Businesses along Vancouver's Hornby and Dunsmuir segregated bike lanes have complained for months about the impact on their bottom line, but only a third responded when asked for their feedback on the controversial infrastructure.

It wasn't for lack of trying.

Charles Gauthier, executive director of the Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement Association, said at least six attempts were made to contact each business, including hand delivery, phone calls and emails to gather feedback, yet the requests mostly went unanswered.

"Either they're not suffering any impacts or not interested in hearing from people who have suffered…or it's a done deal, so why bother," speculated Gauthier when asked why he thought so few businesses responded to the study.

Despite the lack of input, the study showed that the total economic impact of the bike lanes to area businesses is moderate so far, although there were a few "hot spot" blocks along corridors where some businesses reported more negative impacts than others.

Gauthier said that an economic impact could be much greater or lower for downtown businesses, but there's really no way to tell from the small sample of businesses who responded to the survey.

Local consulting firms Stantec Consulting, Site Economics Ltd., and Mustel Group were commissioned to gather responses from local business.

The study attempted to measure the economic and business impacts on a variety of business types along the two streets, as well as changes in commercial/retail occupancy levels, lease rates and sales.

"Vancouver is one of the first cities in North America, and perhaps the world, to undertake such a comprehensive study of the direct business impacts of separated bike lanes," Stantec transportation planner Iona Bonamis wrote in a statement released Thursday.

Although the authors concluded that the absence of hard data and lack of participation affected the strength of the results, they felt confident that enough input was received to produce a solid report.

The results of the study will be presented to City Council on July 28, 2011.