Bushwick Real Estate Prices Rise Along Bike Lines, Study Finds

BUSHWICK — Living near a bike line in Bushwick could cost you, a new real estate study has found.

The sales prices for buildings near Bushwick’s newest bike lanes rose 16 percent in the past year, even as prices dropped in surrounding neighborhood properties, real estate researcher Andrew Lax reported this month.

Lax looked at real estate sales on streets that got new bike lanes in 2016 — Knickerbocker, Jefferson and Irving avenues as well as Cornelia and Hancock streets — and found the average price rose from about $350 per square foot in 2016 to about $400 in 2017.

During the same time period, the sale price average in Bushwick as a whole dropped from $406 per square foot to $404, Lax found.

Lax’s theory is that the prices reflected the added conveniences bike lanes provide local businesses.

“Bike lanes make for easy transportation and increase foot traffic to local businesses,” Lax wrote. “You won’t park your car and hop into a store if you see something interesting, but you’d surely get off your bike to take a look.”

Lax added in his interview with DNAinfo, who originally reported on his findings, that it made life easier for residents as well.

"Bike lanes support a cheap mode of transportation,” said Lax. “And fewer cars mean safer streets with less honking, pollution and congestion."

Lax warned that the limited dataset meant his findings did not prove bike lanes caused real estate prices to rise, only that bike lanes could be used to help make market predictions on a hyperlocal level.

Update: Andrew Lax unpublished his report on Friday because the analysis needed a "deeper look," he said in a tweet that included a picture of a kitten apologizing.

Photo courtesy of GoogleMaps/Oct. 2016