Government

The Complete Business Case for Converting Street Parking Into Bike Lanes

An annotated, chart-filled review of 12 studies from around the world.
acme08 / flickr

San Francisco is moving forward with a plan to add protected bike lanes on Polk Street, one of the busiest cycling corridors in the city, but the decision didn't come easy. The San Francisco Examiner reports that the plan endured about 2.5 years of debate. At the center of the dispute was an objection to the loss of on-street parking spaces by local merchants (our emphasis):

It's perhaps natural for a shop owner to fear that losing a parking space means losing revenue. Drivers tend to be wealthier than alternative transport users, and cars have big trunks to hold lots of stuff. Cities can add a bike lane and still keep street parking by bumping out spots from the curb (a common practice in New York), but generally speaking more road space for cyclists means less for cars.