Cycling brings great economic benefits to Iowa

[Paul Nevins]

The economic benefits of cycling are discovered to be much greater than estimated
Check out this post:
http://dc.streetsblog.org/2012/01/26/study-bicycling-generates-365-million-in-economic-activity-in-iowa/

Paul

[karlos]

Paul

Those are really useful numbers. The Portland, OR cycling advocates (Mia Burk, et al) used the argument of reduced health care costs as an added economic benefit, but I don't recall seeing a price tag attached to it - $74million annually for that alone in Iowa is amazing. Are there similar studies in California we can cite? Those are just the sort of things we need to understand and use for persuasive argument when requesting for improved infrastructure, where $1 million may seem a lot by itself, but the bang for the buck may be huge. It's the big payoff for getting the rest of the 60% out there. We cycling club folk, who are pretty comfortable on the road most of the time, are only ~1%. 

I know Howard and Pete in Oceanside tried to assign a price tag to just how much a cyclist spends in local businesses, but it was not a real full-fledged study, and I believe the total numbers were quite a bit less than what the economics of health benefits may be.

Thanks - Karl

[Paul Nevins]

There may be a study from Davis. Whenever I see any item showing actual data about the economic effects of cycling I save it. Most all really good studies are European with long term data really identifying the investments which offer the greatest benefits. Unfortunately using foreign experiences usually elicits a powerful xenophobic response. For some bizarre reason too many politicos refuse to learn from other cultures.
I posted an eclectic list of sites on the SDCBC open forum. Here are a few others you may find useful.
http://www.ecf.com/
http://uec-federation.eu/
http://www.cycling.org.au/
http://www.bicycles.net.au/Advocacy-and-BUGs.78.0.html?tx_cmadvocacybugs_pi1%5Bcmid%5D=28
http://www.ctc.org.uk/
http://www.britishcycling.org.uk/
http://www.des.ucdavis.edu/faculty/handy/Davis_bike_history.pdf
http://www.marinbike.org/Resources/EconomicBenefitsOfBicycling.pdf

[karlos]

Paul - The Davis study you cite has no hard numbers on economic benefits. It is, nevertheless, VERY interesting. I was surprised that Davis' heyday was really around 1980. The car has been taking over since - even students transportation to classes has dropped from 80% to 50% and commuting in general has dropped from 30% in 1980 to ~15%. Not clear why. The paper does laud Portland and Boulder as having come up with better, modern formulas for the 21st century. I'm still using Mia Burk's "Joyride" as my guide... - Karl

[Paul Nevins]

We discussed getting a study done here in North County at the last Oceanside meeting. Long Beach should have data available in a year or two that we can use. As long as gas is cheap the money will go to freeways so we will not get the infrastructure built to study. Instead of spreading what little money we have throughout the region perhaps we should pick one area, build it up like Long Beach or better and provide funding for a long term economic study. A downtown with a relatively flat residential area surrounding it such as Carlsbad village would be best. The Point Loma peninsula and Bird Rock to Mission Beach would also work. This would mean everyone else will be waiting three to five years before getting any of their projects on line but once we have the hard numbers we all should be able to get much better funding from then on.