Article: BIKEWAYS ARE HEALTHY, SAFE AND BOOST PROPERTY VALUE

[ozbob]

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BIKEWAYS ARE HEALTHY, SAFE AND BOOST PROPERTY VALUE

BIKEWAYS ARE HEALTHY, SAFE AND BOOST PROPERTY VALUE

The following article is written by Rachel Smith (a Principal Transport Planner with AECOM in Sydney). All the pictures are of the Cairns CBD to Aeroglen Cycleway. We would like the next stage of this cycleway heading south from the Cairns CBD.

On April Fool's Day Fairfax Media posted a video affirming that the new inner Sydney cycleways have had a positive effect on property prices. It was no joke. It seems that having a bikeway right outside your front door is good for your health and the value of your house.

The City of Sydney's network of separated cycleways have attracted their unfair share of controversy, threats of legal action, opposition from traders and a protest rally ironically attended by 200 pro-bike lane supporters and no opponents.

Fairfax interviewed Don, an owner-builder, selling a recently renovated million dollar property. Don explained the combination of a garage at the rear and the bike path out the front had added a premium of $100,000 to his house. Like many, Don had been sceptical, particularly because of the loss of on-street car parking, but now that the Parisian style bike boulevard with gardens and street lamps has been finished, even he agrees that Bourke Street "looks good".

The re is no denying that Bourke Street is beautiful; lined on either side with grand Victorian homes, exquisite cafes and a stunning canopy of trees.

The bikeway has, as Lord Mayor Clover Moore says, made Bourke Street, "a very special street". We all want to live on a beautiful street and we all want to know what the tangible benefits of improved social infrastructure could be to our street, our neighbourhood, our city. So should we, and can we, use economics to support the case for more safe and separated bikeways in our cities?

Yes we should. But, implementing anything that requires changes to on-street car parking is controversial because many traders believe, rightly or wrongly, that customers will go elsewhere, that 'convenience' will be destroyed and that bike riders don't spend money.

Research to identify the economic value of replacing car parking with bike parking in shopping strips showed that cycling generates 3.6 times more expenditure. Even though a car user spends more per hour on average compared to a bike rider, the small area of public space required for bike parking suggests that each square metre allocated to bike parking generates $31 per hour, compared to $6 generated for each square metre used for a car parking space, with food/drink and clothing retailers benefiting the most from bike riders.

Bikeways cost money and their merits are often called into question. If we really want cycling to be a central part of our cities more data is needed to show a direct correlation between a city's bikeway program and the city's economy.

Planners, engineers, economists, policy officers and decision makers alike, need to increase the quantity and quality of pre and post construction data collected. They also need to develop a consistent methodology to justify and evaluate the benefits. Finally they need to work in partnership with business associations to measure and monitor change, in an objective manner, with appropriate scale analysis.

Despite the early controversy to change, Sydney's Lord Mayor knows the bikeways have been a success. Votes for her in the polling booths close to the bikeways have been maintained or increased... seems like bikeways can be good for wallets, waistlines and the popularity of politicians that support them.

[BribieG]

Melbourne and Sydney near-city areas are perfect for bikeways as hundreds of thousands of people live within 10k of the city centres. During the Tram era which never ended in Melbourne of course, the urban core was suburb after suburb of Victorian terraced houses UK style, and even in the early 20th Century the majority of development consisted of stuff like this:



However in the case of Brisbane, aside from a couple of "pockets" such as Spring Hill and West End about the best that Brisbane could do was:



This was due to the original Undue Subdivision of Land Prevention Act of 1885 setting minimum block frontages and preventing the building of terraces following epidemics in Southern capitals. (one of my hobbies is terraced housing in Australia and I've long been fascinated by these histories).
Arguably much nicer to live in, but if you multiply this effect over a whole city it very much "dilutes" the effectiveness of nearly all infrastructure that costs per-mile to construct and this is why we didn't get sewers till fairly late and really why this forum started here, to address our relatively poor public transport 

When it comes to bikeways it's long been obvious to me, and given our hilly terrain in Brisbane, that bikeways as serious commuter corridors are not really viable in Brisbane apart from young fit office workers living in St Lucia etc. My 2c.
As recreational tracks they are excellent - here on Bribie I cycle all over the place and I'm no lycra lout, just a senior with an electric bike so as keen on cycling as anyone. However if I were living in the smoke I can't see that a bike would help me at all, unless I was doing a station bike locker thing, and even then I don't know if I could be bothered with all that locking and unlocking and sweating at 7 am.

[O_128]

Its always been a shame that Brisbane never got terraces as they are my favorite style of housing and have led to brisbane to being one of the top 10 cities in the world in terms of geographical size.

Things are getting better though check out this thead, you wont believe how much development is going on in the inner suburbs. http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=1379821

[BribieG]

That's incredible, and yes when those developments come on line it would be great to have bikeways into the CBD from those locations, there would certainly be the bike traffic one would think. I was referring more to people trying to get in from Aspley or Ashgrove etc. but just those buildings you linked to would be a couple of suburbs worth of residents in their own right    Could maybe even rescue Candoo's Bike Hire flop?

OFF TOPIC: A few Victorian terraces did sneak through by being built as a single investment rental project - You'd probably be aware of Cook's Terrace at Milton on the river front and a few at Petrie Terrace, but if you know where to look there are a couple of rare examples in sidestreets, including a magnificent set of 3 storey Victorian mansion-style with basements in Berry Street behind the Astor on Wickham tce, and  a row still being lived in, behind Petrie Tce in Wellington Street. 

Funnily enough, older American cities are beautifully set out for bike transportation - surprisingly. Millions of Americans live in UK style two-up two-down terraces in the "Bowash" - the Boston to Washington conurbation (not something they ever widely revealed until streetview was invented  ) and if you Google Earth (typical example, try: 282 South Robinson Street Baltimore ) - a lot of these areas are becoming gentrified Sydney Style and bike riding heaven. Love that Skyscraper City site.