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You are here: Home → Community → Blog → 2011 → July → Job creation: another reason to support bikes

Job creation: another reason to support bikes

Posted by Chris Hagerbaumer at Jul 05, 2011 10:27 AM |
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Investing in pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure is a boon for our local economy.

A recent study highlighted in the Oregonian finds that bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure projects generate more jobs than road projects. For each $1 million spent, cycling projects create an average of 11.4 jobs in a state, pedestrian projects an average of 10 jobs, multi-use trails an average of 9.6 jobs, and road-only projects the least—an average of 7.8 jobs.

bike lane construction image courtesy of The Oregonian


Investing in pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure is a boon for our local economy. Most of the cost of building a bike trail or laying a sidewalk is labor provided by a largely local labor force. And these types of projects provide work for those tradespeople who are pouring fewer foundations and driveways due to the housing downturn.

The case for pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure just gets stronger when you consider that new bikeways and sidewalks are far cheaper than new roads: as confirmed by PolitiFact, the bicycle infrastructure built over the past 17 years in Portland cost the city approximately the same as one lane-mile of urban freeway. Add in the co-benefits of higher property values, better health through more exercise, less pollution, and higher property values, it’s just mindboggling that we aren’t investing more in these important transportation alternatives.

Similar economic analysis has been done to compare how many jobs are created by investments in public transportation versus investments in highway and bridge projects. One study finds that an investment in mass transit results in nearly 30% greater direct and indirect employment than an equivalent investment in new roads and bridges.

Isn’t it time to invest in those transportation projects that will get us the most bang for the buck?

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The Bicycle Dividend in the NYT

Posted by Chris Hagerbaumer at Jul 05, 2011 11:23 AM
Check out yesterday's NYT blog on The Bicycle Dividend too: http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/[…]/

Job creation: another reason to support bikes

Posted by Mary Vogel at Jul 05, 2011 04:17 PM
The author of the study cited, Heidi Garrett Peltier, points out that the primary reason why pedestrian-only and bicycle only infrastructure create more jobs than road-only projects is that for the former types, a greater portion of the spending is used to employ construction workers and engineers, both labor-intensive industries. Road-building uses more capital-intensive industries such as cement manufacturing where relatively fewer dollars are spent on salaries and more are spent on materials and equipment.

My ears perked up at job creation. While I am more than pleased to see that such spending is helping both construction workers and engineers, I'm wondering when studies will focus on others in the built environment professions who are still out of work.

What do we need to do to get beyond the 45-60% unemployment rate for architects, landscape architects, urban designers and planners? What policies and strategies will help us? Perhaps the kinds of measures coming out of the implementation phase of the Healthy & Climate Friendly Communities Act (SB 1059) that OEC helped pass. But can these professions hang on that long--or will we loose our intellectual infrastructure?
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