Bikes and the bad-for-business rap (or not)

As long as cities have been planning for bicycle traffic, business owners have complained that bike lanes, bike parking, and other bike-related facilities hurt their business. The thinking goes like this: Car access equals business success. Do anything to decrease that access — like remove car parking, narrow or remove car lanes for bikeways, or install traffic calming measures like medians or speed bumps — and the result is less business.

However, there are recent academic and real life examples that seem to prove that bike access is good for business.

A study based in Toronto and published by the Clean Air Partnership in February found that the removal of car parking and installation of a bike lane did not negatively impact merchants. The executive summary of that study stated:

“The spending habits of cyclists and pedestrians, their relatively high travel mode share, and the minimal impact on parking all demonstrate that merchants in this area are unlikely to be negatively affected by reallocating on‐street parking space to a bike lane. On the contrary, this change will likely increase commercial activity.”

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