Bicycle Fixation Weblog
[Previous entry: "Town & Country Shorts Coming Soon!"] [Next entry: "Bicycles in Barcelona, 1908"]
03/21/2009: "Bloor Street Survey: Bike Lanes Good for Businesses"
A study in Toronto, reviewing the feasibility of removing parking to make room for bike lanes on that city's Bloor Street, discovered that pedestrians and cyclists not only comprised the majority of visitors to the Annex neighborhood's local merchants, but spent more money per month and per visit than did drivers or transit users.To read the entire (very long) report in PDF form, see Bike Lanes, On-Street Parking, and Business at the Clean Air Partnership's website.
A quote:
The general finding from this study is that pedestrians, cyclists and transit users account for the bulk of retail spending on Bloor Street West in the Annex neighbourhood. In fact, there is evidence to suggest that efforts to attract more pedestrians and cyclists will have a more positive economic impact on businesses than maintaining the existing parking on the street. On this section of Bloor Street, the existing parking demand can be accommodated by a reduced number of on‐street parking spaces combined with the existing off‐street parking spaces. It is clear that many merchants in the study area do not view on‐street parking as key to their business.While this will not apply to all areas in all cities, of course, it underscores the importance of not making unwarranted assumptions about the perceived "necessity" to accommodate motoring at all costs for what may turn out, upon inspection, to be spurious economic rationales.
