Every time Bend debates a road project, the conversation defaults to the same instinctual reaction: If traffic is bad, add lanes. It’s an intuitive idea, but it’s also one of the most expensive mistakes a growing city can make.
The places that lean hardest into that instinct aren’t megacities, they’re towns much closer to Bend’s size. Transportation for America’s “Congestion Con” report tracked freeway lane-miles against traffic delay in 100 U.S. metro areas from 1993 to 2017.
Boise, a metro roughly the size of Bend, increased its freeway lane-miles by 141 percent, even faster than its 117 percent population growth, and traffic delay still climbed 446 percent.
Eugene, our fellow mid-size Oregon college town, added 32 percent in lanes, almost matching its 33 percent population growth, and delay still rose 157 percent.
More lanes bought neither city less traffic. That’s the well-documented trap of induced demand: Wider roads make driving easier, so more people drive, and congestion creeps back. Each new lane-mile also costs $4.2 million to $15.4 million to build and roughly $24,000 a year to maintain forever, an expensive way to end up right back where we started.
Cities the size of Bend have shown what works instead: Investing in people who aren’t driving.
Boulder, Colorado, a similarly sized outdoor-recreation town, sees an estimated $52 million in economic activity each year from its local bicycle industry alone, on top of a mountain-biking economy worth roughly $167 million annually statewide.
Victoria, British Columbia, a city of about 80,000, committed $11 million to a connected network of protected “all ages and abilities” bike routes; ridership climbed immediately, and businesses along the new routes report sales gains as high as 15 percent.
Bend isn’t Boulder or Victoria, but the lesson travels: a city our size doesn’t more need costly vehicle lanes and the maintenance burdens that come with them. It needs safe, connected and cost-effective routes that make biking and walking the easiest choice for our daily needs.
Oregon’s own numbers back that up. The newly released “Smarter Investing in Transportation for a Stronger Oregon Economy” report finds that bicycle projects generate about 10 jobs per $1 million spent, and multi-use trails about 9.6, compared with 7.8 for road-only projects.
Transit investments create 31 percent more jobs per dollar than new road and bridge construction. Dollar for dollar, biking and walking infrastructure isn’t a nice-to-have alongside road spending. It’s the better investment.
Bend already knows this in its bones, even if our transportation budgets don’t always reflect it. In 2022, outdoor recreation generated $20.6 billion in economic output and 192,000 jobs statewide. Every one of these dollars generates another 31 cents of local activity, the kind that lands in Bend’s bike shops, breweries, and lodging.
The Historic Columbia River Highway State Trail proves the concept: $447 million in direct visitor spending in a single year, supporting more than 5,000 jobs, built almost entirely by people walking and biking.
Every dollar we put into finishing Bend’s bike networks, including safer crossings on Reed Market, Empire and 3rd street and connected riverside paths, isn’t just a safety upgrade. It’s tourism revenue and jobs that stay local instead of leaving town at the gas pump.
The choice in front of Bend isn’t bikes versus cars. It’s whether we keep pouring scarce dollars into a strategy the data shows doesn’t work, or redirect that money to the trails, paths, and safe streets that create more jobs and cleaner, more affordable ways to get around.
As the city and county weigh the next round of transportation funding, Bend Bikes will keep making that case: Investing in people who walk and bike isn’t a favor to a niche group. It’s the smartest economic move on the table.
For further reading, check out this new report about transportation funding in Oregon:
Smarter Investing in Transportation for a Stronger Oregon Economy.