[cyberax]

> 3. Residents discover bike lanes are quiet, and they also reduce ambient noise levels due to reduced car traffic, air is also cleaner, roads and intersections are safer.

Except that 3 doesn't actually happen... Bike lanes stay empty and kill businesses.

In Seattle and Portland the businesses within 1 block of new bike lanes declined faster after 2019.

[hydrolox]

What are your sources? From 2013: > Leading up to the construction and just afterwards NE 65th St performed very similar to both controls, however two quarters after the project was finished NE 65th St experienced a 350% increase in sales index, followed by another jump to 400% sales index the following quarter.[1]

From 2020 [2]: > "Both the trend analysis and DID analysis show that the protected bike lane on Second Avenue corridor positively impacted employment, especially in the retail sector, when compared to the Fourth Avenue control corridor"

> "In conclusion, the protected bike lane on Broadway triggered a significant employment increase in the food services industry after installation, indicating an improvement in business vitality as a result."

The overall study finds that

> - On the Second Avenue corridor, the protected two-way bike lane contributed to higher employment and improved business vitality in the retail sector. - On Broadway Avenue, we find that the protected bike lane triggered a significant positive impact on food services employment after installation, indicating an improvement in business vitality as a result."

and > In terms of retail service sector, we found either mixed results or insignificant results. [...] However, the insignificant results may be significant in this context, indicating that there does not appear to be a negative causal impact of right-of-way or parking lane removal on economic outcomes.

Anecdotally, many people in Seattle seem to use the bike lanes, even to commute to work. I also saw a lot of people using them during the world cup.

[1]https://seattletransitblog.com/2013/08/06/seattle-case-study... [2] https://ppms.trec.pdx.edu/media/project_files/National-Stree...

[cyberax]

My own research. I'll compile and publish it.

And yes, I'm _very_ aware of these papers. I used the same methodology as they did :) Note the timestamp on them, they are from the time when Seattle was booming.

And I even specifically looked at the Fourth Avenue that they used as a control because it also got a protected bike lane.

I have _not_ yet checked this hypothesis thoroughly, but from a cursory look at the data, the increase in business can be explained by highly-paid professionals moving into dense housing nearby (we can see that by looking at real estate prices and historical apartment rent data) and by tourists from cruise ships. It's further corroborated by the fact that the percentage of bike commutes did not increase significantly enough.

[jmcgough]

Source? There are so many explanations for that beyond just "bike lanes kill businesses".

[cyberax]

My own research, using business tax receipts following the same methodology as in PeopleForBikes papers. Yes, I'm compiling them into a book.

[Rebelgecko]

Interesting. In a city by me, they found that businesses along new bike lanes actually grew by 17%, while the citywide business receipts were static (grew by exactly 0% in inflation adjusted dollars). They were looking at a similar time period (2019-2022). Maybe COVID just hit different cities differently.

Sauce: Culver City Move Pilot Report, page 59 https://www.culvercity.gov/files/content/public/v/8/services...

[Jtsummers]

> In Seattle and Portland the businesses within 1 block of new bike lanes declined faster after 2019.

I wonder if there was some event that generally killed businesses relying on foot traffic some time after 2019 that could help explain that outcome. Perhaps once that event is identified, we can consider what businesses did survive and compare them to the foot traffic heavy businesses and see if there's some other qualitative difference between those that made it through and those that didn't.

[cyberax]

Or maybe the general urbanistic upswing was able to overcome business-killing properties of bike lanes before?

If you look at research on bike lanes in American cities (or in other well-designed human-oriented modern cities), they typically _at_ _most_ don't affect businesses. There's scarce evidence of them helping anything but creating traffic jams.

> Perhaps once that event is identified, we can consider what businesses did survive and compare them to the foot traffic heavy businesses and see if there's some other qualitative difference between those that made it through and those that didn't.

I live in Seattle, and that's what initially motivated me too look at modern urbanism. I was very much a proponent of "stong towns", transit, and all other stuff before. Then I noticed that areas that get an "urbanistic renewal" always get worse around here, and that was even before COVID.

Now the difference is just stark. Seattle Downtown is a ghost town. Bellevue (a city across the lake from Seattle) did not do anything significant with its downtown car infrastructure, and it's thriving. And even in _Seattle_ a place called "University Village" is doing fine. Because it's away from transit, bike lanes, and has a lot of free parking.

[themaninthedark]

I would appreciate sources from the GP but the claim was that businesses within 1 block of bike lanes declined faster then those without. The business community as a whole would be serving as the control for other external factors.

[cyberax]

To be fair, I don't consider my research all that great. This is not a good methodology because it can be affected by hyperlocal effects. I just used the same approach as in papers that looked at the _benefits_ of bike lanes.

There is very little good-quality research on wider impact of bike lanes on business in the US. One pre-COVID study found little effect in either direction when a large LA neighborhood added bike lanes.

The only definitive result for the US is that bike lanes have very little impact on the absolute percentage of bike commutes (it stays around 2-3%).

[Griffinsauce]

"after 2019" - you cannot be serious here right?

[oblio]

> declined faster after 2019

Is your study discovering the effects of... COVID-19? I guess you've just discovered your own analogy of https://xkcd.com/1138/

[cyberax]

Quite possibly yes. But remember that argument when people tell you about the benefits of bike lanes and cite studies about them.