Date of Award

6-27-2025

Date Published

August 2025

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Economics

Advisor(s)

Alexander Rothenberg

Second Advisor

Sevgi Erdogan

Subject Categories

Economics | Social and Behavioral Sciences

Abstract

This dissertation studies how bike lanes affect cities on commuting and non-commuting margins. The first chapter analyzes the impact of bike lanes on commuting behavior, including mode shares, commuting flows, and travel times. Using data from Seattle spanning 2000 to 2012, this chapter employs several reduced-form estimations. Instrumental variable regressions reveal that the provision of bike lanes reduces car mode shares but does not significantly affect bike mode shares. By introducing a novel treatment variable that captures both the proximity and coverage of bike lanes, I find that bike lanes encourage more people to commute by bike, but also contribute to increased car congestion. The effects are heterogeneous: paved bike lanes significantly influence commuting patterns, while shared bike lanes exhibit no effect. A hedonic analysis further shows that bike lanes are capitalized into higher housing prices, reflecting the positive overall preference for bike lanes. The second chapter focuses on the non-commuting effects of bike lanes. I calibrate a Quantitative Spatial Model (QSM) with a nested logit commuting cost structure and estimate the commuting cost elasticity parameter and Frechet parameter in the model using aggregate market level data. By recovering amenity fundamentals from observed commuting patterns and housing prices, I find that bike lanes have heterogeneous effects on local amenities. Counterfactual simulations indicate that expanding the bike lane network reduces aggregate welfare, as the increase in congestion outweighs the gains in amenity fundamentals. Moreover, the magnitude of the welfare change is considerably smaller than bike lane construction costs.

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Open Access

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Economics Commons

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