Bike Lanes are Good for Business, Actually

Transform staff has continuously heard concerns from local businesses in San Jose about parking availability affecting their bottom lines. They worry that if patrons don’t have a space within direct eyesight of their store, they simply won’t shop there. This is a common but mistaken belief — multiple studies debunk this myth.

Space on our shared streets is finite, so space for bike lanes sometimes comes at the expense of street parking. Studies ‘ show that, after adding bike lanes, even at the expense of parking, shopping and economic activity in a neighborhood is more likely to increase than decrease. A 2023 study, Protected Lanes Mean Business, from PeopleForBikes and the Alliance for Biking and Walking, is worth delving into, especially in the context of downtown San Jose, where Transform is working on the SPOT SJ initiative with local merchants and building managers to reclaim public space for people — and shoppers.

Bike riders are shoppers 

To understand the impact of improved bike access on people’s shopping habits, we have to expand our perspective beyond the capacity of the shopper’s vehicle to carry away merchandise. A study in Portland, OR, found that shoppers who arrived by car spent around one-third more than those who arrived by bike, with an average of $13.70 versus $10.66 per individual visit. However, bike riders shopped more frequently and spent 24% more per month than people who shopped by car: $75.66 on average for bike shoppers, compared to $61.03 for car drivers. 

There are many reasons for this. The ease of parking and reparking a bicycle makes it easy for people on bikes to hop in and out of stores. Fast-moving streets make it harder for potential customers to discover local stores; streets with protected bikeways and plenty of bike parking provide a more enjoyable experience for all shoppers and encourage people to linger.

In fact, according to data in the Protected Bike Lanes Mean Business study, car parking generates $0.19 in retail revenue per hour per square foot while bike parking generates $0.69 per hour. Taking away a few car spots can provide space to park two dozen bicycles. Paired with a safe, connected bikeway network, encouraging bike shoppers is a great way to generate retail sales.

Follow the data

Real-world experiences confirm the correlation between protected bike lanes and thriving retail districts. In New York City, retail sales soared by 49% after the addition of a protected bikeway on 9th Avenue, while revenue increased just 3% in other parts of Manhattan during the same period. 

Many cities have created vibrant retail zones through traffic calming, pedestrianizing portions of streets, and improving bike and transit access. Urban centers flourish when we look beyond the car and design for the safety and comfort of all roadway users, not just people driving.

With SPOT SJ, we’re connecting people with apps that help them find available parking spots inside nearby garages that would otherwise sit empty. Better use of dedicated parking spaces can free up street space to build protected bikeways, parklets for outdoor dining, bus boarding islands, and other types of shared spaces. We know reclaiming and revitalizing our shared spaces is one of the best ways to attract visitors to downtown San Jose.

Old prejudices die hard

Widely accepted “truths” often linger long after they’ve been disproved. Induced demand is a good example of this: traffic engineers continue building new highway lanes to reduce congestion even though every metric and lived experience shows this is, at best, a temporary fix.

The “truth” that businesses need car parking spots in front of their doors, even in dense city centers, lingers, sometimes even despite shop owners’ experience to the contrary. For example, the 2023 study cited a survey showing that adding bike lanes on Valencia Street in San Francisco improved sales for 66% of the shops on the street and hurt sales for only 4%. Yet, a city plan to upgrade the bikeways to protected bike lanes faced numerous hurdles, including business owners’ objections.

More shop owners are coming to understand the value of customers who shop by bike. The study quotes the owners of Green Apple Books in San Francisco and Alamo Drafthouse in Austin, among others, who recognize that they can get more customers to their businesses through active transportation.

Coming out of May’s Bike Month, as we continue to celebrate the joy of going wherever by bike, we must all remember that bike lanes are good for business and street safety is a driver of prosperity, not its enemy.