Since there doesn't seem to be a general thread about bike lanes yet, I guess I'll start one here.
Over the past few weeks, I've been looking at Dutch roads for quite a bit, and noticed how well bike lanes are designed over there compared to here in the US. Note that I'm not going to suggest anything about removing/banning cars in favor of bikes here (unlike some "urbanists"). I think that both cars and bikes can coexist on a road, and with good infrastructure for both.
I've looked up the MUTCD for bike lane design standards here, and something that I don't get is that why does the bike lane have to cross at the start of a right turn lane? To me, it seems safer for the bike lane to stay on the right side of a right turn lane, as when the right turning car stops at the intersection to look at perpendicular traffic, they can also look at the bike lane while on that same stop before turning.
Short answer:
In the 1970s, the US and the Netherlands were in the same place. The first bicycle infrastructure was being installed and it looked the same, separate paths.
But then some people in the US, known as vehicular cyclists, starting making a lot of noise and pushing back against this. They said separate facilities would make them "second class road users". Bare in mind, this was a decade after the end of segregation where "separate but equal" was anything but. This group of folks won out in the great debate.
So the MUTCD reflects that. Bikes are treated like cars. So in that first image, right turning traffic should be to the right of thru traffic.
Unfortunately, this practice doesnt take into account comfort and real user behavior. The fact is, bikes arent cars. Theyre pretty damn different, and sharing the road doesnt make a whole lot of sense in most cases.
Thats where NACTO and such comes in. They basically said, correctly, that MUTCD designs are frozen in 1979 and started drawing up modern designs. Modern, being that they take into account 30 years of European experience in bicycle design.
The proposed MUTCD is supposed to incorporate a lot of that, but even then, it will be a bit outdated when it comes out.
Heres en example of American infrastructure retrofit to a Dutch style intersection*. Note they took the very US frontage road and made that part of the bike path.
*Dutch intersections wouldnt have a billion lanes.
https://twitter.com/Derailluer/status/1444366516166688770