Sidewalk surfin’
A current article on the The New Yorker website talks about the extremes of bicycling advocates (pro/con) in NYC. To me, the crux of the article is that there are more bicyclists on the streets there, and less space for them to ride. The perspective of the 90-year-old woman is telling, as she watched the automobile take over the streets to the exclusion of cyclists and pedestrians both.
Sidewalks are really not great places to ride a bike, and i doubt that most cyclists would choose to ride on a sidewalk if they had safe space to ride in the street. I’ve heard the arguments against bike lanes, but that’s really an argument for experienced cyclists who can handle cycling in traffic. It’s the casual cyclists who tend to use sidewalks because they don’t feel safe on the street, or they feel like they’d have to ride faster than they want to on the street. If there’s safe space to cycle at a reasonable personal pace on the street, it’s a safer bet for cars and pedestrians too. Cycling for the streets, walking for the sidewalk.