Bike paths ruin businesses!

Are cycle lanes threatening the backbone of our communities, or is there more to the story than meets the eye?

  1. Argument

    Business owners often express concerns about the introduction of new bicle lanes. They fear that the loss of parking spaces and reduced road access will lead to fewer customers, as many people rely on the convenience of driving to shop. This potential decline in customers threatens their sales and, consequently, their livelihoods.

  2. Rebuttal

    A growing number of studies suggests that businesses owners overestimate the amount of customers who arrive by car. A study conducted in Berlin found that shop owners systematically overestimate the amount of customers who arrive by car while underestimating all active modes of transport (i.e. walking, cycling, and public transit) as illustrated in and . This is a global phenomenon which was also empircally observed in Toronto with slightly different results but businesses still overestimated the amount of customers arriving by car by 15 percentage points while underestimating the amount of customers arriving by public transit by almost 2x

    (Qubu et al., 2014, p. 29)
    . Both studiges suggest that this difference in perception is driven by the mode of transport chosen by the businesses owners. In Berlin this hypothesis holds true for all modes of transport except transit users who slightly underestimate the amount of customers arriving by car by 2.2 percentage points. For comparision, store owners arriving by car over estimate the amount of customers arriving by car by 22 percentage points
    (von Schneidermesser & Betzien, 2021, Table 1)
    .

    figure 1 - Perception of customer mode of transportation compared to reported mode in Berlin.Data:
    (von Schneidermesser & Betzien, 2021)
    figure 2 - Perception of customer mode of transportation compared to reported mode in Toronto.Data:
    (Qubu et al., 2014)

    A growing body of research supports these results, which has been observed in Toronto and Berlin, suggesting that this is not just a local effect and that businesses benefit also financially, but rather something that applies globally. A study investigating the effect of bicycle infrastructure on business performance in San Francisco found that bicycle lanes rarely harm and often benefit nearby businesses, especially if those businesses are “local-serving”

    (Poirier, 2018, Table 4)
    . “Local-serving” businesses are stores that are likely to be frequented by cyclists, such as a supermarket, bookstore, or coffee shop, but not a furniture store
    (Poirier, 2018, Table 1)
    . Another meta-study, which reviewed 23 studies from the US and Canada, found that cycling and pedestrian infrastructure had […] positive or non-significant economic impacts on retail and food service businesses abutting or within a short distance of the facilities, though bicycle facilities might have negative economic effects on auto-centric businesses
    (Volker & Handy, 2021, p. 1)
    . The findings of this study are also reflected in
    (McCoy et al., 2019)
    ,
    (Liu & Shi, 2020)
    , and
    (NYCDOT, 2013)
    .

  3. Solution

    City planners and business owners must consider the types of businesses that dominate the area and the type of business they run before opposing new cycling and pedestrian infrastructure. Studies show that local-serving businesses benefit from infrastructure improvements that allow people who are not in cars to access those places more easily. Business owners should also survey their customers to determine if their perception of the modes of transportation used by their customers matches reality. If a zone has primarily local-serving businesses with a few non-local-serving businesses, those businesses might be accommodated with dedicated parking spaces. Alternatively, they should be moved to more suitable areas which are more suited to accommodate businesses which rely on cars. This is already common practice in Germany (and various other countries), where, for example, furniture and hardware stores are generally found outside of cities with large parking lots, while inner cities are generally reserved for local-serving businesses.

  4. Bibliography