(Image: Wishbone Design Studio)
These are the stories that caught our eyes last week…
Smart pedals: The buzz this morning is all about “connected” pedals that track your location, speed, distance and so on. They debuted today at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas.
The Growing Bike: This balance trike-and-bike adjusts to fit your kids as they grow.
Distractions everywhere: A Eugene motorcycle cop who had just pulled someone over for texting while driving was hit by a van whose driver is suspected of texting while driving. Can you say epidemic?
Institutional inequality: According to the rules that recommend when a stoplight should be installed in the United States, a person on foot counts as four-fifths of a person driving a car.
Car ownership costs: They’re rising dramatically in some world cities, falling rapidly in others.
Not just “racing cough”: One in three racers on the British pro cycling Team Sky has asthma. That’s 3-4 times the national rate.
No accident: Seven years of rapid street redesigns (including, most visibly, 400 miles of bike lanes) made 2014 the safest year for walking in New York City since records began in 1910.
Places we’d like to be: The Golden Gate Bridge next weekend when it’s closed to auto traffic.
75,065 miles in one year: The record has stood since 1939.
Helmet laws: A new study found that bike helmet laws reduce bike-related head injuries among children by 13 percent … apparently because they reduce biking among children by about 9 percent.
Safety tools: In an alternative universe, people in English-speaking countries worry less about bike helmets and more about something that’s apparently more important to bike safety: permanent running lights.
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Terrible idea: One drunk man coaxed another to climb onto the seat of a half-bike mounted ten feet above a sidewalk storefront. He apparently escaped with broken bones, but the video is excruciating.
Truck sideguards: Despite a federal board’s recommendation, the federal government is dragging its feet on requiring these lifesaving features.
Bridge bike lane: Bike traffic across a Minneapolis bridge rose 81 percent after it got post-protected bike lanes in 2014. (There had been no bike lane before.)
Bike dashboard: A team of ex-Audi workers have created a $159 electronic dashboard for your bike, including turn signals and smartphone dock.
Capacity contradiction: You can believe in Peak Car or you can believe in induced demand, but Aaron Renn argues that you can’t believe in both.
Injury lawsuit 1: A Chicago woman paralyzed in a bike crash has sued the city for allegedly “failing to adequately warn bicyclists of the turns and sudden drop-offs along that stretch of trail.”
Injury lawsuit 2: A Portland woman has sued the organizers of a Hood River mountain bike race after striking a fallen tree that had been left on the course.
2015 trends: The slope of the “bike sharing” curve on this chart is pretty neat. So are all of these curves, actually.
Urban wreckage: These before-and-after slider maps show how freeways tore up U.S. street grids.
Highway, Boulder-style: The 18-mile route to Denver’s bike-friendliest exurb is getting a sidepath.
Paperboy retires: The last bicycle newspaper carrier in Salisbury N.C. is retiring. He’s 83. (The Mercury wrote about one of Portland’s last paperboys in 2010 … before switching to bike delivery itself.)
Dutch car sales: In the Netherlands, 2014 was the second-worst sales year for new cars since 1969. Half the country’s showrooms are expected to close in the next few years.
Your video of the week is also Road.cc’s video of the year. This GoPro video of two dudes drafting a truck on a freeway at 77 mph topped the UK cycling site’s list of its top 10 bike videos of 2014. It keeps getting crazier:
Perspective: And for a final item, here’s one person’s experience that has resonated even more than usual with us over the last week: (Note from the Publisher: For context, @Caitlin’s tweet was made in reaction to serious allegations that have been swirling on Facebook for the past few days about someone who has been active with PDX Bike Swarm and other groups — and whose writing and photos have been featured here on BikePortland. We are aware of the allegations, take them very seriously, and are still considering the most appropriate way to respond. There’s a big meeting tomorrow night where I hope to learn more. – Jonathan)
There's a special rage I feel toward white men whose biggest social justice concern is bicycling
— Caitlin (@spoonunits) January 3, 2015
If you come across a noteworthy bicycle story, send it in via email, Tweet @bikeportland, or whatever else and we’ll consider adding it to next Monday’s roundup.
Distractions everywhere: O’live commenters defending dangerous driving.
Justified thusly:
I. Congestion = Lost Productivity;
II. In-car Cell Use = Increased Productivity;
Therefore, it’s only fair that I be able to phone in my car to make up for the time I’m losing by sitting in my car in a lake of cars.
Further, it’s the cyclists’ fault that I am forced to use my phone in the car because congestion is caused by too many bikes and not enough roads. Plus cyclists are stealing my money.
Therefore, if a cyclist is the victim of my dangerous driving, they did it to themselves and deserve what they get. Especially if they aren’t wearing a helmet.
Thanks for including the article about the woman suing the race organizers of the Super D. This is potentially a big deal with repercussions for those of us who participate in competition (and organized events of all types), and one we all need to be aware of.
And, according to the last article I read on Tommy Goodwin’s extraordinary feat, he was never able to completely straighten his fingers again
In the article it says that “…the Guinness Book of Records will no longer sanction attempts as they decided it is too dangerous,”
and I find that a little silly. It’s such an impressive feat.
“The bike had a Reynolds 531 frame, Sturmey Archer 4 speed gear and a Brooks B17 leather saddle, and it would have weighed about 30 lbs.”
And people complain about bike weight and low gear counts.
I have been amazed by TG’s feat since reading about it some years back and have often wondered about the physical ramifications. But to think purely about the numbers, his mileage total was like riding STP every day for one year – STP, PTS, STP, PTS, etc. Astounding!
regarding the Capacity Contradiction piece: His basic observation is correct, but I don’t agree with this conclusion:
“In short, in some cases peak car strengthens the argument for building or expanding roads.”
The author is a little too fond of the kinds of insights one gains from statistics that show us average behavior. He is missing the fact that both observed VMT decline and Peak Car are very lumpy, are not evenly distributed across space and time, as I tried to suggest in a comment here some years ago: http://bikeportland.org/2010/10/15/study-shows-crc-project-could-cost-up-to-10-billion-41158#comment-1644237
Peak Car will (obviously) supersede induced demand one of these days, but in the meantime it does not follow that building more roads makes sense in certain cases.
I think there are three key points the author misses.
1.) In a scenario where urban population growth outpaces surburban and rural population growth, per capita VMT could decrease (thanks to shorter trips) while congestion increases (thanks to increased use of urban roads and highways). If you think this scenario sounds far-fetched, remember that Oregon’s *total* VMT flatlined in 2001 and has been trending downwards for several years. How much has this reduced traffic congestion in Portland?
2.) Even assuming a flat per capita VMT, demand for roads varies hour-by-hour. More road capacity on a given route could still increase demand for that route if it induces people to shift the time of day when they use that route.
3.) Even if 1 & 2 aren’t a problem, that just shifts the cost-benefit balance, but it doesn’t eliminate it. There are many, many things that land, labor, raw materials could be used for other than road capacity, and even at peak car there’s no guarantee at all that minimizing auto travel times is the best use of those resources.
Cite for Oregon VMT: http://oregoneconomicanalysis.com/2013/06/10/vehicle-miles-traveled/
Per capita VMT in Portland peaked in 2005. Cite (data through 2012): http://www.oregonmetro.gov/sites/default/files/101513_transportation_system_monitoring_daily_vehicle_miles_traveled_1990-2012.pdf.
Induced demand is primarily an economic argument stating that if drivers value their time the won’t drive in times & places that they remember wasted thay precious time. Conversely they WILL preferentially drive new and widened roads because “common sense” tells them that it always be better.
Because the driver has no negative memories associated with the new/wider route they will use it over more logical routes; unconsciously we treat the new route as if it has a time cost of “zero”.
What Induced Demand oddly fails to account for is the other primary economic factor in driving: fuel costs. With an alleged peak in car ownership we can compare the next 6 months of VMT with low fuel costs against what our expectations are.
Of course Peak Car also may be influenced by the resurging economy and lowering unemployment. Simultaneously lower gasoline prices will make driving more affordable while increased employment will allow more car-less people to be blessed with the gawd-givun-riat to drive everywhere even if it is only 100` down the road.
Probably should mention the O story of last week about the woman suing the City of Portland over what she found to be an incorrect pavement repair surrounding a street utility cover. She was riding her bike when the front wheel dropped into a recess in the asphalt around the cover, which I’m guessing, abruptly stopped forward motion of the bike, resulting in a crash from which she sustained serious injuries. I think the amount of the suit is for $360,000.
Need more info, but incidents like this one raise a number of important questions about what minimum road maintenance standards exist to enable safe road use with bicycles. Such incidents also raise questions about precautions road users are obliged to take for their own safety.
@Caitlin: There is a special kind of despondence I feel when I see senseless criticism directed at great people doing awesome work.
Caitlin’s criticism is not senseless nor was it directed at great people.
Michael & Jonathan, please watch thse comments. Caitlin does not need to be targetted today, esp. with this BS.
The way it is presented, it is directed at white men who are bicycle advocates. I’m not up on why this group is deserving of rage, and there’s no context here in the roundup.
As far as I can tell, it’s directed at white men who are bicycle advocates but whose social action (and whose self-scrutiny) starts and stops with bicycling. Though Caitlin’s comment was made in the context of this week’s events — and though our efforts to figure out BikePortland’s role in this situation is also why her words resonated personally with Jonathan and I — I think it’s a sentiment that’s useful for people who care about biking to think about in general. That’s why I put it in the Roundup.
In my view it’s possible and common to care about transportation justice and to also care about other, even more fundamental categories of justice. Many do, thankfully, though that doesn’t give any of us a free pass to stop considering our own choices.
‘”In my view it’s possible and common to care about transportation justice and to also care about other, even more fundamental categories of justice.”
Amen!
And that is precisely why I am so surprised at the degree of anger and meanness frequently expressed (and upvoted) against homeless people, occasionally black, brick-throwing kids, and those who engage in or defend their right to civil disobedience, right here on bikeportland.
Gee I dunno, because throwing a brick at a person’s head is attempted murder?
That does not, in my view, justify that tone of the comments some people chose to post here.
Kids do lots of stupid things. Many of us did stupid things as kids – and were lucky. I know I did.
I did dumb stuff too but I NEVER THREW A BRICK AT SOMEBODY’S HEAD!
Dan’s effort at analogy was lacking in its original posting, and it hasn’t improved with your reposting of it here.
The ‘hang em high’, ‘shoot first and ask questions later’ approach isn’t a well reasoned application of social justice, but it seems whenever a story is posted on bikeportland about someone driving and involved in a collision with someone riding a bike, certain people consistently seem to express a desire for something on the order of that approach towards the person driving: ‘They were driving a car? Guilty, Guilty, Guilty.’.
You accuse us of saying ‘guilty, guilty, guilty,’ wsbob, but our society, basically, says the opposite, even when it is clear to everyone what happened. If you have doubts, I draw your attention to Ray Thomas’s newest piece here on bikeportland:
http://bikeportland.org/2015/01/06/get-legal-ray-thomas-need-know-hit-run-130563
“Here’s the sad but true fact: If a vehicle operator* can escape a collision scene then the chances are they will get away without having to pay for the damage they caused and they can also avoid things like: arrest on an outstanding warrant; a DUI charge for driving/riding while impaired; a possible police search of the vehicle for drugs or contraband on board; a car with no insurance, or not having a drivers’ license.”
There is only one sentiment I see here, and that is hate. Now that I see some of these other comments I’m starting to get some semblance of context, but personally I don’t believe whatever injustice has befallen her is justification for this vitriol. If her sentiment is directed at an individual then she had the option to name said individual – and she also had the option to not “tweet” anything. As she has written it, it’s directed at me.
Caitlin’s comment is full of sense to me. For context, please read this: http://couldbehoneycomb.tumblr.com/post/107094601203
And to further clarify: Caitlin’s statement resonates with me outside of this current situation. That said, please read the above link.
Rob,
I strongly disagree with your response to Caitlin’s tweet.
If you’d like to continue to comment here, please do not insult or marginalize anyone else’s viewpoints. You are welcome to disagree with Caitlin, but using the word “senseless” in the context of your comment is mean-spirited and not productive.
I hope you understand.
And FWIW, I don’t think it’s fair to assume that Caitlin is directing her thought at any specific person/people.
thanks jon
I’ll be honest, I don’t understand either side of this comment series. What’s the backstory here? I couldn’t gather it even after reading the Hart Noecker link.
Well, I have to say that putting that quote out there without the context Steve B helpfully added, was a little weird. Having only just now read that backstory (the part of it Steve B linked) I have to assume you thought everyone already was in the loop? Maybe Rob didn’t have the benefit of knowing the backstory to the quote either?
Kind of an odd, oblique inclusion of a heavy topic in the Monday Roundup.
Senseless is stronger than hate? I don’t know the backstory. Why are we hating on white people who believe strongly in bicycle advocacy as social justice?
Rob,
1) she didn’t use the word “hate” 2) It’s all about context.
I read her tweet as merely an observation, not as “hating on white people who believe strongly in bicycle advocacy.”
“2) It’s all about context.”
Indeed; as we’re now learning. But context that was not supplied initially.
Actually. I was referring to context of their two comments. Caitlin’s comment was a tweet put out into the air and not directed at any specific person. Rob’s comment was made directly at Caitlin. Big difference IMO.
I read the @Caitlin intro to Rob’s post as a way to alert us readers which of the monday roundup items he was responding to rather than as a personal message to her. But I don’t tweet so perhaps I misread that bit of lingo.
As for Caitlin’s message being directed at the world in general, the context Steve B supplied suggests, at least to me, rather the opposite; that this very upsetting experience with one person inspired her quoted statement. But I don’t know any of the principle characters involved so will bow out now.
“Special rage” seems stronger than hate, but I did misquote. If this is about sexual assualt crime, why does bike advocacy need to be attacked and dragged down. I’m not aware of a correlation. There are a lot of wonderful bike advocates who do not need to be regularly label “smug” or “privileged” let alone lumped in with predators.
I read her tweet as hating on white men whose biggest social justice concern is bicycling – i.e. me. I have no idea what the context is because it is not included here. This is why I find Twitter absolutely ridiculous. The fact that she specifies white comes across as racist, and by specifying men she comes off as sexist, plain and simple.
This thread is coming dangerously close to going off the rails. I think (guess?) this tweet was intended to be a reminder that the injustice suffered by cyclists is not the only (nor the most serious) form of injustice out there. Certainly we’ve all experienced holier-than-thou attitudes which are as harmful to the cause as they are to individuals. Furthermore, we need to constantly take account of the privileges we *do* have. If you are a well-off, white male – consider blessings before you go into battle to change the transportation world.
Right. So that’s what I read from it, but then I read the comments. It seems that there is a backstory here, that there may be individuals involved here and that there is more than meets the eye. Furthermore, there is always a of vicious backlash risk when a woman steps forward on the internet with a strong opinion. So please please PLEASE. No matter how well intentioned, no matter how nuanced your opinion, please be incredibly careful of how you respond to this. Any heated controversy we have over this is unlikely to be helpful, and it could very well play into the larger system of hate and fear that keeps women from speaking up in the first place.
Posting the tweet without any context or backstory was irresponsible. Jonathan Maus, are you baiting us?
No. Not trying to “bait” anything. Sorry the posting of that tweet without a link or other context was confusing. I will add more context to the post.
+1 for irresponsibility. I’ve been reading BikePortland since the beginning, and the last several months have left me uneasy. Why did a single individual’s angry tweet make the roundup at all? We’re not all part of your clique, and it’s critical to myself and many others that this website not degenerate into, what I consider, just a blog. I trust BP as the best bike news source around, but it shouldn’t be perceived as BikeMaus or BikeAndersen. It’s BikePortland, and this was neither informative nor inspirational.
Interestingly, this topic does resonate with me. There are bigger problems in this world than bike lanes, but context is critical for credibility.
After some thought, I decided to follow up on the backstory. I know my comment is probably not helping to clarify, but I can understand how posting the tweet could be a way to show support for those whose trust has been violated, to say the least. I hope there is justice for those who have been hurt.
Thanks for approaching this so thoughtfully, Chris. Your criticism was also valuable.
I think one way to see this is that we are doing our best to be a news organization (as you describe) while also being warm-blooded humans. Sometimes we fail to find the best balance between those two needs.
These lawsuits and the recent liability waiver ruling by the Oregon supreme court could make any organized bicycle ride more difficult. Typically events need to have at least $1,000,000 in liability coverage to use public or private property. At some point getting an insurance company to cover an organized event like Bridge Pedal, Worst Day of the Year ride, Seattle to Portland, a race, etc. could become cost prohibitive. I am involved in organizing bicycle events and these things are a big worry. In the past producing the signed waiver from the participant stopped a couple of people from suing the organization I belong to when there were some broken bones and other injuries related to people falling off bicycles.
I’m super confused about the ‘tweet’ being part of the Monday Round-up. Should we all know Caitlin or Spoon Units? Then the long post about Hart Noecker. This all seems like really personal stuff that doesn’t seem appropriate here at all.
I’m sure I’ll be swiftly corrected about this but I’m seriously in the dark about what any of this means or who any of these people are.
On the contrary, this person has been a member of the local bike/activist community and this behavior has gone on with impunity for years. This affects everyone here and we must all own and be accountable to this.
I don’t know Hart from anywhere. I recognize his name. I don’t know Caitlin. They dated? It went super bad? And what? I’m not owning anything.
I’m not going to go into why that attitude is so problematic, but just so you have a little more context, here’s another link to learn more: https://www.facebook.com/events/339641989572496/
No, I’m not investigating this. I think adding the tweet to the Monday Round-up was weird and I’m not interested in who did what to who in their relationships . That’s not supposed to be dismissive of Caitlin and any bullshit she dealt with when hanging out with Hart. But this still seems to be super personal and just because these two people ride bikes I don’t know why it’s on Bike Portland.
Because it’s actually quite a bit more than a problem between two people, and I suspect at least a sizable minority of BP readers know who Hart is and/or have interacted with him online. I agree it was a bit strange to hint without context, but the context is there now and it should be obvious why it was posted.
When multiple people publicly reveal that they were attacked by someone who has been heavily involved in bike advocacy and has been published on Bike Portland, I want to know about it.
I am sorry to get all detailed in what I think was intended to initially be a more generalized acknowledgement of the discourse in our community over the past few days from the bikeportland staff. However, if we’re talking details…. I encourage you to peruse the statements on the event link that was posted [bike swarm meeting]. Over the past 6 days, 10 people and counting have come forward with accounts of sexual and emotional abuse, including rape. They are all activists, bicyclists, or both, and the social capital that the predator enjoyed as a figurehead in these communities allowed him to operate unhindered for a very long while. You can come to your own judgments if you read the words of the survivors, but I want to emphasize that the blog post linked is the words of only one [me, hi — not Caitlin, I don’t even know her] where the abuse was more insidious. My personal statement is my perspective alone… but I think I raise some pretty good points that are applicable to all of our stories. Expect to learn more at the meeting tomorrow night.
If a crime was committed, take it to the police. If not, I guess a public shaming is in order, or they can ***section of comment deleted by moderator*** and take care if it…
You are being really lame here, BP. You helped start all these comments so don’t moderate and delete now. Shoulda thought about that when you posted personal tweets.
Hi Huey (big fan of your music by the way),
Yes I did start these comments and have let everyone have their say… Except when someone suggests a violent act toward another person. In that case, I will always delete and moderate accordingly. Thanks.
It was a clearly tongue in cheek comment. To pretend otherwise is bogus.
What is the situation with truck side guards in Portland? Is there any state or local legislation/policy being pursued to bring this to Oregon?
State law will be VERY difficult to force upon thw trucking industry as only the most local trucks never leave the state at which point this becomes a topic of federal and national commercial interest.
Expect heavy lobbying by the national trucking industry to resist anything that costs money as “it’ll put 10’s of thousands of small time truck owner/operators out of business.” This tactic has worked on California so it’ll be cheaper in Oregon.
🙁
I apologize for not providing more context with the tweet we shared at the end of this article. I have just added this note to the post:
===
(Note from the Publisher: For context, @Caitlin’s tweet was made in reaction to serious allegations that have been swirling on Facebook for the past few days about someone who has been active with PDX Bike Swarm and other groups — and whose writing and photos have been featured here on BikePortland. We are aware of the allegations, take them very seriously, and are still considering the most appropriate way to respond. There’s a big meeting tomorrow night where I hope to learn more. – Jonathan)
On this item:
“Institutional inequality: According to the rules that govern when a stoplight should be installed in the United States, a person on foot counts as four-fifths of a person in a car,”
“driver” isn’t the same as “person in a car.” I believe the units here are cars (regardless of the number of persons in those cars) and pedestrians (or people on foot). “Drivers” is a good proxy for cars, though, at least until more are autonomous.
Further, the opinion piece overstates the power of the MUTCD. While it is true that the federal document is often adopted by states (and some of those that reference it seem to think of it as some sort of bible), the states also usually adopt modifications (supplements) along with the MUTCD that alter it to fit the state’s goals. Additionally, engineering judgement is a large component of any design, and the MUTCD represents a standard, some would say the minimum standard, not the ideal. NCHRP 562 is a more modern analysis method of ‘need’ for crossing enhancements, and IMO, more relevant.
TCRP Report 112/NCHRP Report 562 – Improving Pedestrian …
111 pages of wonky goodness.
Good point, Justin. I’ll fix. And thanks for the perspective, Paikiala.
About Permanent Running lights. I have used the ‘smart’ version of these for 6 months now, and really notice the difference when I don’t have them on. I just seem to get more consideration in general. Most people wouldn’t drive a car in the daytime with no tail lights or break lights…that would be insanely sketchy. So why would you not have a break light on a bike so others know when you are slowing down to stop or turn. Just imagine if cars had no break lights and drives had to stick their arm out the window to signal they were stopping or slowing down. Now that there is a studying showing they are effective, it just seems obvious.
I’ve been trying to figure out a way to implement a rear brake light triggered by using my front brake for a while now (including an intense desire to hack into Shimano’s Di2 bus as a way to carry the signal from a microswitch in my left-hand brifter to a taillght).
Interesting to find out that HN’s aggressive and inappropriate tendencies weren’t just limited to discussions here on BP!
Gotta love his “holier than though” attitude but a real pig in his treatment of women. What a creep.
For all this “activism” what has he actually accomplished anyway?
Can we please acknowledge that the bizarre epidemic of asthma in professional cyclists is clearly a doping scheme to get them on asthma meds. I dont need to elaborate on why a professional cyclist might want to enhance his/her breathing do I?
every one gets brochoconstriction/ spasm if one stresses the system ‘enough’. you’re spot on with that assumption.
am i the only one who has noticed this article has been deleted
http://bikeportland.org/2014/11/05/guest-article-civil-disobedience-needs-bikes-113002
and the dead link is no longer even indexed in the archive.
some kind of memory hole. i would be interested to hear jonathan’s or michael’s explanation.
Happy to explain.
That article was written by Hart Noecker. In the past few weeks many people in the community have come forward to make serious allegations against Hart regarding his conduct during personal relationships. I decided to delete all references to Hart on BikePortland because I do not want to allow him to garner any further credibility, power, or influence through his association with my website.
whereas
http://bikeportland.org/author/marcusgriffith
http://bikeportland.org/2012/02/07/a-note-from-the-publisher-66821