Pedestrian plazas and bike lanes may be annoying for drivers — but they’ve been a bonanza for businesses, according to a new Department of Transportation study.
Retail sales around the DOT’s very first pedestrian plaza on Pearl Street in DUMBO, Brooklyn — which was transformed from a dingy parking lot in 2007 — increased by 172 percent three years after it opened, according to a DOT analysis of tax receipts.
And stores along a mini pedestrian plaza on Pearl Street in the Financial District in Manhattan — which is only open during warm months — saw a 14 percent increase in sales during peak seasons.
Meanwhile, shops along the route of the protected bike lane on Ninth Avenue — from 23rd to 31st streets — got a 49 percent boost in retail sales, the study found.
The avenue — which received other enhancements like pedestrian plazas and turning bays at the same time as the bike lanes — also benefited with a 49 percent decrease in injuries of all street users.
DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan said that street redesigns like bike lanes and plazas lead to more careful driving. They help business by making the area safe for pedestrians to meander.
“The signal it gives drivers is, there is a lot of stuff going on in the street,” she said.
“Pedestrians spend more than any other user on the street,” she said.
The study also found a marked increase in cyclists using the bike lanes. A whopping 177 percent more cyclists rode First and Second avenues after dedicated bike lanes were installed there in 2010, according to the DOT.
That figure was tabulated over a six month period.