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When it comes to walking, many businesses understand pretty intuitively the value of fostering good foot traffic - the ones that are surviving, anyway. With bicycling, however, a lot of business owners and political decision-makers just don't get it at all. When Elly Blue wrote "Why an additional road tax for bicyclists would be unfair," which was later followed by a series of posts on Grist under the banner of bikenomics, I started to view bicycling under a completely different lens. This view and emphasis on economics has influenced my own writing and advocacy ever since. Elly Blue (left) & April Economides (right) At Pro Walk-Pro Bike April Economides, principle of Green Octopus Consulting, who headed up the program to create bicycling friendly business districts in Long Beach, is another voice in the bike movement who has been emphasizing economics. She was recently hired by Bike Nation to manage their bike share program proposed in Long Beach. Blue and Economides got together for the first time for a presentation at Pro-Walk/Pro-Bike titled "Bikenomics & the Business Case for Bike-Friendly Business Districts". Their presentations complimented each other very well, with Blue setting up some of the conceptual framework for why looking at the economics of bicycling is important, while Economides outlined the nuts and bolts of the outreach and programs done so far in Long Beach. April encouraged people early on in her talk "to engage the business community; we can't just preach to the choir". Some of the most well known aspects of the Long Beach bicycle-friendly business districts are the discounts participating businesses offer for those arriving on bike, and the themed bike racks selected by and installed for businesses. Each business district also received its own cargo bike to be used by businesses for whatever use they may find for them. Given the difficulty of finding places to either buy or rent such utilitarian bicycles throughout most

On Ninth Avenue, where the city has installed protected bike lanes, businesses from 23rd Street to 31st Street have seen a 49 percent increase in retail sales, compared with a boroughwide average of 3 percent over the same period, the report said. On the north end of Union Square, where the city has installed a plaza and a protected bike path, the department said there was a 49 percent reduction in commercial vacancies. The borough has averaged an increase of 5 percent in commercial vacancies. In Brooklyn, where a parking area on Pearl Street was converted into a plaza, retail sales have increased 172 percent for neighboring businesses, compared with 18 percent throughout the borough.

Small retailers may not be able to compete with the big guys on Black Friday, but they're hoping shoppers will respond to deals and to the call to support small, local stores. Story Highlights Small Business Administrator Karen Mills expects this Small Business Saturday to be best yet To 36% of small retailers, Small Business Saturday is biggest day of season; 24%, Black Friday Nov.

As acceptance of the bicycle lifestyle gains traction throughout North America, business owners and entrepreneurs of all stripes are hard at work entrenching bike-friendliness into their business models. Why? Quite simply, it's a smart business move.

From 2000 to 2010, bicycle commuting rose 40 percent in the U.S. But, in the 38 largest BFCs, the rise in bike commuters was almost double the national rate, growing a staggering 77 percent over the same time period. Cities like Portland, Ore.; Boulder, Colo; Davis, Calif., and other leading BFCs are almost ready to join the ranks of world-class bike communities - and the League has been working with BFC representatives to envision a higher standard that challenges and charts new heights for bicycle-friendliness in the United States. "If it sounds like we are moving the goalposts, it's because we are," says Andy Clarke, League President. "Communities are doing so much more, and the state of the practice in innovative infrastructure and programs has developed so rapidly in recent years, that it really is time to challenge communities to do even more to make biking better." Attaining Diamond designation will involve an individualized challenge tailored to each community. The League will conduct a detailed audit for each city and work with community leaders to create clear 5-, 10- and 15-year goals for important factors like bicycle mode share, land use, crashes, network connectivity and bike culture. The primary measure to Diamond designation: The number of people riding and citizen satisfaction. Cities will delve into a more detail evaluation of ridership and level of service, using standard methods of measure like the American Community Survey and National Bicycle and Pedestrian Documentation Project, but also more challenging and broader tools such as Copenhagen's Bicycle Account. The end goal: American communities that rival top international cycling cities like Copenhagen and Amsterdam with world-class facilities, like protected bike lanes - and so much more. "In Portland, bikes mean business," says Tom Miller, Director of the Portland (Ore.) Bureau of Transportation. "Our commitment to bike-friendly streets has helped to attract a wealt

"Measuring the Streets" demonstrated that small businesses in New York City near bike lanes "have done very well, especially when compared to borough-wide averages," the New York City Department of Transportation (DOT), which issued the report, noted. Along Ninth Avenue in Manhattan, for example, sales grew "by as much as 49 percent on portions after DOT installed the city's - and nation's - first parking-protected bike lanes there in 2007, 16 times the borough-wide growth," according to the report.

Bicyclists Are Serious Shoppers A 2012 study of shoppers in New York City's East Village district - which had recently installed protected bike lanes - found that, per capita per week, cyclists spent the most money at local businesses. Bicyclists: $168 Pedestrians: $158 Car drivers: $143 Public transit: $111 The "so what?" argument may seem valid here. The East Village is particularly dense, with especially high mode shares of bicycling and walking. So of course that will be represented in total retail sales for the area. But the phenomenon does not exist in a single-neighborhood vacuum; cities in every region across the country are seeing positive results from increased bike infrastructure.

As a transportation company, B-Line's vision is to redefine how goods and services are transported in our increasingly urban environment by simply providing the right tool for the job. As an advertising and promotions company, B-Line seeks to combine flexibility with ingenuity. As a stakeholder in our community, B-Line is passionate about creating a company that is part of a solution and a partner in living. We seek to enrich the fabric of our cities by reducing congestion and CO2 emissions, developing local green-collar jobs, partnering with local manufacturers and small businesses, doing our share to help those in need in our community, and generally believing in the premise that business can be a catalyst for positive change and has a responsibility to the common good.

Wash Cycle Laundry is a laundry business and a social enterprise. We entered this business to green every step of doing laundry, from the means of delivery to the equipment and detergents. We're also striving to create meaningful, upwardly mobile careers for Philadelphians.

By now, we all know that cycling is good for health, fitness, cutting road accidents, reducing carbon emissions, and increasing energy security (and so on, and on). But what about biking's economic impact--its cyclonomics, if you will? The League of American Bicyclists put a map together to publicize a recent report by its policy director Darren Flusche. Flusche says the most important pieces of evidence for bicycling's economic impact come from business district studies, including ones for downtown Memphis and Long Beach, California. Research (PDF) covering Portland, Oregon, meanwhile, showed that bicyclists spent more over a month than either motorists or walkers. "Those arguments are critical for convincing businesses to allow bike infrastructure in front of their shops, because they are very aware of parking, and they have the perception that most people arrive by car. That's not always the case. You can fit many more bikes in a spot than cars," Flusche says.