're permitted to enter the core of the community. A local example of that is the bike system in Liberty Lake. It connects to the Centennial Trail, consists of a number of interconnected trails (though, not all are separated from the road), and many are surrounded by trees and grass. But, these are not urban trails as would be necessary in downtown Spokane or anywhere else where they'd need to be shoehorned in. So what do we do in that situation?
Well, it's pretty congested in New York City:
The first separated bike lane in NYC was proposed in 2007, and its cross-section is below. In this case, a 15-foot wide planted area was inserted into the right-of-way to come between the moving automobiles and the bicyclists. The planted area also includes parking while protecting the bikers from being doored.
The video above did note that there are places where solid barriers would be inappropriate, such as when emergency or delivery vehicles must approach the curb. In that case, a double rolled-curb barrier such as the one displayed here (thank you to StreetsWiki) 
could be more appropriate. Other options mentioned in the video include bollards (removable vertical poles) such as the ones you see where the Centennial Trail crosses roads. They prevent vehicles from passing, unless you have the authority that comes along with having the key.
Coming back to the Pacific Northwest, the current issue of Planning Magazine brings the story of Vancouver, British Columbia's newest experiment in separated bike paths. While separated bike paths were available along the water's edge, last summer brought a proposal to separate the bike path on Hornby Street, penetrating into downtown.
Could Spokane do the same thing? It does present challenges. It is more complex than laying down stripes and it does need to be designed into the physicality of the road. Second Avenue, for instance, would need a concrete strip of some kind in order to move the parking meters away from the sidewalk. However, for much of Spokane region, the roads are very wide, and a few feet for a concrete strip would be easy to accommodate. Plowing would become impossible in the bike lanes in that case, but the city doesn't sufficiently maintain the bike lanes in those situations, anyway. Indeed, you might be able to pitch it as an alternative to piling up snow in the middle of the road during major storms.
As always, the character of the neighborhood and the people's transportation demands will be key to deciding what form a transportation asset will take. But, no matter what you may think about them in general, building separated bike lanes is a valid alternative, and no transportation plan proposal should be presented to the public without it.
