Studied business corridors that received street redesigns in 6 different cities. Business results were often positive, but in a few cases had no impact. Overall, food service and retail sales improve as does employment in those sectors. These results hold in cases where parking was removed for bike lanes.
Summary table …
| City | Corridor | Retail | Food Service |
|---|---|---|---|
| Indianapolis | |||
| Massachusetts Ave (2009) | ✅ | ||
| Virginia Ave (2009) | ✅ | ||
| Memphis | |||
| Broad Ave (2010) | ✅ | ||
| Madison Ave (2011) | ✅/⛔️ | ✅ | |
| Minneapolis | |||
| Central Ave (2012) | ✅ | ✅ | |
| Franklin Ave (2011) | ✅ | ||
| Riverside Ave (2009) | |||
| Lyndale Ave S (2008) | ✅ | ✅ | |
| N 2nd St (2011) | ✅ | ||
| Portland | |||
| Stark & Oak (2009) | ✅ | ||
| Seattle | |||
| 2nd Ave (2014) | ✅ | ||
| Broadway (2014) | ✅ | ||
| SF | |||
| 17 St (2011) | ✅ |
where ✅ indicates improvement in associated business metrics including sales, employment, wage growth, or a subset of the three. A ⛔️ indicates a statistically significant negative impact. A blank cell means no change detected. The only instance of a negative impact was a mixed result on Memphis’ Madison Ave where retail sales grew but retail employment declined. So, of 13 bike friendly redesigns across 6 metro areas we have 15 positive impacts and one negative.
On net, the evidence is clear that adding bike infrastructure is good for business.
Source
Economic impacts of bicycle and pedestrian street improvements, PeopleForBikes, 2020