Pete-

Signage costs are considered capital expenditures, so they were included in the analysis and are a part of the $3.5 million figure. In terms of capital expenditures, this analysis is very thorough. I should also add that the vast majority of signage on the road is for auto traffic, which I will try to touch on in my next post in this series of "budget by mode."

As for the costs associated with the air pollution of idling - that is potentially a fair cost to associate to bicycles, but only so long as we also attribute air pollution/idling costs to freight and auto traffic as well, and autos definitely create more traffic for themselves -and emissions- than do bicycles. That would be a much more difficult thing to measure, and at the end of the day, would probably be a little subjective.

I do know of a study that calculates the cost of a generic trip on a bicycle, auto, bus, etc. that takes into account pollution concerns, and I can see about posting that on the blog shortly. In this study, though, the cost of automobile pollution is attributed to automobiles, not bicycles - which on balance I have to say I think is fair. Holding emmission-free bicycles responsible for the emissions of other modes of transportation is at the very least quite a tricky endeavor.

Also, this figure does take into account the cost of bike lanes as a portion of the overall street. We looked at how much it cost to pave an entire street and attributed to bicycles the cost of the portion of the street they covered - even though by far the most expensive part of paving a road - the foundation - is designed for automobiles, not bicycles. In this sense, the cost of bike lanes are inflated and take into account costs that would have been expended anyhow for automobiles.

If you are looking for a market valuation of the amount of public right-of-way that goes to bicycle lanes, that is a problematic task for a couple of reasons. First, what I was measuring was capital expenditures, not property values. If I attempted that I would have to inflate the costs of all other modes, too, and property values would probably vary geographically and then you are opening a whole new can of worms. Second, as I noted above, that ROW would have been there anyway, probably as a wider (and vacant) shoulder.