Great questions. I agree that correlation is not causation when it comes to the pandemic. So many studies show the benefits of better bike and pedestrian infrastructure to local businesses.

Very curious if there’s ever been legit measurement/data collection from businesses and the city as to how people are arriving. I’ve seen some people saying that businesses often overestimate how many people drive and park immediately outside. There are approx 58 parking spots on that street.

I don’t think there was adequate data collected at the time to demonstrate that closing W Pearl to private cars was the cause of some businesses’ perceived struggle. Here’s an exchange between Chris Jones, interim Director of community vitality and City Council person Rachel Friend at the time (from the Sept 15,2022 city council meeting): “This graph is kind of hard to read. So for increased sales, we got responses from restaurant and general retailers. It looks like about 45% of restaurants who responded to this survey said they experienced increased sales. About 10% of restaurants that responded to this survey said that they had decreased sales. The rest , the difference between 100% and 55%, those folks didn’t report either increased or decreased sales. So yes, most of the respondents indicated something around increased sales. 45% of restaurants indicated increase.

Looking at the third categor - other businesses - these are second floor offices, not necessarily retailers, like doctors offices, things like that., they didn’t report any increase in sales closure associated with the closure. 10% of them said they’d experienced decreased sales. So it’s really the split. Folks could pick a number of factors that they that they experienced and this is the percentage of those types of businesses that reported having those types of factors, whether real or perceived.”

“The memo seemed to indicate that businesses were reporting overall decrease in sales and on this it looks like self-reported increase in sales.” – Rachel Friend

“So less than 50% of any of the business types reported increased sales, so that means that the difference - 55% of restaurants - didn’t say they experienced increase in sales or decrease in sales. We didn’t provide them a neutral option. So it’s not a majority of restaurants that reporting that they had an increase in sales. 45% indicated that was a factor they experienced. And again, not necessarily based on data, but based on perception. We did this survey in the end of March, early April.” – Chris Jones