I used to bike in downtown Atlanta to commute to and from my college dorm to campus. It was Georgia State University from the Commons if you're curious. I had to get really good at going fast very quick because cars just don't wait. I got really good at it. I used to bike with my dad and he could beat me on endurance but I didn't need to warm up at all lol. Atlanta traffic will really "encourage" you to get going.

My experience is a perfect example of why bikers seem to pretend to be a car or a pedestrian when it is convenient. If no one is on the sidewalk then I'll take the sidewalk. But, seeing as I was a college student going from my dorm to campus everyone else was going to the same place. There was pretty much always people on the sidewalk. It becomes this balancing act of how unsafe is it for me to be on the road and risk being hit because we don't have bike lanes (they might now, there's been a lot of work done in the area) versus how much danger am I putting a pedestrian in by risking hitting them. 90% of the time I took the street, it's not worth risking hitting someone. Plus there wasn't always that much traffic. Coming home from my evening classes were the ones I primarily used the sidewalk for. Also if the road and the sidewalk are both empty I generally take the road since it is safer to go faster there. Cars don't pop out of nowhere the way a pedestrian can.