Philip Bird, 32, often uses the Clybourn bike lane as a direct route from Ravenswood to downtown. "You just feel safer. It's the same experience as when you're on the lakefront path, that same kind of 'I'm not going to get hit because of this' (mentality)," said Bird, 32, who was friends with Robert "Bobby" Cann, the cyclist killed while biking there nearly three years ago. The only downside of the curb-protected lane, Bird said, is that it doesn't go far enough north.