I live in another HCOL area allegedly famed for its walking and biking facilities, and I hoped the same thing. Unfortunately, the process here seems to have turned into "each individual group vs car drivers", probably by design. For example, where I live has separate pedestrian, bicycle, and transit advisory boards to the city council. Never mind that projects should be built to benefit all three, not just one.
What's wound up happening is, because we "obviously cannot" take space from car drivers, the precious little room given over to modes that don't involve driving are forced to compete with each other. A new train station was built on the north end of town and the former sidewalk area on one side of the train station has been repurposed as a bicycle-only lane. The other side of the street is still a pedestrian sidewalk...but the street itself is a four-lane thoroughfare with very wide lanes and a median turn lane in spots. Of course, narrowing the car space on that road to make the corridor more comfortable for people on feet and on bikes was completely out of the question.
Also, the sidewalk didn't get fully rebuilt so I routinely see people in wheelchairs and pushing prams on the "bicycle-only" side because that's much smoother and even.
I suspect you're right; I've seen that, but didn't realize at the time that it could be a barrier.
I could imagine how it might be organized that way in good faith -- e.g., get the input from the people who really care about biking, the people who really care about walking, and the train/transportation buffs, and then have city officials process it all, holistically -- but that's a lot of heavy lifting, and also doesn't bring the advocates together to learn from each other and directly reconcile conflicts.
Even new renovations and widenings, where they put in new, flat sidewalk that's sufficiently wide, the concrete figuratively isn't even dry before they install excessive signposts and random street furniture, again blocking the sidewalk.
Then there's the snow&ice, and the inadequate compliance with the rules about who has to shovel what, when, and how. And the property owners that eventually comply, are fighting the plowing from the streets onto the sidewalks.
There's even further problems with landscaping, and sometimes poison ivy/oak, growing out from a residential property, to effectively block the narrow square of sidewalk that remains. Not something you want brushing or scraping across your arm or face as you're trying to get through and can't dodge it.
Even in good weather I only rarely see people on the sidewalk in wheelchairs or on mobility scooters. That doesn't mean they don't live in town, but that the sidewalks don't let you get far. When I do see them (as a walker), they're usually operating their wheelchair or scooter in the street. A couple times, I've had to help one who was simply stuck in the street. I imagine they don't feel good about it, and feel abandoned.
One of the people in a wheelchair who got stuck in the street, after I helped push him out of it and to the nearby grocery store entrance, he held some device he held to his neck so that he could say thank you.
I imagine that it was implied that this situation sucks -- and I'm thinking: made worse, for no good reason, in an area that can afford to do better -- but he's soldiering through, and doing what he can.