SideWALKS are Made for Walking

Most people are surprised to learn that riding your bike on the sidewalk is actually more dangerous than riding in a safe manner on the street. If you feel that you must ride on the sidewalk, be extra vigilant, as there is a greater chance for a collision with a pedestrian or car.

What follows is an excerpt from Ken Kifer's Site about the dangers of sidewalk riding.

People wonder how riding bikes on sidewalks can be dangerous. First, there is a greater chance of minor collisions with cyclists and pedestrians due to poorer visibility and restricted room and also a greater chance of falling down. However, the likelihood of a collision with a motor vehicle also increases. These accidents occur at intersections and driveways, the former more deadly. Unwilling to dismount and often unwilling to wait for the light, the bike rider starts across the intersection parallel to the main road, completely hidden from a turning motorist until the last second, when it's often too late for the motorist to stop. A study of these risks was made in 1994 and showed that sidewalk cycling is almost twice as dangerous as cycling in the street, and cycling against the traffic on the sidewalk is over four times as dangerous as cycling in the street. For a good discussion, see The Dilemmas of Bicycle Planning.

Pedestrians are safer than sidewalk cyclists because 1) they are moving more slowly, 2) they can look behind more easily, and 3) they can jump to one side. However, even if these sidewalk cyclists were as safe as pedestrians, they wouldn't be very safe, since seven times as many pedestrians are killed each year as cyclists and since pedestrians have more fatalities per mile of travel than cyclists. (The Environmental Benefits of Cycling and Walking estimates 21 to 44 billion miles of walking and 6 to 21 billion miles of cycling.)

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