The safest place for a bicyclist is on the street, toward the right of the rightmost travel lane. Sidewalks are absolutely deadly for bicyclists because motorists are not expecting to encounter a vehicle crossing in the sidewalk space at bicycle speeds.

This may not be intuitive, but it has been studied to death and the results of the studies are all in agreement. No place is more dangerous for a bicyclist than where he has to cross a street from one sidewalk to another.