After the World Series, It's Time To Do Some Economic Development for Our Neighborhoods

Greetings Neighbors,

All eyes are now on our Cubbies playing hard in the World Series. All good...and when they've won it's time to turn our attention to another exciting venture: Bikes, Business and Building Community: Economic Development for Our Neighborhoods. Our next meeting is coming up this Saturday, November 5 at 3:30 PM at the Edgebrook Library, 5331 W. Devon. All citizens welcome! Some good stats about bike paths below and more info underneath that. Questions? Please ask. Jac Charlier - jac.charlier@gmail.com.

Go CUBS Go!

***Some bike path economic data...
* Evidence suggests rails-trails spur local retail and generally increase property values in rural and suburban areas. But in the urban environment, the degree of that increase very much depends on how fancy the project is, and where it happens.

* The impact can be significant. On trails like Prairie Path, for example, that can add up to nearly $1.5 million in annual revenue. The study suggests that 35 percent of trail users reported making some kind of retail purchase during their visit, and the path receives more than 122,000 visitors per year. Translation: When a visitor spends any money at all, they’re dropping something like $35. “It’s for beer, it’s for candy bars, and energy bars, and Gatorade and stuff,” Buchtelsays. “Beneficiaries are bars, restaurants, and convenience stores and stuff. That’s most of the purchasing but, still, it’s substantial.”

* The reports have helped people to consider the trail user, not just as the jogger or the cyclist, but somebody who has a credit card.

* One study after another shows the same thing: statistically significant bumps in property values for homes within a quarter mile of a bike path.

* In the early days, neighbors feared that rails-trails would bring strangers and criminals into their backyards and property values would plummet. But the numbers told a different story. A study of Wisconsin rail-trails performed by researchers at the University of Delaware showed the prices of homes on a trail jumped by 9 percent. A Salem University study of the Minuteman Bikeway in suburban Boston found that homes within a quarter mile of a bike path commanded higher prices and sold almost twice as fast as those further from the trail.

***And more about Bikes, Business and Building Community here:

Our purpose is to grow our local business climate by welcoming the thousands of new and existing cyclists using the expanded North Branch Bike Trail to get them to know, shop, and recreate in our neighborhoods located along and near the bike path.

So join with your neighbors on Saturday, October 1 at 3:30 PM at the Edgebrook Library for this new citizen-led economic development initiative passing through our communities and soon to be connecting North Mayfair (Foster and Pulaski) to Edgebrook (Devon and Central), and going into Glenview through Niles and Morton Grove. Phase I has been completed and Phase II will be completed no later than Spring 2017.

We are in the early stages of Bikes, Business and Building Community and we are looking for citizen leaders, folks passionate about growing the business climate and local civic organizations representing the communities along the Bike Path (new and existing) such as North Mayfair, Mayfair, Forest Glen, Indian Woods, Edgebrook, North Edgebrook, Wildwood, Mayfair, Sauganash, Morton Grove and Niles.

We'll build community. We'll solve the economic challenge. We'll live better together as a community. Join us.

More Information or questions? Please ask. Jac Charlier at jac.charlier@gmail.com