Here's a fun one, when the local government decided to make my street pedestrian only a local business owner made an absolute spectacle of opposing it. There were sit-ins in town hall, threats of a hunger strike, the storefront was full of flyers, there were attempts to get the press to claim the proposal had widespread opposition. The idea was that who would show up to that street if they had to park somewhere else, right? The business would die and storeowners on that street would be out of a job in a year.

Thing happened anyway, the entire rest of the town is a business desert. Every shop, supermarket and pub moved within half a block of the pedestrian area because of course who would NOT hang out in the nice, safe spot that looks good and has enough room to walk and sit outside for a drink.

Every now and then I walk in front of the dumb place and think of how umuch more valuable it is and how ironic and unfair the whole thing turned out to be. I am pretty sure that the undeniable reality of it all has caused zero self-reflection. I hope I'm wrong.

Back in the day people would go for a drive and stop at random shops...

I'm older now, but traffic and road rage is way crazier these days. I don't know how people find driving enjoyable.

Lots of people like riding bikes tho, and they've got even more reason to stop for shopping, food, or drinks.

What works better than bike lanes tho is bike trails. Lots of cities are converting old rail road tracks into biking/walking trails, and business is booming up and down those trails.