Retail stores are often quite agile in recognizing situations that will help their bottom line (which often has thin and fragile profit margins). So why is there a blind spot here? Maybe it’s the focus on horror stories—and some traders have trouble with bike lanes.
I spoke with Cindy Hughes, co-owner of Fast Phil’s hair salon in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She said business plummeted by at least 40% when the city removed nearby parking lots to make way for bike lanes. The majority of her clients drive (she tracked), many of them from neighboring towns. Only a very few switch to cycling, and even those who almost certainly won’t ride in the snowy Boston winter. So while Hughes advocates for bike lanes—“cyclists deserve to be safe”—she sees losing parking as an existential risk. “Look, 90% of my customers drive,” she told me. “For our business, bike lanes are much worse than Covid.”
For others, the Feedback is cultural, says Henry Grabar, a writer for Slate whose book is about parking Paved paradise, will be released next May. Grabar points out that small business owners are often the ones driving from other parts of the city by car. They are also often longtime locals. “They tend to be people with deep roots in the city who have lived around since before the neighborhood became what it is today,” he added. Getting around town by car was so normal for them that cycling seemed odd and unusual—although its impetus from Covidwhen bicycle sales exploded 75%.
And there is a negative bias. “People who have trouble finding parking are always talking about it,” notes Grabar. “But people who just walk right in — or cycle in — won’t talk about it.” So, it is understandable that store owners will see parking as an issue out of their control, while the number of pedestrians or cyclists who may not be registered increases.
Psychology wins all! Who knows, right? The sharp divide between shop owners and bike lane advocates doesn’t seem to be the same in our larger culture war on climate change. If we’ve learned anything about the culture wars, it’s that the data isn’t so good at changing minds.
When Janette Sadik-Khan was head of New York City’s Department of Transportation in the early 2000s, she oversaw the rollout of bike lanes — and got a backlash from the public. residents and business owners, who angrily claimed that there were not enough cyclists to secure a lane setting. Now, she humorously notes, the lanes are so bustling with activity that protesters have moved to claim the opposite problem: Too many cyclists get in the way of cars. As she puts it, “the status quo is a drug.”
Maybe bike lanes will always be cramped, until enough of the public is finally genuinely concerned about climate change—and it seems reckless to Not have them.
After all, crises always have a way of opening people’s eyes to the possibilities. During the Covid era, restaurants and cafes were in such a loss of business that cities across the country started allowing them to build roadside seating areas so people could safely sit outside. whole. It greatly reduces parking—but because, well, crisis, the shop owner did not see any way around it. Patrons love outdoor seating so much that cities are making it permanent: A New York City study of some streets closed during Covid finds store owners earn more money than before and diners enjoy the outdoor lifestyle. If the data doesn’t change the mind, the customer can.
