Interesting. In a city by me, they found that businesses along new bike lanes actually grew by 17%, while the citywide business receipts were static (grew by exactly 0% in inflation adjusted dollars). They were looking at a similar time period (2019-2022). Maybe COVID just hit different cities differently.

Sauce: Culver City Move Pilot Report, page 59 https://www.culvercity.gov/files/content/public/v/8/services...

What are your sources? From 2013: > Leading up to the construction and just afterwards NE 65th St performed very similar to both controls, however two quarters after the project was finished NE 65th St experienced a 350% increase in sales index, followed by another jump to 400% sales index the following quarter.[1]

From 2020 [2]: > "Both the trend analysis and DID analysis show that the protected bike lane on Second Avenue corridor positively impacted employment, especially in the retail sector, when compared to the Fourth Avenue control corridor"

> "In conclusion, the protected bike lane on Broadway triggered a significant employment increase in the food services industry after installation, indicating an improvement in business vitality as a result."

The overall study finds that

> - On the Second Avenue corridor, the protected two-way bike lane contributed to higher employment and improved business vitality in the retail sector. - On Broadway Avenue, we find that the protected bike lane triggered a significant positive impact on food services employment after installation, indicating an improvement in business vitality as a result."

and > In terms of retail service sector, we found either mixed results or insignificant results. [...] However, the insignificant results may be significant in this context, indicating that there does not appear to be a negative causal impact of right-of-way or parking lane removal on economic outcomes.

Anecdotally, many people in Seattle seem to use the bike lanes, even to commute to work. I also saw a lot of people using them during the world cup.

[1]https://seattletransitblog.com/2013/08/06/seattle-case-study... [2] https://ppms.trec.pdx.edu/media/project_files/National-Stree...

> In Seattle and Portland the businesses within 1 block of new bike lanes declined faster after 2019.

I wonder if there was some event that generally killed businesses relying on foot traffic some time after 2019 that could help explain that outcome. Perhaps once that event is identified, we can consider what businesses did survive and compare them to the foot traffic heavy businesses and see if there's some other qualitative difference between those that made it through and those that didn't.

Source? There are so many explanations for that beyond just "bike lanes kill businesses".

"after 2019" - you cannot be serious here right?

> declined faster after 2019

Is your study discovering the effects of... COVID-19? I guess you've just discovered your own analogy of https://xkcd.com/1138/

> the real problem is they can't rule that parents must be responsible for their children

It's impossible for the average parent to police their child's smartphone. They just don't have, and never will have, the technical skills.

> I find the moral panic about kids with phones/internet access fascinating

And for those parents, which are quite rare, that do have the technical skills AND the involvement to ban smartphone usage at young ages, guess what. When Joey and Mickey and Sarah all have smartphones and are doom scrolling TikTok, even those parents lose. If all socializing moves to smartphones, the weirdo kids that don't have them or access to the "cool stuff" are automatically excluded. It's extremely alienating and nothing like not having calculators or PCs.

Back in your day (or mine), huge corporations more akin to drug dealers employing tens of psychologists weren't trying to get kids addicted to calculators.

Fwiw when I was in school kids would definitely check their phones from time to time or send an occasional surreptitious text. But it wasn't as pervasive as it is today- I was pretty shocked to see even at the elementary school level how much class time kids spend on their personal devices

> which doesn't typically work on teenagers

Depends. You have "good kids" and "bad kids".

If this law helps the good kids, then that's at least a win.

In many US schools, they'd take those things away (and return them at end of day, typically) 20-30 years ago. But it helps when it's policy, if it's not a policy then the teacher has no backing from the school.

It definitely reduced usesge though. I was the same age in teens with dumb phones and they were only banned in class. Either way, it's better to have the restrictions in this case than a free for all because teenagers will push limits constantly. I don't see a downside to this.

It absolutely worked in my school a little over 20 years ago. Teachers and staff always took away disallowed devices and that set the tone quite well.

If it’s legally grounded you get more options.

I've talked to parents of kids where they banned smartphones and the difference is palpable. And good.

Eh? It did work. You'd get it confiscated off you.