Bike Lanes - Research Shows They Make Financial Sense

July 09, 2019, Kitchener, Ontario

Posted by: Robert Deutschmann, Personal Injury Lawyer

Cycling is well known to be good for your health and good for the environment, but new studies show that bike lanes are boosting business. June is cycling month in Canada, and there’s been a flood of announcement lately regarding the establishment of funding to municipalities across Canada to build bike lanes.

CBC news published a long story about the economic benefits of cycling and here are a few take-a-ways from their report.

Research has been published that focussed on cities with well established bike lane networks. It did not examine the costs of establishing the bike lanes nor the impact on reducing car lanes to accommodate drivers of motorized vehicles.

The conclusions show that

1. Bike lanes boost retail sales. In New York which has been aggressively growing its network of protected bike lanes, local business saw a 49% increase in retail sales where the lanes were present. Similar bumps in sales have been noted in Salt Lake City, Chicago and San Francisco.
2. Cyclists are found to be good and frequent customers spending more money a week in  shops than drivers.
3. Bike lanes are found to boost urban home values. They make cities more liveable and attractive to home ownership.
4. Bike lane projects incorporated with road projects create more jobs than stand alone road projects do.
5. Bike lanes attract skilled workers and high tech companies to the areas where they are built.

There are many ‘bikelash’ arguments against cycling lanes which include the cost of the projects and the increase of car congestion as roadway is lost to bikes.

We know that separate bike lanes keep cyclists and cars and pedestrians apart. We also know that the risk of collision with cars is greatly reduced where segregated cycling lanes exist, making the sport safer and making it more attractive to people who wish to commute by bike.

About Deutschmann Law

Deutschmann Law serves South-Western Ontario with offices in Kitchener-Waterloo, Cambridge, Woodstock, Brantford, Stratford and Ayr. The law practice of Robert Deutschmann focuses almost exclusively in personal injury and disability insurance matters. For more information, please visit www.deutschmannlaw.com or call us at 1-519-742-7774.

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