trust me, that would be a no no. the biker-ped relationship is just like the car-biker relationship here. I've seen enough accidents to know better than to bike in these streets, especially if the bike lane isn't in it. The places where the bike lane merges off the sidewalk and into the street, the street is wider by the width of the bike lane. Otherwise the the streets (mainly boulevards around here, and the bike lane is only in the street when it's not a boulevard) are hardly the width of two cars and have rather high curbs. People would have to switch lanes to get around, but many would try to squeeze by and there would be many problems, one of which could easily be severe injuries.
I'll stick with taking my chances of a low speed crash on the sidewalk opposed to the higher chances of being struck by over 2000 pounds of metal going over 35mph.

I've thought it over long and hard before. Thanks for the thought though, Al, in most cases that would be a good idea.