We are talking about two separate things. You are thinking of urban cycling where elderly and children commonly move about. I am talking about US rural roads, where a guaranteed paved shoulder and some lane marking now offers a respite from what bicycle tourers have historically considered a downside of cycling in the USA: sharing a lane with rural drivers. As I said, even in most of the EU one can't expect completely separated bike infrastructure for dozens of km of rural cycling.
Even for rural areas, it should be separated paths. The US actually has some of those (way more than it has protected bike lanes, anyway).
Fair though, a painted bike lane is probably better than nothing.
> even in most of the EU
Why are you saying this like the EU is some kind of exemplar? Most of the EU sucks for biking. It's better on average than the US, but most countries there aren't like the Netherlands, which is probably the only country there where biking is treated with similar seriousness to driving in terms of investment.
Why do I compare to the EU? Besides that fact I am from there (and you say you’re from there, so we have a shared frame of reference), rural commuting there is vastly more common compared to the USA. Over the last decade I have lived in villages in two EU countries where the nearest shop has been over in the next village, a few km along a tertiary highway, and the bicycle serves as a common way for me and my neighbours to travel that distance – and most of my neighbours are older people, since such are the demographics of rural areas.
That gives me an idea of what minimum infrastructure and driver behaviour is required for ordinary people to cycle. And in spite of your preference for 100% separated infrastructure, that doesn’t seem obligatory and I don’t think it crosses any of my neighbours’ minds.
