As a biker you can't win. Drivers try to run you off the road, pedestrians don't want you on the sidewalk. Bike lanes are a solution, but the political will needs to be there.
That being said, in places where bikers feel they have to use the sidewalk, they should absolutely yield to pedestrians.
As both a biker and a pedestrian in NYC, this seems so glaringly obvious that it never fails to make me angry when I see a biker blithely biking down the sidewalk. In a city of impatient people riding your bike on the sidewalk is taking things to an anti-social extreme.
That said, I do find it frustrating (as both a biker and a pedestrian) when pedestrians fail to yield to bikers when the biker has the light -- New York pedestrians are opportunistic jaywalkers by nature, but so many people fail to look for bikes or yield to them, even when they have the light, if the street is clear of car traffic.
In many places of the US you have sidewalks built because they were mandated by law but are rarely used.
A typical example will have a 4-lane 45+mph road next to big box retail stores. This type of road is unpleasant to bike on but the adjoining sidewalk is empty and, assuming it has sufficient visibility to allow the cyclist to avoid left and right hooks, is much safer than the road.
NYC is a fascinating and important place but for better or worse is very different from the typical US city.
The law varies city by city. Where I live bikes are prohibited from the sidewalk only in the downtown area and it's legal elsewhere. Not that it stops anyone from biking on the sidewalk even downtown or that it ever gets enforced.
you're right, but the attitude that arises from that problem is what most people don't like about city bikers
It is illegal to ride a bike on the sidewalk in every city I know of.
Pedestrians don't have lanes. Pedestrians don't have rules. They might turn suddenly to get into a car, or pop out of a shop. It is just selfish of bikers to think they should be on the sidewalk. It's very dangerous for us pedestrians. In the last 20 years, I've been hit twice on the sidewalk and had to jump out of the way, to avoid serious injury, many times.
While I agree that riding on the sidewalk is generally a bad idea, it's definitely not illegal in all places. For example, in Austin it's explicitly legal except in these locations [0].
[0] https://www.austintexas.gov/sites/default/files/files/Public...
So I must ask, how much of a freak accident is a traffic death caused by a biker crashing into a pedestrian? I recall looking into statistics for it a while back, but it seems that only data I could find was death caused by people falling down from bikes or into cars, not crashing into other people. The national statistics here in Sweden over road accident, the one which famously has a zero death goal, do include bikes and car collision (3 people died last year) but has no data at all over deaths caused by bike hitting people. Assuming that number is 0.
Is it possible that the 20-something woman killed was a freak accident? 20mph is about 50% faster than the legal limit of a electric bike, would be classified as a illegal moped at those speed if it has a engine, and it is even above the legal limit for cars inside Swedish cities. A bit unusual to see in city traffic.
That said, it happens, but only on the order of 1 or 2 deaths, and in some years none at all. The incidence is extremely low so no meaningful statistics. And then of course it mostly involves an old population who are susceptible to dieing from even a simple fall after stumbling on a tree root. It tells us more about the elderly than risk of cycle collisions.
Don't be too mad at the cyclists, though. Usually they're doing it because the city isn't providing the proper level of bike infrastructure. With more high quality bike lanes that people feel safe using, you'll see a lot fewer cyclists on sidewalks. It works in Manhattan.
Biking on the sidewalk is WAY more common in SF than in NYC, especially in manhattan. In SF, there seems to be a few main reasons:
1 - Biking on the street would clearly be unsafe. An example here is 3rd st between portrero and soma.
2 - Biking on the sidewalk on the block where you are stopping. These are people that usually bike on the street, but pull onto the sidewalk when they are leaving/entering a building. I understand this, but wish it wasn't so common.
3 - ignorance of, or just not caring about, biking rules and conventions.
It's easy to assume that #3 is always the case and get angry about it, but it's frequently #1 or #2 and I do think some empathy is called for.
Once I stopped sparring in the morning, I switched to a Black Diamond Dart. Easy to run with, and ample room for all the stuff you mentioned.
I now use a super light pack, and only pack my lunch, pants/shirt/socks/underwear. I live in SF, and generally don't shower unless I get really sweaty. Some people find this gross in theory but I don't, people in NYC get sweaty as hell walking from the subway to work in the summer in their regular clothes, so I've never really seen the difference.
Two big things I do come to mind: I never take my laptop to/from work everyday. I also keep dress shoes at work under my desk.
When I'm on the sidewalk, however, I'm only going at a brisk walking pace when pedestrians are present.
on HN is there seriously only two places to live in the US?
moved to SF last year for work.
Both NYC and SF have a relatively high concentration of tech folks, which is probably a lot of the HN readership.
NYPD ticket like crazy for sidewalk biking. Bay Area cops in the cities don’t really ticket for ‘quality of life’ crimes (or even blatant things like busting out car windows and such).
Bikers killing someone are extremely rare. Bikers getting killed by drivers is more common (citation needed).
When I am biking I'd much rather be riding slowly on a sidewalk than getting killed by a inconsiderate driver.
Where I live it is legal to ride on sidewalks in streets with no bike lines. So instead of taking my chances on a busy street I'd much rather ride slowly(10-15 km/h) on a sidewalk.
In an ideal world the cities would have specific bike only lines which cover all areas. I hear Copenhagen and Amsterdam are good with this.
It's not a choice. Every pedestrian must deal with both.
When I am biking I'd much rather be riding slowly on a sidewalk than getting killed by a inconsiderate driver.
Here's the thing: the amount of risk you are comfortable with is probably different than it is for me. What bikers who ride on the sidewalk are doing is forcing their risk tolerance on me. Given where I walk it is illegal to ride on the sidewalk, I feel a certain amount of righteousness in asking bikers to get off the sidewalk.
Not quite as terrible as one pedestrian being killed every 1.6 hours by cars though. (2015 figures for the USA)
I walk 4 miles a day on city sidewalks. The number of times I have to yield to bikers on the sidewalk is disgusting[0]. And some of these bikers are going fast. I once saved a child that was about to run out of a store. I could see, from my vantage point, the biker and the child set for a collision course. I stepped in front of the biker, doing about 20 mph on the sidewalk, to stop them. I got an earful of 4-letter words not a thank you.
Of course, there was the 20-something woman killed in a crosswalk by a biker running a light in SF a few years ago.
As a pedestrian, I have no love for many drivers or bikers, since they are a constant source of danger.
EDIT:
[0] I had an argument with a young woman at a light once, where I told her politely that she wasn't supposed to be on the sidewalk. He response? To tell me I was a selfish person not wanting to share the sidewalk.