> A friend of mine has additionally pointed out that the city tends to put the cycle track on the downhill side of the road (but not the uphill), which is exactly the opposite of what they should do because cyclists go much faster downhill than uphill.

I saw a really good example of an unsafe bike lane when I lived in Kent, wa. As you say the planner had put it on the downhill side of a 45 mph main thouroughfare dropping 500 feet in 1000 feet. It had a lot of great twists and turns for drivers to cut using the bike lane. And there was nothing on the uphill side.

Meanwhile I could bike a mile south and drop the same elevation by rolling through quiet neighborhoods with school zones and no traffic. It boggled my mind how none of the planners thought to redirect bicycle down this route instead of the most dangerous downhill they could find.