Cost-benefit Analysis of Bicycle and Pedestrian Infrastructure Investment – A Case Study in New Orleans
Economic impact assessment is an essential part of any investment projects. Transportation planners use various methods such as cost-benefit analysis (CBA), to estimate the true value of proposed plans and rationalize projects before making any decision. The method requires identifying full impacts of a decision and ascribing monetary value to each impact in order to make the best use of limited funds. Despite the high efficiency of active travel for urban trips, governments allocate only a small percentage of overall transportation investment’s expenditure on such projects. Nonetheless, the economic analysis of transportation projects has substantially changed the traditional debate on the low priority of bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure.
New Orleans has experienced a mass development in bicycle infrastructure after Hurricane Katrina. Since 2010, New Orleans PBRI Initiatives program at University of New Orleans Transportation Institute (UNOTI) has constantly monitored various locations across the city of New Orleans. The program observed that expansion in bicycle facilities from 37 miles in 2010 to over 118 miles in 2017 resulted in significant increase in bicycle ridership and pedestrians. This study aims to evaluate the net benefit cost ratio (NBCR) of biking and walking infrastructure intervention between 2010 and 2017 in New Orleans.
Pertaining costs are estimated based on facility construction expenditures and money spent for maintenance. The adoption of cycling, in lieu of public and private travel mode, significantly mitigate a wide variety of costs (e.g. healthcare, safety, air pollution, congestion, and parking) which are calculated as benefits. Considering the timing of benefits and costs making, an inflation-adjusted estimation is made to avoid underestimating total budget. The result shows that bike and pedestrian facility growth over the last decade resulted in a substantial benefit (NBCR= 0.58).