On some suburban sidewalks, you're more likely to see a Martian than a pedestrian. The "no bikes on sidewalks" laws are done out of respect for pedestrians, but in some municipalities with no pedestrians, this would be a meaningless law.

A few summers ago, I had a consulting project in the NW Chicago suburbs. At the end of my morning Metra commute, I had a bicycle locked up at the Metra station. The only problem was that to get the remaining distance between the Metra station and the job site was a long suburban collector road where cars travelled at highway speeds. Although I normally avoid sidewalks, I made an exception that summer. In three months of daily commutes, I never once encountered a single pedestrian on that sidewalk. Neither did I see a bicycle on the road.

I'm an experienceed cyclist -- I can cycle in Chicago's financial district during Friday afternoon rush hour and I can cycle in the Loop in the middle of winter. But cycling on some suburban collector roads feels far too much like riding on a highway....