alt Hacker News> 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.
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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...
> 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.
Source? There are so many explanations for that beyond just "bike lanes kill businesses".
"after 2019" - you cannot be serious here right?
> 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/
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...