Despite continuing unhappiness about the center bike lane from businesses along the Valencia Street corridor, that eight-block stretch appears to be doing more business than anywhere else in the Mission District, according to data from the San Francisco Controller’s Office.
New data shows that sales-tax revenue in July, August and September of 2023 was up 3.2 percent, compared to the same months in 2022.
During the period in which the bike lane was installed — construction began in April, but it opened in August — businesses along Valencia sold more goods than they had during the same period the year before.
The data covers sales tax reports from businesses on 15th Street, where the center bike lane begins, to 23rd Street, where it ends. While Valencia saw a slight uptick, sales tax revenue on the identical stretch of Mission Street fell by 0.9 percent. For the entire 94110 zip code, sales tax revenue dropped by 1.9 percent.
The pilot bike lane project along Valencia has been controversial from the start, with businesses and others unhappy with traffic and safety issues, plus the loss of parking. The dissatisfaction and anger among local merchants has not abated.
When asked about the discrepancy between merchants’ experience and the sales tax data, Sean Quigley, the owner of Paxton Gate, said the shop did not see a measurable change in sales before or after the introduction of the bike lane, but sales for the entire year dropped by 13 to 15 percent, month over month.
“To me, [it] means something else is going on alongside the bike lane,” said Quigley. The decline in sales across the zip code would suggest the same. Mission Local has been tracking the economic impact of the bike lane, showing how sales-tax data from April through June of last year, during the bike lane’s construction, was down 6 percent, not the 30 to 40 percent claimed by some businesses. The new data, including July through August, is presented below.
