Although my city is not bike friendly, properly speaking, its large impoverished population makes the situation cloudy. A great many people use bicycles downtown because they don't have the resources or perhaps the requirement for a bike, some not having a job to go to. When I biked to a downtown church, people were shocked because they see bicycles the transportation of the long-term poor. They asked if something had happened. There are enough quiet streets in the downtown area that someone could navigate on the street without resorting to the sidewalk, though most commercial designations are on a big six-lane strip that few who try to tackle on a cycle. There are a few useful stores downtown, like a grocer, so I think a carfree person could get by. Also, a lot of the stores on the strip can be accessed from smaller lanes that have residential cyclists: essentially roads run north from downtown to the strip, so one side of the strip is accessible considering a lot of the stores share those huge parking lot oceans. I've even seen kids run across the strip on their cycles. It'd be much harder to time with baggage..