I live in SF a few blocks from a very controversial new bike lane. The business owners hate it. It came at a time of economic change, with inflation and layoffs etc, so there’s a lot of pressure on small businesses city-wide. The city has said sales data for that neighborhood has dropped less than the city-wide average, and has shown to be more resilient.

I was out getting coffee and overheard someone complain to a business owner about the “bike lane bad” sign. The owner repeatedly said it was bad for business, but couldn’t give an example. It was pretty heated until eventually the owner capitulated and said it was harder for him to park near his work. That was it. He wanted to park closer to work, it had no business outcomes.

Another example of a business very publicly complaining that the bike lane was killing their business was interviewed in the press. In this interview the business owner admitted he struggled to afford the loans to repair his bar after flooding (pre bike lane flooding). The business was already collapsing, and he admitted he didn’t think many people drove and parked at his bar.

The only examples I believe are the furniture and appliance stores. Bikers probably don’t pick up and shop for those items as much as car drivers. But of course I have no data.

Even though I own a mini van and will happily load it with large purchases, I'm more likely to get a piece of furniture or a large appliance delivered.

That said, I think there's lots of reason to be skeptical of alleged data in general, regardless of whether it suggests a "for" or "against" position on adding bike lanes. I read the article and it often repeated "better streets = good for business", which makes total sense but it also made me realize something:

If better streets = good for business, then a corollary is that bad streets = bad for business. And I've never seen a bike lane added to a bad street without also making general improvements to that street. It stands to reason, therefore, that bike lane vs no bike lane is a hard topic to study while controlling for all other variables. Are we sure that the bike lane itself improved business or could the overall improvements to the area in general be the most significant cause?

And obviously the more important claim is that there is no evidence that bike lanes hurt business. I'm not arguing that I think they do (I have no idea and I'm certainly open to the possibility that bike lanes are good for business), but it seems to me that there are similar methodological challenges when it comes to studying this, since streets that have bike lanes might be in better overall condition than streets without if only because bike lanes in most North American cities are a relatively recent addition and so streets with bike lanes have benefited from maintenance more recently. Local politicians might also be under more pressure to fund and direct the maintenance of streets with bike lanes (maybe those streets have heavier traffic, maybe there are campaign promises to add bike lanes etc.)

Anyway, my guess is this is not much a problem of identification, as it's a problem of determination. Somebody has to go and dictate what kind of business will thrive on what streets exactly, and at the same time, where people will go in their commute, and where they will go when shopping around.

Every street trying to satisfy every need isn't working.