I don't know the specific situation in Austin (which this article is about), but in a lot of countries the cycle path infrastructure is patchy at best, and when

I don't know the specific situation in Austin (which this article is about), but in a lot of countries the cycle path infrastructure is patchy at best, and when the choice is between "busy road with cars going 50 or even 80 km/h" and "cycle on the sidewalk" then it's an easy choice IMHO. Even in slower traffic things can be dodgy; in the UK they're quite fond of their roundabouts and that's all great for cars, but these two-lane roundabouts can be quite dodgy for cyclists with people changing lanes and such and it's very easy to end up in someone's blind spot, so I would take the sidewalk.