Yes, there is non-Pedalpalooza related news in the world. Here’s a quick list of stories that caught our eye this week:
– Among other bike-ish content in the Portland Mercury’s annual Bike Issue, Sarah Mirk exposes various pernicious Bike Myths.
– 200 French prison inmates are participating in a character-building Tour de France of their own.
– Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the controversially re-elected president of Iran is a former traffic engineer. Tom Vanderbilt at How We Drive reflects on the implications of this background.
– In the New York Times Magazine, Deborah Solomon needles Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood on the Obama administration’s efforts to promote non-car transportation.
– The Chicago Transit Authority is under scrutiny for making company cars available to 68 employees.
– Instead of waiting for stimulus funding to kick in for new bikeway infrastructure, an LA designer has initiated the more immediate, simple, low-cost solution of installing signage.
– Tom Vanderbilt has researched some more statistics that support the safety in numbers phenomenon.
– Bike Rumor has an interesting interview up: “What’s it like being a Trek Bicycles product manager?”
– “I’ll try to remember my manners, if you will please try not to maim or kill me,” writes a guest editorialist in the Oregonian, on the topic of road rules, road rage, and attitudes on the road.
– What’s the ethical thing to do if you have a Hummer? Don’t sell it, take it off the road entirely, advises NY Times ethicist Randy Cohen. (Remember the StreetFilms interview with Cohen about the ethics of going carfree?)
– The Bay Area has what may be the country’s first (nearly) carfree suburb quietly in the works.
– DIY project of the week: Make your own fancy cycle computer out of an old Palm PDA.