The Monday Roundup

The Monday Web Roundup is a new weekly feature that will serve as a catch-all for all the cool and interesting news, sites, and ideas we come across from Portland and around the country. Email your web tips to elly@bikeportland.org, or use the tag “bikeportland” in del.icio.us.

• In local bike news, there’s a nice Sunday feature in the Oregonian about birdwatching bike rides led by the local Audobon Society chapter.

• The O also reports that even though gas prices have dropped, people are still driving less.

• In the wake of recent fatalities, New Haven, Connecticut has passed a Complete Streets law that will affect street design, planning, enforcement, and education (via Streetsblog).

• Meanwhile, governor Schwarzenegger has signed a law mandating that all California cities and counties account for all road users when updating their general plans, starting in two years. (FYI: Oregon’s Bicycle Bill has required since the 1970s that certain road building projects include bicycle infrastructure, but affects only new building projects on state roads, and unlike Complete Streets laws does not take walking or transit into account.)

• The outcome of tomorrow’s election is set to have a major effect on the future of our transportation system, city planning direction, and energy and environmental policies, so don’t forget to get out and VOTE. The folks at Streetsblog have been covering both Obama’s and McCain’s potential strategies on cars, bikes, and livable streets.

• Oregonians, turn in your ballots by Tuesday, November 4th at 8pm. Here is a list of ballot drop sites and hours in Multnomah County.

• And you can get your bikey post-election analysis fix on the KBOO bike show Wednesday morning at 9.

• The lefty blog Daily Kos posted an interesting analysis of the current state of the US auto industry, which is vying for a hefty chunk of the federal bailout cash (one attempt just got rejected). What would auto companies do with this taxpayer money? Consolidate, buy each other out, become fewer and larger. Sound familiar?

• Speaking of the bailout, Tom Vanderbilt, author of the recently released book Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us) has a nice story up on his blog looking at driving from a behavioral psychology perspective, drawing comparisons with the behaviors that led to the current financial crisis.

• And in blogging news, The Atlantic senior editor Andrew Sullivan has a story about why blogging is the new journalism. BikePortland readers, this should make you proud.