ECONOMIC IMPACT STUDY of Bike Lanes in Toronto’s Bloor Annex and Korea Town Neighbourhoods: Summary Report 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, 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: Summary Report. Toronto: Clean Air Partnership, 2017. Updated September 2019. Table of Contents INTRODUCTION 4 METHODOLOGY 4 CUSTOMER COUNTS 6 SPENDING 7 VISIT FREQUENCY 8 VACANCY RATES 8 PARKING 8 TRAVEL PATTERNS 10 PERCEPTIONS OF SAFETY 11 BIKE LANE FEEDBACK 12 CONCLUSION 13 ADDITIONAL CONSIDERATIONS 14 4 | Toronto Centre for Active Transportation INTRODUCTION • Random and representative samples: In 2016, the City of Toronto installed a bike lane as a pilot project along a 2.4 km stretch of Bloor Street, For the visitor surveys, every third person a busy downtown commercial street and east-west walking along the street was approached and thoroughfare. One traffic lane and some on-street asked if they would like to participate. For the parking were removed. merchant surveys, every street level business The Toronto Centre for Active Transportation (TCAT) was approached. If the owner or manager was commissioned by the City of Toronto, the was unavailable, up to three repeat visits were Metcalf Foundation, the Bloor Annex BIA and Korea made and contact information was left for Town BIA to study the economic impacts of the bike them to follow up. lane, as well as its effect on the travel patterns and • A control site: attitudes of merchants and visitors. See Figure 2 for Data was also collected on Danforth Avenue, a a detailed timeline of the study. comparable shopping street with no bike lane. • Third party data collection and analysis: METHODOLOGY To ensure impartial data collection and analysis, Four tools were used to collect data: visitor surveys, TCAT partnered with researchers from the merchant surveys, bicycle counts and vacancy University of Toronto. Dr. Beth Savan, Inaugural scans (see Figure 1). The study design incorporated Sustainability Director at the University of Toronto the following elements to ensure the most reliable and past Research Director at the School of the and objective information possible: Environment, was involved in the study design and led the 2015 pre-test data collection, • Vetted Study Protocol: supervising an 8-member team who conducted In 2015, before data collection began and the surveys, bike counts and translation. Lee before the installation of the bike lane, the Vernich, Director of the Office of Research in research team worked together with the initial the School of Public Health, led and supervised funding partners (the Korea Town BIA, the Bloor a 15-member team for the 2016 and 2017 Annex BIA, and the Metcalf Foundation) to post-test data collection. Dr. Steven Farber, a develop an evidence-based methodology. quantitative transportation geographer, led the The City of Toronto approved the design when it data analysis and supervised all statistical tests. joined as a study partner in 2016. • Multiple data sources: • Before and after data: Multiple data sources were used to estimate Data was collected once before the bike lane’s economic impact, including estimated installation (fall 2015) and twice after (fall 2016, customer counts from the merchant surveys, spring 2017). estimated spending and visit frequency from • Non-leading questions: the visitor surveys, and business vacancy counts Surveys were introduced without mentioning the from a street level scan. bike lane, and the economic impact questions were asked before questions about travel Visitor Surveys 3,005 patterns or the bike lane. Merchant Surveys 525 Bicycle Counts 15 Vacancy Counts 2 Figure 1. Summary of data collected Economic Impact Study in Toronto’s Bloor Annex and Korea Town Neighbourhoods | 5 2015 jun The Toronto Cycling Think & Do Tank presents to the Bloor Annex BIA jul TCAT, in partnership with the Toronto Cycling Think & Do Tank, The Toronto Cycling Think & Do Tank School of the Environment at the University of Toronto, submit a proposal to the Korea Town BIA, Bloor Annex BIA and Metcalf aug presents to the Korea Town BIA Foundation to measure the economic impacts and travel shifts from a pilot bike lane on Bloor Street. Study proposal submitted sep Korea Town BIA and the Metcalf Foundation approve First funding approved funding. oct Second funding approved Bloor Annex BIA approves funding. Agreement on methodology nov Korea Town BIA, Bloor Annex BIA and TCAT agree on methodology: FIRST • Data would be collected before and after the dec ROUND First round of data is collected bike lane’s installation OF (merchant surveys, visitor surveys • Data would also be gathered from a control 2016 DATA and bicycle counts). Undertaken site jan by the Toronto Cycling Think & Do • Merchant and visitor survey questions agreed Tank, School of the Environment upon at the Unversity of Toronto. • Economic impact would be measured feb through customer counts, visit frequency and reported spending 8 months before mar apr may Council approves Bloor bike lane Initial meetings with the City of Toronto regarding pilot project economic evaluation of the bike lane pilot project jun TCAT meets with the City FIRST BUSINESS jul The City of Toronto becomes a study partner and the study design is reviewed by Transportation VACANCY The City becomes a partner aug Services, the Economic Development Office and COUNTS the BIA Office. The City also funds additional data Bike lanes officially open collection: 3 months after • Business vacancy data would be collected sep before and after the bike lane’s installation • Survey and bike count data would be collected a second time after the bike lane’s oct installation, to increase robustness. nov SECOND ROUND dec OF DATA 2017 jan P 8 months after h o t o : M feb a r t i n R e i s Undertaken by the mar Office of Research, Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the P University of Toronto h o apr t o : Y e n v o n n e V e r l i n d P h o may t o THIRD : M a ROUND r t i n R OF DATA e i s jun Undertaken by Office of Research, Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto SECOND jul BUSINESS Undertaken by the Department of VACANCY aug Data analyzed Human Geography at the University of COUNTS Toronto, Scarborough sep oct Results released Figure 2. Timeline of the Study 6 | Toronto Centre for Active Transportation CUSTOMER COUNTS The first data source used to estimate economic Businesses Serving 100 Customers or More impact was customer counts from the merchant 81% surveys. On Bloor Street in 2015, approximately half 62% (46%) of merchants reported seeing 100 or more 58% 46% customers on a Saturday; by 2017, this number had grown to 62% (see Figure 3). Customer counts on DANFORTH 25% 21% Danforth Avenue also increased, and the growth BLOOR BLOOR BLOOR appears to be stronger than on Bloor Street. DAN FORTH DAN FORTH On Danforth in 2015, only one quarter (25%) of 2015 2016 2017 merchants reported 100 customers or more on a (Bloor n=457)(Danforth n=73) Saturday; by 2017, 81% of merchants reported they Figure 3. Changes in Businesses Serving 100 Customers or had reached or surpassed this threshold. Because More on a Saturday Question: On average, about how many customers of the smaller sample size on Danforth Avenue, do you serve per day? 1) Weekday 2) Saturday it is possible that the significant increase is not representative of changes on the street overall, or had already begun to occur in 2016 but was not captured, and became more readily apparent in 2017. ANNEX <25 25-49 50-99 100-200 200 customers customers customers customers and up fewer than 25 customers 6% 13% 16% 27% 39% 25-49 customers 2015 50-99 customers 1% 100-200 customers 200 customers and up 5% 17% 40% 37% 2016 5% 9% 14% 22% 50% 2017 (n=209) KOREA TOWN DANFORTH <25 25-49 50-99 100-200 200 customers <25 25-49 50-99 100-200 200 customers customers customers customers customers and up customers customers customers customers and up 32% 23% 13% 13% 19% 36% 21% 18% 11% 14% 2015 2015 27% 9% 25% 24% 15% 26% 42% 11% 21% 2016 2016 20% 22% 14% 14% 30% 5 5 10% 10% 71% 2017 2017 (n=202) (n=68) Figure 4. Changes in Saturday Customer Counts, Bloor Annex, Korea Town and Danforth Question: On average, about how many customers do you serve per day? 1) Weekday 2) Saturday Economic Impact Study in Toronto’s Bloor Annex and Korea Town Neighbourhoods | 7 SPENDING Looking more closely at the change in businesses The second data source used to estimate reporting the most customers on a Saturday, there economic impact was monthly spending from the was substantial growth between 2015 and 2017 in visitor surveys.