I'm of the mind that it's better to commit to SPD or platforms for a particular bike for commuting. If a pedal has SPD on one side and a flat surface on the other, you often have to deal with flipping a pedal to the correct side when taking off from a stop, and that's especially frustrating if you're new to the attachment system and there are impatient cars behind you waiting for you to get it together and go. With dedicated pedals (flat or clips on both sides), you just put your foot down, and it will work without having to look down or think about which side is up.

+1 on Eggbeaters, easy to engage, easy to release, making them good for traffic.

I split the clipless/platform difference by using Crank Brothers Mallet pedals on my commuter. They have Eggbeater style clips but the full platform is rideable with flat shoes for short hops. I wear Pearl Izumi X-Alp Enduro shoes in nice weather and Shimano MW-81 in crappy weather.

I don't have too much trouble flipping between the flat or clip-in sides of my pedals. Most often the clip-in side faces up, which is good because I wear my SPD shoes most of the time (even for grocery shopping, easier to pull heavy loads when clipped in). But if I'm just wearing flip flops or my office shoes to lunch or something, it's no big deal to push down on one pedal's clip-in side for a couple revolutions then flip it over after I get moving.

I like that if I really crank or perhaps get a little air (rare on my commuter) my feet are firmly attached to the pedals...

Agreed, I can get on the correct side 9 times out of 10 without conscious effort.

I had the same experience when I owned pedals that were one side spd one side flat. Also one side is always not quite the right height. As spd's don't have any incredible speed advantage, I'd also throw in a vote for going all one way or the other.

Yeah, it's a series of tradeoffs though. The thing is that with flats, if you are overusing something in your leg your foot will move around a millimeter or whatever so that it doesn't cause you a problem. With clipless your foot can't move, so if you're rubbing something wrong inside your leg you're stuck.

It's easier to set someone up from a fit with clipless, but more difficult to get them properly fitted to begin with. Clipless can cause people issues that don't have issues with flats. Like personally, 2 fitters and 3 pairs of shoes did not cure my knee pain with clipless (that I did not get with flats). I happened to start doing barbell squats and when I got the form right, that actually fixed it, but but the problem was more than just a fitting issue.

Ha, I use the exact same 2 pedals and have them on the same types of bike.
A530s on the road bike and M324s on the touring/errand/commute bike.

If I miss the binding on takeoff, not difficult to do when the traffic line gets moving, I just plant my shoe on the pedal and start pushing. When pedaling like this, the key is to let your clipped side do most of the work. When you get going, flip that thang over and turn the afterburners on.

The potential damage caused by clipless pedals was much greater ~20 years ago. Since then all* clipless pedals are designed to allow the foot to float and find its own alignment. This still doesn't work for some people, but for most it does. A colleague recently went for a professional fitting to alleviate knee problems, and the fitter recommended he get clipless as flats, which he was accustomed to, have no way of ensuring your knees don't go into a damaging position. Of course, an improperly positioned cleat can ensure your knees never leave the damaging position until you can no longer ride.

*maybe not all, but I cannot be sure. Clipless pedals with float are somewhere between 'the vast majority' to 'all'.

Yeah, it's not the end of the world if you can't get your feet placed in the first two pedal strokes (well, it can be if your foot slips off and you fall in front of a moving car ) -- I was mostly getting at how this could make things even tougher for a clipless newbie. I'm actually considering a move to single-sided pedals on one bike.

You mean cleated on one side? I use those and like them a lot. They are slower to get into because I have to flip the pedal before engaging, but it's worth it for me because I can wear plain shoes when I want to. Two-sided engagement allows for quicker engagement without looking.

I commuted for years using basic toeclips and street shoes. They worked very well.

A year or so ago I jumped over to SPD pedals, and really like them. All my bikes now have them. I got some Winwood Instep clip on toeclips, but only used them once for "testing".

If I am doing shopping, the SPD shoes work just fine.

If I'm planning a whole day's activities, I usually bring an extra pair of shoes with me. And, if it is a few day's activities, I'll just leave the extra shoes at the destination until I''m done with the project.

If you are commuting to work, and have some storage, then I'd encourage wearing cycling shoes for the commute, then changing shoes when you arrive. The SPDs are still comfortable, but you could use just about any type of cycling shoe as you would have your shoes to change already at work (assuming you didn't accidentally take them home).

Right. I think there are two general trains of thought in this thread... most people would agree that one-sided pedals are no big deal once you have some experience and confidence in them. However, my posts thus far have been in response to the OP, who expressed a concern about being stuck in his pedals at intersections, and I think that kind of thing is *more* likely when a person has to deal with two ways to interface with the pedals than just one. For those of us who have been riding a while and are comfortable with any kind of pedal system, that concern can be a little harder to appreciate.

Egg Beaters are four-sided; easy to get into...

The OP did say that he had used SPD-SL pedals on longer rides, so he is at least used to them.

My conversion to clipless after decades of toeclip use was quick and painless.

I've never had troubles with clipless and traffic, and can do emergency unclips if needed. My only "problem" is getting annoyed when I don't time a traffic light quite right and have to unclip (usually just as the light turns green).

If commuting is generally point to point to work, then I'd go ahead and try out the SPD-SL pedals and shoes the OP already has, and leave a pair of shoes at work. Then, if it becomes more of an errand loop, then try the MTB SPD pedals.

[MENTION=251447]ThermionicScott[/MENTION], you raise a point I hadn't thought of in a while, which is that sometimes, even with cleats, you just want to put your foot on the non-cleated side of the pedal. Thanks for the reminder.

My commute has it's fair share of stop signs and stop lights (10 miles), and I use a lighter/smaller platform pedal with toe cages. I've found it to be marvelously convenient. I can wear whatever shoes/sneakers I want, and yanking my foot out quickly is a lot easier than unclipping (I have clipless on my road bike) because there is no resistance you literally just move your foot back like normal. When starting off or in certain situations like quick jaunts between lights where you don't want to bother to clip in or stick your foot in the cage, you can pedal on the opposite side of the pedal with the cage hanging down (depending on the height of your BB, the cages may scrape the ground - BUT, this has not happened on any of my bikes).

You may be more comfy in clipless-specific shoes and cleat, but just a suggestion for you to entertain.

I have the platform on one side/cleat on the other pedals and found an easy system for flipping them over. Move the pedal you want to flip to the bottom of the rotation. Take your foot off that pedal and move the other pedal to the bottom. The one you wanted to flip is now on top and flipped over. Repeat for the other side if needed. I can do each in about a second.

Float makes clipless better, but the ball of your foot still can not move left or right, it's locked into spot. Float helps let you rotate the back left and right, but the front is still always in the same spot.

These seem like they're part of a process where something sounds unusual and is unusual, so it gets repeated a lot, to the point where sometimes people start to think it's the norm, rather than the rare exception.

There's also the question of what motivates the fitter to recommend something - do they work at a bike shop so the shop makes more money if you buy clipless shoes? Is the training they go through funded by the bike industry which tries to steer them towards buying their special bike shoes? Maybe it's simply that for a pro fitter it's easier to make sure the foot stays in the same position with clipless. Maybe for certain people with certain issues clipless happens to help for that specific issue.

If you took average people, did not involve a specialized fitter, and randomly had half the group use clipless and half use flats, I'm sure that the clipless group would have a lot more foot and knee issues to try to get rid of than the flats group.

What I did not like about egg beaters when I tried them was that there was no obvious "now I'm successfully clipped in" feel with them. You just sort of put your foot on the pedal and assumed it clipped in...occasionally you were not.

Wrong on all counts. Physical therapist who does bike fittings in her office. No bike industry affiliations or recommendations.
As 'sure' as you might be that a random sampling of cyclists would show harm from clipless, there are others who, like, might actually, you know, kinda know what they are talking about.

I also had the two sided pedals, and did this, but it's such a pain the in butt to have to be strategic about coming to a stop and starting again. I switched to full SPD on my road bike (that's where they were).
And like I mentioned above, my commuter bike has stylin' platform with tow cages. So, so so so much easier. But YMMV.

I mash and I pull up. The cleats give me a lot more POWER for my cadence. I don't know if it is bad for my knees, but since going clipless, my annual mileage has gone up and my knee pain has gone down (also maybe 20 or 30 lbs weight loss). Even some speed gains in the last year.

One of the reasons I chose to go clipless was that I was finding on longer rides with casual shoes and toeclips, my feet were tilting to the outside, and it seemed problematic. Plus uncomfortable pressure points on the feet from the rattrap style pedals. The clipless shoes/pedals are generally comfortable, and keep the feet flat and square. All of which seem good.