Loading ...This morning, thanks to the Infrastructurist, I read about Long Beach’s quest to become “The Most Bike Friendly City In America”.
Financially, it’s an absolutely brilliant move by Long Beach, for 3 reasons:
1) For people deciding where in the L.A. area to live, Long Beach differentiates itself from all the other cities in the region, and specifically in a way that is particularly likely to attract Xtracycle/REI/bike commuter/outdoorsy types with reasonably high-paying jobs and expendable income. Thus increasing the residential tax base of the community.
2) By making biking easy in the city, it financially entices many households to reduce car ownership and become single-car families (or to go from 3 cars to 2), freeing up several thousand dollars per year for those households — dollars likely to be allocated for discretionary spending and/or for higher real estate values (either way, the city benefits).
3) By encouraging residents to use bicycles for shopping, dining, or entertainment, it makes it highly likely that their money will be spent inside the city limits: at places they can bike to, rather than at a big box store in Norwalk or wherever. So the city captures a much bigger portion of sales taxes.
Unfortunately, these factors only matter in a metropolitan area comprising multiple cities competing with each other for residents and commerce. In that situation, quality of life and quality of transportation can make a big difference.
In San Diego, by contrast, which has a sprawling footprint and is surrounded by municipalities with limited commercial magnetism, there’s basically no competitive incentive to improve the quality of any specific area, or even the region as a whole.