Last week, Michael Andersen at peopleforbikes did a nice job of compiling lessons from all over the world on the always-contentious issue of bike lanes.
From parking spaces to bike lanes: 10 ways cities can win the fight
For cities around the country and the world, converting on-street parking spaces into anything else is one of the greatest challenges in urban planning. But, though it’s probably never been done without a fight, many cities have succeeded. Here are the best approaches we’ve seen from North America and beyond.
From Montreal to Mexico City, you can see the results here. Vancouver, however, deserved special recognition:
We’ve saved our favorite story for last.
In 2013, Vancouver, B.C., proposed adding protected bike lanes to a single block of Union Street, a crucial connection between two of the city’s most important bikeways: the Adanac bike boulevard and the Dunsmuir viaduct into downtown’s protected bike lane grid.
But adding bike lanes there would require moving several dozen street parking spaces onto nearby Main Street — so the city faced a firestorm from retailers and residents.
“To slash and burn like this is not going to work,” Steve Da Cruz, owner of an upscale restaurant in the middle of the affected block, told the Vancouver Courier.
In the end, the city removed about 20 spaces from Union in order to create a parking-protected bike lane in the westbound direction only. And in the three months that followed, Da Cruz’s fears came true: his sales dropped 30 percent, he said.
Then something happened that he didn’t expect: business rebounded. With the upgraded bike lane, more people were streaming past his storefront than ever. One year after installation, Da Cruz told Business in Vancouver that his restaurant was doing better than ever.
“We definitely have benefited from the increased usage of the bike lane,” Da Cruz said.
“It’s beautiful when you ride by now,” said Erin O’Melinn, executive director of the HUB biking advocacy group. “The bike racks are just busting. They’re so full and they’ve added more since the installation of those lanes. They’re always overflowing.”
Winning a parking war requires every tool and ally a bike believer has. But in the end, there’s no more powerful ally in the world than reality.
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Plus this video from Business in Vancouver:
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