Converting two-way four lane roads to two travel lanes with center left turn lane not only reduces crashes 19-47%, but can also improve emergency response times. Case studies from Ocean City, NJ and Woodbury, NJ demonstrate this; the former’s road diet also included a buffered bike lane in the design.

Protected bike lanes are good for property values

Salt Lake City removed 30% of parking on Broadway and that stretch saw retail sales outperform the rest of the city by ~25%. The road diet converted angled parking to parallel parking to create the space for 9 blocks of protected bike lanes.

A review of 12 studies related to bike lanes and business. Key takeways are that shoppers by bike spend at least as much as drivers since they return more often, business owners consistently underestimate the share of customers who arrive by bike, and business owners often overestimate how far away their customers live. As a result, protected bike lanes are likely good for business.

Narrowing travel lanes and building protected bike lanes both reduced cyclist risk by roughly half and rush hour car travel times declined by 35%. Removing parking for the “pocket lane” for car left turns is an innovation in the parking protected bike lane design that helped with travel times.

3 years of data from protected bike lane implementations around NYC show reduction of injuries for all road users. Everyone, drivers and their passengers included, are injured in crashes less often when streets have protected bike lanes.

NYC DOT studied different protected bike lane segments around Manhattan. They found that protected bike lanes often dramatically increase ridership. Over a 6 month stretch …

When bike lanes are present riding on the sidewalk declines dramatically, on average ~56%, even when ridership goes up. In one case sidewalk riding went down 81% despite bike volume going up 190%.

Using video to count cyclists researchers found protected bike routes increased ridership from 21% - 171%. Survey data data indicates that 10% of those riders came from other modes of transportation. Overall 91% of survey respondents from all modes, e.g. cyclists, pedestrians, and drivers, agreed that separating bike traffic from cars was desirable. Both cyclists and pedestrians said they frequent businesses more often after the bike lanes were installed.

Covers research of Kyle Rowe at University of Washington. The conclusion is that bike lanes don’t hurt local business; may actually be good.

Covers research out of Portland demonstrating that pedestrians and cyclists, by virtue of being more loyal/frequent customers, spend more per month than drivers

Investigation of bicyclist injuries in Vancouver and Toronto show risk of injury is ~90% lower on streets with protected bike lanes compared to those no bike infrastructure.

Protected bike lanes decreased injuries for all road users.

NYC DOT studied the impact of different redesigns on local businesses. The conclusion: protected bike lanes are good for business, maybe even great.

New Zealand made bike helmets required in 1994. Cycling data from 1988-91 and 2003-07 shows that average hours biked per person in NZ declined 51% and overall injury rates per hour biked increased 20%. There was a 75% reduction in biking for children 5-17 years old.