Originally Posted by SethAZ

Riding on a sidewalk is probably going to be bad news in most places. There's exactly one place where I ride on a sidewalk, and that's this one stretch where a MUP joins back up to a main road and the boneheads that designed this didn't think to put any ramps there. I could stop, unclip, and set my bike down onto the road and then keep riding, but nobody's ever walking this particular stretch of sidewalk so I just ride it for a couple hundred yards until the next business entrance where I can ride down onto the street.

Bottom line is that the safest option is usually to do what others expect so there are no surprises. I'd say in my region nobody's expecting a bike to be cruising along a sidewalk, so by definition almost it's less safe than riding in the street. A sidewalk with pedestrians is for pedestrians, not cyclists.