Listen UP @MichaelBColeman! NYC Study Finds Protected Bicycle Lanes Boost Local Business [AmericaBikes]
The road to recovery is in sight, and it has a bike lane.
The typical city street is a busy place. People riding bikes, walking, driving cars, and operating buses all have somewhere to to go and want to get there safely — and quickly.
But while we normally think of streets as pipelines for people and goods, public streets are about more than just moving from point A to point B. They're also corridors for public life. Streets are places where locals discover new hole-in-the-wall stores and restaurants, where window shoppers duck into shops to peruse, and where children convince their parents to stop — just for ONE second — to buy a cup of hot chocolate.
In other words, streets can also grow local economies.
A new study from the New York Department of Transportation shows that streets that safely accommodate bicycle and pedestrian travel are especially good at boosting small businesses, even in a recession.
NYC DOT found that protected bikeways had a significant positive impact on local business strength. After the construction of a protected bicycle lane on 9th Avenue, local businesses saw a 49% increase in retail sales. In comparison, local businesses throughout Manhattan only saw a 3% increase in retail sales.
In many ways, these data come as no surprise. We know that when towns invest in bicycle infrastructure, people will ride more — the number of people traveling by bicycle increases when there is infrastructure to make traveling by bike safe and easy.
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