Example:
It's physically impossible to drive a car in the section of road to the right of the red and white barriers (that whole lane is closed off further back).
This infrastructure, however, no longer exists (it was put in last summer as part of PandemicPanic and ripped out soon after, cos voters and stuff).
OK. Now I understand (although I don't consider most segregated cycle paths to be roads, which is where my confusion arose). But would anyone seriously try to argue that cyclists would be able to ride in the part of the road currently open to cars with that infrastructure there without being subject to intense harassment? And what happens when the infrastructure ends? What do you do then? Dedicated infrastructure encourages the mindset that cyclists belong on a special path, usually shared with pedestrians, and when drivers then encounter cyclists in the wild (so to speak), they think they should continue behaving as if they were using infrastructure -- in other words, getting out of the way of the motorists wot pay road tax innit.
The problem with infrastructure is that it will never go everywhere, it's not suitable for all cycling purposes, it's not as well maintained or designed, and the very existence of it makes it harder for those who would rather stick to the road. I have plenty of experience of new infrastructure being rubbish to use and making drivers on the road more aggressive to cyclists. None of these things should be true. It should be possible to have infrastructure that is well designed and maintained, and for cyclists who would rather stick to being traffic to do so safely. All of this requires a culture change, and that culture change is the same thing that will make sharing space with drivers safer.
I may be in the minority, but I'd rather focus on getting drivers to stop having a shitty attitude to cyclists. If we use infrastructure to encourage more cyclists, we're encouraging more cyclists who assume they belong on infrastructure rather than wherever they please. Also, given the increase in popularity of cycling during lockdown without any significant increase in the reach of good quality dedicated infrastructure, I'm not convinced that lack of infrastructure is what puts people off.
To bring us back to the original point of this topic, the existence of cycle paths along the gutter line (or lanes segregated by bollards) really does not contribute to reducing close passes. I suppose it's a bit like cats sitting in a square of tape on the floor as if it were a box. Something about a defined boundary makes (not all) drivers think they're doing just fine as long as they stay on the side of the boundary that hasn't got the cyclist in it.
Sam
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