Here’s the news that caught our eye this week:
– Warren Buffett has made his largest investment ever: $34 billion to purchase the BNSF rail company. He eloquently praises the promise of rail freight transportation, calls the move “a bet on the country.”
– An interesting article about how politically progressive inner cities are primarily white (which explicitly ties in bicycling with this dynamic) has drawn smart critics who look at the statistics and anecdotal evidence to show that bicycling is not a racially one-sided passion.
– In the US, streets are apparently safer in cities built before 1950; grids support human life better than cul-de-sacs.
– And some stories from around the country of how sidewalks (or lack of them) affect the mobility of people who use wheelchairs.
– Traffic fatalities by population in all the countries of the world are charted on this revealing map.
– A part-time European muses on the costs, economic and otherwise, of the US’s concrete culture. “We Americans are all infrastructure — and no people.”
– A student group at a California high school are aiming for a series of carfree days at their school.
– Slate provides a new vocabulary for one long-running debate about bike infrastructure: “facilitators” and “vehicularists.”
– A look at the colorful history of media and public discourse about bicycling, including such gems as the bicycle brake controversy of 1896.
– If you’ve been following the coverage of Paris’s Velib’ vandalism, here’s one of many counter-stories suggesting that it’s not such a major problem as the ad giant that administers the program might have you believe.
– In bicycle industry news, SRAM and Shimano both reported reduced sales last quarter.
– Boise is taking a serious look at streetcars; other cities are also queuing up for a revival.
– Is jaywalking a real public safety hazard, or a red herring?
– Latest anti-livability myth: Dogs are worse for the planet than SUVs. Sightline debunks.
– If you’re in the mood for a heated and smart discussion about the possibility of carfree cities, here it is. (Via Carfree USA)
– A fancy ski resort in the Alps will go completely carfree in 2010.
– Boris Johnson, the mayor of London, made the news when he rescued a woman who was being harassed by teenagers as he was cycling home one night.
– A bicycle wedding party brings cheer to the car-centric streets of Sao Paolo, Brazil.
– A New Yorker (along with his dog) walks a marathon of 75 laps around the city block where he lives and finds a fascinating landscape.
– Not exactly news, but I recently rediscovered this history of Portland’s bicycle movement, from the 1970s through Critical Mass in the 1990s. Good stuff! Enjoy it.