Sometimes they just don’t get it.
From SF.Streetsblog:
85 Percent of People on Polk Street Arrive Without a Car
.
If San Franciscans were to believe the hyperbole and fearmongering spread by merchants leading the “Save Polk Street Coalition,” removing even a small proportion of car parking along the corridor to make the street safer and more inviting will kill businesses. But new survey data from the SF Municipal Transportation Agency shows that only about 15 percent of people get to Polk Street using an automobile, while the rest either come by foot, bike, or transit. Drivers also reported spending the least amount of money per week compared to those who came by other modes.
.
And sometimes they do get it. From Vancouver:
.
Ken Ohrn: At the NW corner of Dunsmuir and Homer sits an old four-storey building. Cushman and Wakefield, along with (ominously) Ace Demolition, are remaking the place – and have a big rendering of the final product out in front.
I count four cyclists in the rendering – a realization by the developer of who it is moving by their building.
And so the cyclist continues to emerge in Vancouver’s consciousness. It’s steady and it’s great to see.
One of the most striking aspects of the Stantec report on Vancouver’s downtown bike lanes was the large disconnect between customers’ and merchants’ ideas about how they traveled to get to these stores. Far more customers walked and cycled to get there, whereas merchants thought most came by car.
We have been saying for years that many businesses don’t know how their customers get there. If I had my own business, this is something that I would want to know and is not that hard to find out. The unfortunate thing is that not knowing that many of their customers are cyclists, means they often fight against the very infrastructure that could help their business.
“And so the cyclist continues to emerge in Vancouver’s consciousness. It’s steady and it’s great to see.”
Yes!