This is what has happened so far. Retail business owners have... not been pleased (to put it mildly).
Overall it's pretty clearly been a net gain, but there's definitely some short term pain there.
Overall it's pretty clearly been a net gain, but there's definitely some short term pain there.
The complaints are likely a combination of general aversion to change, the fact that most retailers are likely drivers and identify as such and look at bike improvements as an attack on their group, and media reporting that focuses on those who lie on the extremes.
That generalization is vague to the point of uselessness. It really depends on the nature of the business in question.
I fully support the law, but given that the proprietors treat us very well and know my wife by name, I haven't tried too hard to change their mind.
I feel like these bike-centric arguments do well in very dense cities like NYC but don't translate as well to places like Boston where there's just as much reason to go into Boston as there is to go out of Boston.