23/11 Mariona Segú (CY Cergy Paris Université)

Résumé

Large cities are more and more interested in developing their bicycle infrastructure network. Despite many existing narrative accounts, sound quantitative assessments of the consequences of bike infrastructure development for local economic activity are scarce. We conduct an empirical evaluation of the impact of a large-scale infrastructure project, the construction of the Plan Velo in the city of Paris, on businesses operating in the non-tradables sector. We use a market access approach to compute a measure of bike market access for local businesses. We find that economic activity, as proxied by the total value and volume of card transactions directed at local businesses increases following an improvement in bike market access. The effect is mainly driven by the retail sector. By increasing bike market access (relative to car market access), the development of bike lane infrastructure also brought about a reduction in car traffic, further improving the quality of life in the impacted neighbourhoods.