I'm not saying it isn't good as a quick fix temporary measure, but over here in Belgium this has been consistently used to pretty up the cycling path numbers while doing nothing.
We even invented "cyclist suggestion paths" ("fietssuggestiestroken" colloquially referred to as "paths of shame" (schaamstroken) [1]), which are not cycling lanes as they explicitly allow cars to ride on them, but just a color painted onto the right hand side of the car lane to advice cyclists not to ride side-by-side (which is their right within inner-city limits) but ride on the narrow painted strip behind each other, So this is an anti-cycling measure, and it still is counted as "cycling infrastructure".
Wow, you're allowed to ride side-by-side. Is that common in other countries?
Over here cars honk, even if 2 cyclists take only 1/2 a lane of 2 same-direction lanes and <5 cars pass in a minute. OTOH, if you ride the same, except the sheltered cyclist isn't there, they don't make a fuss even in moderate traffic - they just don't like you talking.
A painted bike path is a placeholder for a more dedicated bike path in the future. An anectodal example: the first time I was in Las Palmas, Gran Canaria, there was a four lane road in which two of the lanes had been painted green and blocked off with small planters on every block. I'm back here now in 2020, and the entire road has been converted to a pedestrian-only road for about 8 city blocks. There are retractable barriers at either end allowing for utility vehicles.
That's great, but sadly the same does not hold for my country, as unprotected narrow (1m wide) 'cycle paths' are 'separated' from the cars and trucks flying past at 70-90km/h (official speed limit, in practice 80-110km/h) by a 15cm wide stripe of paint on the asphalt. This has been the norm for decades.
