Two Approaches to Valuing Some Bicycle Facilities’ Presumed Benefits

How to cite this study

Krizek, K. 2006. “Two approaches to valuing some bicycle facilities’ presumed benefits.” Journal of the American Planning Association 72(3): 309-320.

Overview

This study found that those commuting by bicycle are willing to go out of their way to use a safer route, with the largest detour for on-street, designated bicycle lanes, followed by routes without parking and routes with an off-street bicycle lane. The effect of these bicycle facilities on property values is mixed, depending on the type of facility and whether it is in an urban or suburban neighborhood.

Relevance

This study would be of interest to those interested in how cyclists perceive specific types of cycling infrastructure. The analysis of cyclists’ willingness to incur extra commuting time is a unique approach in the literature, and provides a useful hierarchy of cycling facilities’ appeal to use in deciding which types of facilities to build and where to locate them.

Location

The study is based in the Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota metropolitan area, population 677,914 in 2013. These cities had an extensive off-street bike path system covering 1,696 miles in 2006.

Trail Type

The study covers urban cycling-related pathways including off-street bike paths and on-street designated bike lanes. These are largely commuter and transportation routes.

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to compare how cycling facilities are valued by users, measured in time tradeoffs cyclists make to use designated facilities and measured in different property values near cycling facilities. The goal of the study is to demonstrate the methods to use in other communities, identify the types of facilities most important to cyclists, and identify where facilities should be located to maximize their effectiveness. The study was funded by the National Cooperative Highway Research Program Guidelines for Analysis of Investments in Bicycle Facilities.

Findings

Cyclists were most likely to go out of their way on their commute to use an on-street bicycle lane (an extra 16 minutes on a 20-minute commute), although they were also willing to go out of their way to use a route with no parking (an extra 9 minutes) or an off-road route (an extra 5 minutes). Women and those with higher incomes were more likely to choose longer, safer routes.

Cycling facilities had different effects on property values in urban versus suburban settings. In the city, prices were $510 higher for every 400 meters closer the house was to an off-road bicycle path. However, in the suburbs, home prices were $240 less for every 400 meters closer the house was to an off-road path. In both the city and suburbs, house prices were lower when they were closer to a roadside bike path: $2,272 lower in the city and $1,059 lower in the suburbs.

These results differ from findings in other studies (e.g., 22, 23, 26, 43) that found proximity to off-road bike paths to be generally associated with higher house prices. The author suggests that this result may be due to lower rates of bicycle use in suburban neighborhoods, or perhaps because houses near bicycle facilities are also near undesirable features such as railroad right-of-ways. Results from this analysis suggest that siting criteria should differ between urban and suburban areas.