ECONOMIC IMPACT STUDY of Bike Lanes in Toronto’s Bloor Annex and Korea Town Neighbourhoods Project Team: Project Lead: Nancy Smith Lea, Toronto Centre for Active Transportation Research Lead/Data Collection Lead (Pre-test): Dr. Beth Savan, Principal Investigator, Toronto Cycling Think & Do Tank, School of the Environment, University of Toronto Data Collection Lead (Post-tests): Lee Vernich, Director, Office of Research, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto Data Analysis Lead: Dr. Steven Farber, Department of Human Geography, University of Toronto Scarborough Writer/Research Assistant: Yvonne Verlinden, Toronto Centre for Active Transportation Study Design: Daniel Arancibia, Toronto Cycling Think & Do Tank, School of the Environment, University of Toronto Research Assistant: Jeff Allen, Department of Geography and Planning, University of Toronto Survey Teams: Toronto Cycling Think & Do Tank, School of the Environment and Planning, University of Toronto (Pre-test) Office of Research, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto (Post-tests) Report Design: Clara Romero Icon Credits: freepik.com + flaticon.com Cover Photo: Anthony Galloro Funding Partners: City of Toronto Metcalf Foundation Bloor Annex BIA Korea Town BIA Please cite as: Smith Lea, N., Verlinden, Y., Savan, B., Arancibia, D., Farber, S., Vernich, L. & Allen, J. Economic Impact Study of Bike Lanes in Toronto’s Bloor Annex and Korea Town Neighbourhoods. Toronto: Clean Air Partnership, 2017. Table of Contents EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 4 Age and Gender Bike Lane Feedback INTRODUCTION 6 Study Purpose DISCUSSION 40 Study Objectives Study Timeline CONCLUSION 42 CONTEXT 9 ADDITIONAL CONSIDERATIONS 43 Bike Lane Configuration & Study Area Neighbourhood Context Business Context REFERENCES 44 External Pressures APPENDIX A: DATA COLLECTION DATES METHODOLOGY 14 AND TIMES Study Precedents Study Design APPENDIX B: SURVEY QUESTIONS AND Data Collected and Merchant Response Rates SCRIPTS Data Collection Timing Merchant Surveys APPENDIX C: DETAILED EXPLANATION OF Visitor Surveys ANALYSIS Vacancy Counts Bicycle Counts Data Entry and Coding APPENDIX D: DETAILED RESULTS Data Analysis Study Limitations FINDINGS 22 Merchant Sector Profiles Customer Counts Spending Visit Frequency Vacancy Rates Parking Travel Patterns Perceptions of Safety 4 | Toronto Centre for Active Transportation Executive Summary In 2016, the City of Toronto installed a bike lane as a pilot project along a 2.4 km stretch of Bloor Street, a busy downtown commercial street and east-west thoroughfare. One traffic lane and some on-street parking were removed. The Toronto Centre for Active Transportation (TCAT) was commissioned by the City of Toronto, the Metcalf Foundation, the Bloor Annex BIA and the Korea Town BIA to investigate the economic impacts – positive, negative or neutral – of the bike lane, as well as its effect on the travel patterns and attitudes of visitors and merchants. TCAT partnered with academic researchers from the University of Toronto to collect and analyze the data. Data was collected before and after the bike lane KEY FINDINGS installation over three time periods (fall 2015, fall 2016, and spring 2017) including 3,005 visitor surveys, CUSTOMER COUNTS 525 merchant surveys, and 15 bicycle counts. A • The number of businesses that reported 100 scan of business vacancies was conducted before customers or more per day increased in the study the bike lane’s installation and one year later as area on both streets. well. Data was also collected on Danforth Avenue, • Reported spending increased on Bloor and a comparable shopping street with no bike lane. Danforth at a similar rate. Four different sources of data were used to • Both before and after the bike lane, customers who arrived by foot or on bike reported higher estimate economic impact before and after the levels of spending on Bloor Street than those installation of the bike lane (after three months, and arriving by car or transit. again after eight months): 1) estimated customer • On both streets, locals (those living or working in counts from merchant surveys, 2) estimated the area) were 2.6 times more likely than those spending from visitor surveys, 3) visit frequency from coming from further away to spend at least $100 visitor surveys, and 4) business vacancy counts from per month. a street level scan. Overall, these four indicators point to increased economic activity on Bloor CUSTOMER FREQUENCY AND Street. Most merchants reported a higher number VACANCY RATES of customers than before the bike lane's installation, • After accounting for contributing factors (such visitors gave higher estimates of spending and visit as age, gender and proximity), visitors reported frequency, and vacancy rates were stable. coming to Bloor three days more per month after the bike lane was installed, while on Danforth visit However, these four indicators also showed similar frequency was unchanged. growth on Danforth Avenue, so the positive • People who arrived on foot or on bike visited Bloor outcomes may be attributable to other factors, the most often, and people who drove or took and not the bike lane. Nevertheless, these early transit visited nearly four days less per month. indicators point to a positive, or at least neutral, • Vacancy rates held steady at 6% in Bloor Annex economic impact of the bike lane. and Korea Town. On Danforth, they declined from 10% to 7%. Economic Impact Study in Toronto’s Bloor Annex and Korea Town Neighbourhoods | 5 Figure 1. Bloor Street looking east at Borden Street, before and after the installation of the pilot bike lane (Photo Credit: Nancy Smith Lea (left), Yvonne Verlinden (Right) SHIFTS IN TRAVEL PATTERNS AND PARKING PERCEPTIONS OF SAFETY AND FEEDBACK ON BIKE LANE • The percentage of customers cycling to Bloor nearly tripled (from 7% to 20%), a substantially • After the installation of the bike lane, the higher increase than on Danforth Avenue, proportion of visitors who perceived Bloor Street which has no bike lane. as safe for cycling more than tripled (from 17% • Walking remained the most popular travel to 61%) and doubled among merchants (from choice, used by nearly half (48%) of visitors on 13% to 27%), while perceptions of safety on Bloor, and driving is now the least (10%). Danforth dropped (from 22% to 10%). • Merchants on Bloor Street preferred to drive • The percentage of women who reported (49%) and there was no increase in cycling, which remained the least preferred travel they now feel safe cycling on Bloor increased choice (6%). significantly more than men, from 12% to 58%. • The majority of merchants believed that at • The majority of visitors (86%) and merchants least 25% of their customers are driving to Bloor; (90%) provided feedback in response to an however fewer than 10% of customers reported open-ended question soliciting thoughts or arriving by car. comments about the bike lane. • Parking difficulty increased on both streets for • While visitor comments were generally positive, visitors who drove, growing by four times on Bloor (from 8% to 33%) and nearly doubling on the most common feedback related to the Danforth (from 14% to 25%), though this street bike lane’s configuration and safety. Merchants did not have any on-street parking removed. raised more concerns than visitors, especially over impacts to business, but safety, parking, • When looking at all visitors, the percentage who needed to find car parking and experienced and traffic were also important issues. difficulty remained small: 3% of all visitors on Bloor and 4% on Danforth. 6 | Toronto Centre for Active Transportation Introduction Bloor Street was identified as a major corridor in the City of Toronto’s Ten Year Cycling Network Plan (2016). The street represents a priority east- west bicycle route, with relatively flat terrain, a lack of streetcar tracks, and important linkages to existing cycling facilities and to many vibrant Toronto neighbourhoods. Even before the installation of a bike lane, the street was already used by approximately 3,000 people on bicycles per day (City of Toronto, 2016). Bloor Street has, however, experienced a high infrastructure. Painted bike lanes along major streets number of collisions involving people on bicycles without parked cars can also reduce the risk of (City of Toronto, 2016). In cities across North injury by half (Teschke et al., 2012). America, recent research has found that extending Road space on Bloor Street is limited, though, the bikeway network is associated with a drop in meaning a bike lane can only be installed by crashes, fatalities and severe injuries for people reducing traffic and parking lanes. Questions on bicycles, as well as an increase in bicycle trips regarding the impacts on traffic flow and parking (Pucher & Buehler, 2016). In Toronto, cycle tracks availability have in the past prevented this initiative which are adjacent to and physically separated from moving forward, with concerns particularly from traffic have been shown to provide the highest being raised about the effects of such changes on safety benefit, with one ninth the risk of injury in Bloor Street’s small businesses. comparison to a route like Bloor, a major street with parked cars and previously with no cycling Cities across North America are grappling with the same question, and emerging academic and professional literature has reported numerous examples where the removal of traffic lanes or on- street parking to install a bike lane has not resulted in negative economic effects;