Seattle Buffered Bike Lanes

Just read and submitted a comment on Seattle's latest buffered bike lane.

It's an interesting experiment; however, I wanted to bat around the idea of whether the buffer space is better placed next to the parked cars, rather than between the bike lane and motorized traffic. A buffer space next to the parked cars would basically eliminate the door zone issues otherwise present whenever there is a bike lane and parallel parking. Even if the bike lane were narrowed from 5 to 4 ft for more buffer, the avoidance of door zone issues would be a huge plus. I venture that hit from behind incidents when a bike lane is present are rare, and that the added comfort from the buffer is illusory. What do you all think?