Back in November 2012, the New York Department of Transportation released a report called
Measuring the Street: New Metrics for the 21st Century,
which had some compelling figures on the way that local business
benefits from bike-lanes, for the fairly obvious reason that cyclists
find it easy to stop and shop, as compared to drivers, who are more
likely to continue on to a mall with a big parking lot, or shop online.
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.
We also know that people who travel along a street by bicycle have fewer
barriers to stopping at a local business than people who travel along
the same street by car. It's very easy to hop off a bicycle and find a
place to secure the bike; not so with finding parking for an automobile.
In fact, a recent study suggest that bicycle riders tend to spend more
at local businesses over the course of a month.
This new study makes it clear: investing in bicycle improvements boosts
small businesses. And what town or city doesn't want to boost activity
at local businesses?
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