More Cyclists = More $$$
I thought for sure that Mark was going to include this news item in his weekly Monday news roundup, since it was him that sent it to me! I agreed with his comment - “This is important stuff!!!” So here it is.
Sheesh! Do I have to do everything around here? 
Shoppers on bikes good for business
Patrons arriving by bicycle and on foot spend more money than those coming by car
“History provides many examples of famous associations: Romeo and Juliet, rum and coke, ice and hockey – but what about bicycles and business? This combination certainly has a nice ring to it, but until recently merchants and politicians have associated dollar signs with cars. And yet, there are signs that the times – and the thinking – are changing.”
“A recent report by the Clean Air Partnership about Bloor St. in the Annex found that only 10 per cent of patrons at local businesses arrive by car and that patrons arriving by foot and bicycle spend the most money each month. The report also noted that about 20 per cent of spaces in nearby parking lots were empty even during peak periods. Finally, the report’s survey found that more merchants than not believed that wider sidewalks or bike lanes would increase business. (Patrons preferred the bike lane option by a ratio of four to one.)”
“In the 1960s, Copenhagen created the world’s longest pedestrian street despite resistance from shop owners. Commerce, however, did not suffer. In fact, providing access to cyclists and pedestrians resulted in an ideal shopping environment – without cars. Sales increased.
More recent studies from Bern, Switzerland, show that parking space devoted to bikes generates more business than an equal amount of space devoted to cars. A study in Munster, Germany, found that cyclists buy fewer goods on each trip but spend more overall in the course of a greater number of trips.
The old way of thinking may be based on the notion that car drivers, because they arrive in expensive machines, have lots of money to spend. The opposite may be true. A motorist, on average, spends $10,000 annually to own and operate a car, which leaves less money for shopping. Certainly the money that is spent on parking cannot be spent in local stores. And a 2001 City of Toronto report found that the percentage of cyclists who come from households with an annual income over $80,000 is more than double the percentage of non-cyclists from such households.”
Read the rest of the article here.
Hey City Council! Do you seriously want to increase commerce in the core? Then I think it’s time to ramp up our municipal spending on bicycle lanes! From their own Windsor Canal Project Business Case…
“The City Must be Committed to Revitalizing the Core – The City must endorse a continued commitment to revitalizing the core through its own investment, by encouraging investment by other levels of government and the private sector, and by adopting policies aimed at ensuring that downtown is able to attract a share of future growth in Windsor.”
“Retail Market
policy shift:
The recommendations in this report point very strongly to a need to redirect a portion of future commercial growth to the downtown and community main streets. If the downtown is to revitalize, peripheral commercial development must be controlled and should be tied to future population increases. Coupled with this, the City must also invest and provide incentives for future commercial growth to be attracted to the core.”
Do they understand this concept when it suits their needs (like when we’re trying to pitch a canal to the skeptical) but ignore it when it troubles them (like trying to pitch bike lanes to wealthy Riverside Drive residents?
Someone needs to get them to stay on message. They’re confusing the hell out of me!
Post Feedback
What does a canal have to do with this? Or is this just another attempt in trying to keep it in the limelight? From what I understand at the BIA meeting someone asked if parked bikes would be accomodated. The answer was “why not, there should be no problem with that at all.” That is a good thing.
Now mind you I am not against anything that promotes bike riding. But T.O. has a heck of a lot more bike riders than Windsor does and a heck of a lot more people without vehicles. Windsor is very car-centric. But for the minimal costs inthe grand scheme of things why shouldn’t the city invest more bike routes and places to park bikes. It really is a no-brainer.
Seriously, VenetianDave (yeah - that’s your new nickname!)?!?!? You can’t see the correlation?
Your blinders are a lot bigger than I imagined!
Look at what the city is saying in their business case, and look at what the article (and the supporting documents Mark will be supplying) is saying about bicycles and their effects on local business’.
The city is saying that supporting and refocusing on core business is now a priority for them (and I am assuming - VenetianDave) and is using that to support their canal plan. This article is saying that more bikes is better for local business.
Utilizing the transitive property, since increasing the amount of urban cyclists is good for local business, the canal is good for local business, and the city (and VenetianDave) overwhelmingly backs the canal plan, then the city (and VenetianDave) should overwhelmlingly back urban cycling!
Elementary math from grade 9! They cannot use the same argument to support one idea and ignore it for another applicable idea.
Come on, VenetianDave! You’re pidgeon-holing yourself as a fundamentalist canal fanatic! When the purple haze dissipates, I predict you’re going to regret taking this hard-line stance.
PS were you and Andrew at the same meeting? Because he just wrote “I was at a presentation about the Canal at the Art Gallery a few weeks ago, and Alan Halberstadt was there as well. He asked about bike lanes, etc in the canal area. He was told, none are planned.”
Hey! Just a minute there Chris! I was - am - maybe! What led me astray was when I was looking for an image for my version of the above blog, when I stumbled upon another interesting study stating the same thing but with more pictures and grafts etc., and I was working/writing to include it with the above.
But, alas, you did it! So when I get home tonight I will attach the study I found that backs up what you wrote about above.
I haven’t owned a car for twenty years now, meaning also that I didn’t have to pay the outrageous insurance on it/them. So I have a condo that is paid for, have taken some great vacations and have all the toys I want and absolutely no debt! I have money in my pocket and that is where it is staying because there is absolutely almost nothing in the core for me to spend it on except fine dining, drinking and cheap movies. I try not to shop at thee mall and never visit the big boxers regardless of how cheap their goods are. I’ve discovered some used funiture stores in “Old Windsor,” that with some paint and creativity has allowed me to have good furniture on the cheap!
And like the Munsterians, I shop more frequently because I don’t have an suburban tank to fill up when the mood strikes me and will only carry what I can put in my back pack on any given trip! So that means, I’m in and out of the stores in the downtown more frequently and have gotten to know many owners and staff personally in those stores not like the annoymous staff at malls.
So don’t say, “poor me” when you see me walking or riding the bus, I am doing very well thank you!
Yer fun! I knew you would get to it, but I couldn’t help having a little fun at your expence
Oh - you better get that supporting documentation online soon, as VenetianDave is doubting the viability and desireability of increasing cyclists in our core…
Shoppers and How They Travel
Pay up buddy!
http://www.sustrans.org.uk/what-we-do/liveable-neighbourhoods/265
Research on retail vitality conducted by Sustrans has found that pedestrians are positive news for local trade. ‘Shoppers and how they travel’, the first study of its kind to look at neighbourhood shopping areas, highlights the importance of catering for pedestrians and bus passengers at local shops as these customers are better for business. And, with almost half of the customers living within one mile of the shops, could this mean that out of town shopping centres are not the retail heaven they appear to be?
Interestingly Sustrans’ research found that retailers significantly overestimate how far their customers travel and the importance of the car, while underestimating how many shops each customer visits.
Retailers overestimated the importance of car-borne trade by almost 100%, believing that 41% of their customers arrived by car, whereas only 22% had done – actually over half of shoppers walked. National research on number of trips taken by mode of transport show that 61% of all journeys were made by car and just 1.5% by bike1. However Sustrans’ research revealed that in making local shopping trips only 22% were by car and 10% by bike (over six times the national cycling average).
The results show that most customers are local. Retailers estimated that just 12% of customers lived within half a mile, and 40% more than two miles away. In reality, 42% had travelled less than half a mile and 86% had travelled less than two miles.
These very good customers usually don’t just visit one shop. Traders believed that as many as one in four shoppers would make just one visit but this figure was actually only 13%. They thought less than one in ten would visit more than three shops, remarkably, almost 30% did so.
Peter Lipman, Sustrans’ Director for Liveable Neighbourhoods, said: “These findings have a real significance for business, land use and transport planning. It is traditional for retailers to focus on car access and parking, and to resist measures to promote walking, cycling and public transport use – although pedestrian shopping areas tend to be commercially most successful. Interviews with traders, shoppers and neighbours show that local people would like to see the impact of traffic reduced.
“The picture is of local shoppers mainly walking to the shops, and visiting a number of stores. Interestingly, this is also the picture of healthy, physically active lifestyles and streets full of people. This is just the thing urban transport planners, public health specialists and community leaders want to see. Sustrans’ view is that we should do all we can to support and grow this active, community based local market.”
Download a pdf version of the report (650 kb) http://tinyurl.com/o6×3x3
We’re all sick of your cracks about “wealthy” Riverside Drive residents. One of those “wealthy” residents was at the May 6 city council budget session asking for Riverside Drive to be turned into a bicycle-priority street. If you’re so bloody concerned about Riverside Drive and bikeways, why don’t you trouble yourself to find out what they’re really about..instead of treating the Windsor Star like it’s the holy bible on Riverside Drive residents!
Marge, let me clarify a position that is common among SDers (new, old and somewhere in between!). First, the derogatory term “Wealthy Riverside Drive Resident” is not meant to be inclusive of all Drive residents. In my mind it includes only those who show up at all public policy meetings with their lawyers in tow or on speed-dial.
Does that mean that every resident on the Drive falls into the anti-bike category? Heck no! This is not a geographically specific term, in spite of the name, but rather a description of the mindset that has plagued a certain stretch of the Drive for far too long.
The very fact that you are here, reading Scaledown.ca, means that there is far more hope than many of us have given Riverside Drive credit for. For this, we collectively thank-you — for bringing hope and commonsense to the bike-lane debate. You, Marge, will have good company pushing for bike-lanes on the Drive. Rest assured, you do not fall into that category of contempt.
Thanks Peefa! You took the words out of my mouth!
Chris, don’t you mean “More Cyclists & Pedestrians = More $$$”?
Yes - but that wasn’t the focus of the article being discussed, so I didn’t include pedestrians. It stands to reason the gist of the article was that focusing on automobile traffic isn’t the panacea that most urban planners thought it was. Get people out of their cars (whether it’s by bike, foot or transit) and they are more likely to just stop into a shop when making their way by it, whereas a motorist must stop, find parking and then make their way into the shop.
That former scenario doesn’t lend itself well to impulse window shopping
That is what I was going to expand and write up..Speedo the Impatient! Chris wears Speedoes!!!
Great job Chris. Is that all you can do is ad hominem attacks? First it is “the face” of the canal and now venetian Dave. For such a Scaledowner and pro-density guy why so against it? I mean you have yet to refute why re-doing Ouellette Ave for the 3000th time will not work. It sure hasn’t in the past. How else to get people to live downtown? Just clean it up and they magically come?
Maybe Andrew might want to check his memory again because they also stated they didn’t see why they couldn’t do it. But as for a “bike path” (which is what was asked) no there wasn’t room because of cafes and the way the promenades narrowed and widened. But they said there was no reason why people couldn’t walk their bikes through or have a designated space to park them. Hmmm…seems my memory is serving me correctly.
It still attracts riders, just not being able to ride thorugh and park in front of your destination. Similar to the cars you so lament on a daily basis. Why not get off them and walk a block and chain them up?
Again, you think I am against bikes which I am not. But instead of bringing up points to serve you drag the canal proposal into it. I never stated bikes don’t bring traffic. And if you want to search your own site take a good hard look and you will see I am also a big supporter of street-designed entrances where pedestrian entrances should face the street and not some parking lot. I don’t know where you are even coming from?
Tell me where I didn’t support bikes or bike lanes for that matter? Tell me where I have yet to support pedestrian traffic? Your attacks are at the wrong person. But hey since I now support the canal I must be an enemy in your eyes.
For one to talk about not dividing (city vs suburbs) you sure go ahead with the attacks right Chris?
Clarification: When stated above, ” because they also stated they didn’t see why they couldn’t do it.” What I meant was that they couldn’t see any reason why they couldn’t have parking areas for bikes only or places to lock them up. They just couldn’t ride through (the same as not being able to ride on the sidewalk) because of what was stated above.
By the way I thought I was “the face”? I can’t have two nicknames.
i think its ridiculous them saying they can’t build the bike paths through it…THEY ARE BUILDING IT FROM SCRATCH!
Bike riding is bliss in Copenhagen
Cyclists rule the roads in Copenhagen, but officials steer clear of any talk on safety
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/641641
City (Toronto) okays `walking strategy’, including $1.9M Roncesvalles remake
http://www.thestar.com/Article/641643
Council passed a “Walking Strategy” yesterday that, among other things, will ban right turns on red lights at 10 new intersections next year as a pilot project. It also approved a $1.9 million plan that will remake Roncesvalles Ave., between Queen St. W. and Dundas St. W., removing a car lane in each direction to make way for a parking lay-by.
New transit platforms extending from the sidewalk will allow level boarding onto new TTC streetcars, and the boulevard will be widened in certain areas to create more public space and reduce crossing distances.”
I don’t disagree Adriano. But they said they never planned on bike paths. I think the reason was because of the pedestrian traffic but I am not sure.
I don’t see why they can’t do it because they are not even at that stage of design. Would it be smart? Of course anything to help make the area succeed. I do know that they said they were conneting it from the waterfront bike paths. Plus there are bike paths (well to be honest a painted line on the road) on Janette, Chatham and University that also brings cyclists there but I would think it would be a good idea to add lanes in the canal also.
VenitianDave signing off.
Dave, just for your info (and anyone else who isn’t clear on the terms):
Painted line on the road = Bike lanes
Signs with a little bicycle on it on roadways with enough width = Bike route
Path separated from motorized vehicular traffic = Multi-Use Trail
Technically we don’t have “bike paths” in Windsor, as any horizontal- and/or grade-separated path is designated as multi-use for pedestrians, cyclists, rollerbladers, scootering-public, etc.
BUMP, I sometimes hated you when I had to work with you. However, Chaz is one cool cat, I miss having the monthly bicycling committee meetings with him.
How sad the attitudes of the City of Windsor. We have experts telling us we need to change our ways. We have a good, not great, bike plan that will help in achieving some of those changes. But we don’t want to fully use this plan. The attitude of mediocrity - so sad!
In Davis, Boulder, and Portland they have achieved greatness and they still hunger for more. That’s the attitude of champions.
In Davis’ Platinum City Even the Munchkins Ride Bikes
http://www.streetfilms.org/archives/adventures-in-a-platinum-bike-city-davis-calif/
Boulder Goes Bike Platinum
http://www.streetfilms.org/archives/boulder-goes-bike-platinum/
Portland: Celebrating America’s Most Livable City
http://www.streetfilms.org/archives/portland-celebrating-americas-most-livable-city/
In the conflict between people and motor vehicles, the month of May has been a tragic one in Windsor. So far there have been three horrific accidents.
Bus pins bike rider
http://www.windsorstar.com/pins+bike+rider/1586814/story.html
Windsor cyclist, 69, in coma after Walker Road crash
http://www.windsorstar.com/Sports/Windsor+cyclist+coma+after+Walker+Road+crash/1613205/story.html
Struck chasing ball, toddler clings to life
http://www.windsorstar.com/news/Struck+chasing+ball+toddler+clings+life/1636893/story.html
The lives of so many people involved in these tragic accidents have been changed forever. The toddler, the cyclists, their families, the drivers, the passengers, their families all are blameless victims of a transportation system that favours the unforgiving unimportant motor vehicle over people.
When will we change our failed transportation system?
When will we realize that people are more important than motor vehicles?
Windsorites, what kind of city do you want?
Interview with Enrique Peñalosa
http://www.streetfilms.org/archives/interview-with-enrique-penalosa-long/
Thanks for posting the Portland stuff Edwin. I was absolutely blown away by it.
Juxtaposing it with the tragic events that have occurred around her of late is very moving.
With respect to the toddler yesterday, one thing that I found interesting was the police conclusion that the driver was not culpable given that they were within the speed limit. I don’t intend to challenge that contention in any way, and I feel for the driver as much as I do for the toddler’s family, but I maintain that it’s just not appropriate in the first place to have a 50 km/h speed limit on a residential street. It’s too high.
There’s an interesting discussion about this issue in this Edmonton Journal article:
http://www.edmontonjournal.com/news/Edmonton+mulls+lower+speed+limits+neighbourhoods/1474025/story.html
Thanks for the information Juxtaposeur. I never knew what to call what and which was which.
A little off-topic, but kind of the same.
What is this push for continued consumerism all about?
I’m very concerned for the future (including my own) of my parents, and those who have been unable to save for their retirement.
The plight of our autoworkers is an alarm bell for me.
We’ve spent our lives (I include myself) consuming, buying bigger and better, and saving less and less. Consumer debt is surpassing $1.3 trillion.
I’m afraid of what this means in conjunction with falling wages and incomes.
All may come out in the wash over the long-term, but in the immediate short-term (15-20 year time frame) what happens? Unfunded liabilities are only the beginning.
As I eliminate my own debt, each credit card gets cut up. I’m sure many are doing the same. I’ve also cut back on my dining out and spending - trying to shovel more into my own retirement nest egg and eliminate my high interest bearing debt.
We can talk all we want about the kind of city we want, but what happens when we can’t afford the city we want?
Chris S, the Windsor I want does the same thing you are doing. It makes the investments now to be more efficient in the future. Scaling-down our unsustainable wasteful ways and building more efficient and better socially integrated networks that will allow us to weather any storm.
Being an immigrant to this wonderful country, I can tell you it works. It is what immigrants do to compensate for the disadvantages they face in a new country. We live in urban areas, use public transit, and rely more on strong social networks of family and friends.
PORTLAND: A MODEL FOR NATIONAL POLICY?
From the website of newgeography.com http://tiny.cc/hmyhu
An alternate view with charts etc. Well worth reading.
United States Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood and Washington Post columnist George Will have been locked in debate over transit. Will called LaHood the “Secretary of Behavior Modification” for his policies intended to reduce car use, citing Portland’s strong transit and land use planning measures as a model for the nation. In turn, the Secretary defended the policies in a National Press Club speech and “upped the ante” by suggesting the policies are “a way to coerce people out of their cars.”
These are just the latest in a series of media accounts about Portland, usually claiming success for its policies that have favored transit over highway projects as well as its “progressive” land use policies. Portland has also become the poster child for those who advocate planning restrictions and subsidies favoring higher density development in parts of the urban core.
Indeed if Secretary LaHood has his way, Portland could become The Model for federal transportation policy. So perhaps it is appropriate to review what it has accomplished…
..The Consequences of Coercing People Out of Cars
Moreover, Portland policies ignore a crucial factor: how automobiles facilitate economic growth and employment. Generally, the research indicates that the economic performance of metropolitan areas is enhanced by greater mobility. Moreover, no transit system provides the extensive mobility made possible by the automobile, not in America and not even in Europe. Coercing people out of cars coerces some out of employment and into poverty.
Even where transit service is available, it generally takes longer than traveling by car. In 2007, travel to work by transit took 3:50 (three hours and 50 minutes) per week longer than driving in the nation’s largest metropolitan areas. With all of Portland’s transit improvements, it still takes approximately 3:15 longer per week to commute by transit than by driving. It appears that Secretary LaHood would add more than three hours (time many don’t have) to our work trip each week.
The Land Use Cost
The second plank of The Model is strong land use regulation (smart growth), which economic research shows to materially increase house costs, which would lead to a lower standard of living.
Time to Turn Off the Ideological Autopilot
The policies of The Model Portland have no serious potential for reducing GHG emissions and could even make it worse. On the other hand, the rapidly developing advances possible from improved vehicle technology, something the Administration espouses, show great promise. Behavior modification a la The Model turns out not only to be undesirable, but also unnecessary.
Wendell Cox is a Visiting Professor, Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers, Paris. He was born in Los Angeles and was appointed to three terms on the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission by Mayor Tom Bradley. He is the author of “War on the Dream: How Anti-Sprawl Policy Threatens the Quality of Life.”
Mark, last week I was in Atlanta and heard what to me is now a familiar story. It was the story of Sweet Auburn Avenue. Sweet Auburn Avenue is a street that once claimed to be the “richest Negro street in the world.” It was the main street of a once vibrant and successful community. The familiar part of the story is that like other urban city neighborhoods Sweet Auburn was dismantled by policies that sliced it apart, abandon it, starved it of investment and allowed crime to flourish. The familiar part of the story is that Sweet Auburn once had an efficient streetcar line that gave the local businesses a competitive advantage and helped unite the community. The familiar part of the story is that a highway that split the community in two was built.
In my opinion, the death of Sweet Auburn and countless other communities was cuased by a transportation policy choice. A policy that chose conviniece over efficiency. More over, it removed options. The car was the only option allowed.
Funny thing though, when everyone chooses convinience the convinience is lost and the inefficiencies are multiplied. Whoops!
In North America, more that 80 percent of our personal travel is by car. This is a dangerous imbalance. The warning signs are everywhere. There are social warning signs, economic warning signs, enviroumental warning signs and health warning signs.
The policy shift away from cars is not about eliminating car use. It’s about givings us choices again. It‘s about trying to reach a more appropriate balance. It’s about making Windsor a vibrant successful community again.
Edwin, we don’t have to look to Atlanta for examples, just across the river and see what freeway building did to Detroit starting in the fifties. I can’t remember which freeway it was, the Lodge or Ford that went right through the heart of the African American community. A vibrant community at that time, that if existing today would be a prime example of a sustainable/walkable neighbourhood.
I got the above posting via an alert yesterday, and I posted it not necessarily as my comments or thoughts but to provide a balance view from different voices. Personally, I think that a mix of modes of transportation is the best, the car will never disappear but we in Windsor haven’t really made a dent in providing good alternatives.
Anyway hang in here and keep posting your thoughts.
See Queens, Shop in Queens — on Your Bike
http://tiny.cc/iio0b
The Queens guide subtly delivers the message that attracting cyclists means attracting business — a nice little counterpoint to those who demonize bike lanes as a drag on retailers. As the DCP press release says, the map points out “many opportunities for riders to park their bikes and walk around the unique neighborhoods and shopping districts” of the borough. Which raises the prospect of a good companion project: How about a few bike corrals along the route? The potential to boost foot traffic is rather impressive when you consider that each on-street spot for car parking could turn into a dozen or so slots for bike parking.
Mark, it was the Lodge.
Chris S. I have been doing the same but instead of buying stuff I don’t really need I am actually spending money on going out to restaurants and enjoying life. Without all of the crap I buy I find I can save for retirement AND actually enjoy life.
Sadly though I don’t believe consumerism is dead at all. It is just taking a break from the excesses much like after the boom years of the 20s, the 60s, 80s and now. It is a check of our consumption but it will be back within a decade. I would even bet on it.
Here is an example of the policy choices that somewhere in the past were made to throne the motor vehicle as king of the roads. It is also an example of the drastic policy shift that needs to happen now. Kudos to the university for the move!
Price to park skyrockets at U of W
http://www.windsorstar.com/Price+park+skyrockets/1640529/story.html
The cost of an eight-month faculty and staff parking permit will rise 60 per cent next year, from $264 to $422.40. The cost of an eight-month student permit will rise 30 per cent, from $220 to $286.
…
Brown said university brass moved unilaterally to implement the change and that plans call for faculty permit fees to skyrocket to $727 in three or four years.
“You’re talking about quadrupling what we’re paying right now, which is extremely unsettling to say the least,” said Brown.
Stephen Willetts, the university’s vice president of administration and finance, said in a release that parking permit fees “have never reflected” the true, all-in cost of on-campus parking, which has “placed a significant burden on the finances” of the school.
“On-campus parking is a scarce and limited resource and it is a service that we wish to continue to provide for students, faculty and staff,” said Willetts.
“However, in light of the university’s current financial shortfall, this is a responsible fiscal decision and one that will protect the future of the university and enable it to appropriately maintain its parking assets and plan for future development.”