Bike lanes, On-street parking and Business. This case study is useful as a reference in the dialogue with shop-owners as its findings prove that motorised shoppers are not the ones who bring more business. We plan to use the procedure in our “Active shopping” subtask.
Bike lanes, On-street parking and Business. We will use this idea on our next car free day – what happens if we change a car street to a pedestrian street and what will happen to the shops on that street? We have many places where this change would be very successful. All our Old Town is car friendly, but could be car free, because there we have outdoor restaurants, outdoor shops, where fresh air is very important, but cars disturb that.
Bike lanes, On-street parking and Business. The example from Bloor Street, Toronto is very interesting for us in more that one aspect. We are just in the middle of an argumentation with our municipality about where to put new bike racks – in the place of car parking places or on the sidewalk. A quite similar debate we had with shopkeepers on the smaller ring road of Budapest when a new bike lane was created. Such studies can be a firm argument for our case that is: it is better to take space away from cars rather than pedestrians. On the other hand we also plan to survey merchants in the frame of our Active Access application and this study can give us ideas on what and how to measure.
Bike lanes, On-street parking and Business. This example has to be lead by decision makers and government only. In our region, in Annecy, a lot has been already made to make the city centre a pedestrian area. Street car parks are still present but expensive and it is very difficult for a car to go in town (or to go out). At the beginning, shopkeepers were absolutely against this idea, but they have changed their mind now! We spoke about it with the stakeholders of Chamonix, but it is not easy: shop owners’ associations are literally against the “pedestrian city centre”. And they are not ready yet to accept any argumentation: the local government has already tried to speak with them and present the positive parts: administration services are working step by step. It could be a very interesting case study to present anyway.
Bike lanes, On-street parking and Business. The Bike Lanes project seems very interesting but it is believed that the transport mentality in Cyprus (clients: parking with car outside of the shop you are visiting / shop owners: having as many car parking places possible is an indicator of your success) is not yet ready to accept this change. It is believed that if students start using their bicycles around the town, this will cause the change in shop-owners thinking. Although, we are not very optimistic about the positive response of shop owners, we are planning to use some of the techniques and arguments used in Bike Lanes project to convince shop owners (i.e. using information and percentage from surveys that took place in other European countries).
Bike lanes, On-street parking and Business. This project is a set of surveys of visitors and shopkeepers of a street in Toronto. It points out an important problem – the difference between perceived ideas and what actually happens. It is common that a small group of noisy opinion makers can give the impression that most groups thinks alike. It is also common for shopkeepers to overstate the importance of car accessibility to the success of their business. In the case of Aveiro, because the project will involve some kind of parking restrictions (mainly elimination of illegal parking in the historic centre), it will be important to know what is the percentage of clients that actually come by car and what is the perceived importance of that kind of parking for the shopkeepers. Like in Toronto, in Aveiro it will be essential to access what percentage of the on-street parking spaces are occupied at different times of the day and the off-street parking data to determine whether there is under-utilised capacity.
