As communities across the United States consider enhancements to their non-motorized transportation networks, there is a growing desire by both transportation planners and decision-makers to evaluate the impacts of these investments. Many communities begin new infrastructure programs with pilot projects to evaluate their efficacy before implementation on a broader scale. Therefore, it is important to provide a technical resource on the methods available for communities to evaluate the different types of outcomes from non-motorized transportation investments, including: mode share changes; environmental benefits; increased accessibility; health benefits; and economic benefits. This white paper is intended to be a technical resource for local communities and others interested in understanding how they might better estimate the economic benefits of investments in non-motorized transportation. It examines potential methods for evaluating the economic benefits from non-motorized transportation investments. The variety of potential economic benefits of bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure and programming investments include: - Commute cost savings for bicyclists and pedestrians; - Direct benefits to pedestrian, bicycle, and tourism-related businesses; - Indirect economic benefits due to changing consumer behaviour; and - Individual and societal cost savings associated with health and environmental benefits. This report provides information on the types of economic benefits realized from non-motorized transportation investments and a review of measurement and analysis techniques to evaluate them. This analysis also examines the different scales at which researchers may focus their data collection and analysis, including: individual consumer behaviour; economic impacts within a non-motorized travel corridor; or community-wide economic impacts. The goal of this report is to provide a technical resource for communities seeking to measure the economic impacts from pedestrian and bicycle transportation projects in the future. The report concludes that researchers should choose evaluation methods and scales of analysis appropriate to the project or program they intend to evaluate. Evaluating the effects of bicycle and pedestrian transportation investments also requires comparison to baseline or control data. Ideally, researchers or project planners should design research plans before implementation of non-motorized transportation projects so that they can collect the relevant baseline data. Comparing communities or neighbourhoods where non-motorized transportation projects have been implemented to similar communities without those investments can establish a control comparison to avoid attributing impacts to non-motorized transportation projects that may reflect more general trends. (Author/publisher)
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