Here’s the news that caught our eye this week:
– Gasoline use is on the rise again in the Pacific Northwest.
– San Francisco’s bike infrastructure construction is still in limbo even after the four-year long injunction was lifted by a judge. This article explains it all.
– Colorado bicycle advocates are actively taking on the now internationally-famous ban on bicycling in the town of Black Hawk.
– In LA, plans to use “civil obedience” tactics planned for Critical Mass in response to police violence at the previous month’s event were foiled when police showed up with friendly smiles and authorization to cork intersections to keep the ride together.
– A profile of US transportation secretary Ray LaHood explores his unusual role in Washington and his unlikely celebrity.
– Another fascinating profile, this time of San Francisco’s outgoing top traffic engineer: a product of the motor age, yet who oversaw the removal of two urban freeways.
– Physical limitations can significantly affect your mobility; a temporarily crutches-bound reporter found, unsurprisingly, that compact, walkable neighborhoods can make all the difference between self-sufficiency and isolation.
– The U.S. has one of the lowest rates of public transit use worldwide. Why? This concise history provides some answers.
– Cycling in Detroit continues to boom on multiple levels, from mode share to advocacy to cultural cachet.
– Bicycling is also on the rise in Atlanta, Georgia, and some credit is given simply to the fact that bikes are seen as “chic.”
– An editorialist calls attention to the issue of “street harassment,” pointing out that sexual harassment is common on city streets and poses a barrier to equal access.
– How long does it take a new road expansion project to pay for itself through direct usage fees? A long time, according to this analysis.
– From the world of cycling sports: New research has shown that women and men are significantly different in their physiology and nutritional needs; the real discovery, however, is that nearly all the definitive research is only about men.
Thanks for reading.
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So much good info in the metrotimes story about Detroit, it involves some doing to take it all in.
From the story about cycling in Alanta, the publication ‘Creative Loafing’ (well, that’s a name for ya), check out this somewhat familiar, but oh so much more civil than seems to be common out here…in comments to O stories, and frequently in bikeportland comments…exchange on the opposing points of urban cycling (sorry, there doesn’t seem to be a link for the individual comments:
Posted by uyis on July 2, 2010 at 12:56PM
Posted by jett on July 2, 2010 at 2:14PM
Must be a slow news week if California gets two mentions, both stating what we already knew about that backwater place.
“Even more striking, in several experiments, researchers from McMaster University in Canada gave estrogen to male athletes and then had them complete strenuous bicycling sessions.”
Is estrogen banned in the Tour de France? Are they considered dopers?
From the SF Bay Guardian article:
“… Anti-bike activist Rob Anderson and attorney Mary Miles have been on a long and lonely — but so far, quite successful — legal crusade to kill any proposed bike projects that remove parking spaces or cause traffic delays. …”
For those of you that don’t know or have forgotten, Rob Anderson’s got a blog that he posts his thoughts on.
Story on Black Hawk didn’t have much new to offer on the story on the bike ban in that town, but it did get me to check once again on the city’s website for info on the city council’s decision. Not much available there. Interesting that the agenda for city council meetings are posted online, but what might be really helpful to read…the minutes for those meetings…are not posted online.
Paul Johnson, if you hate things from California so much, stop reading and commenting on a website from a former Californian.
Why should I change? I’m not the one who sucks. Perhaps as an editorial decision the site should be more sensitive to the fact the only people who care about California are people in California.
“… the only people who care about California are people in California.”
Paul Johnson #6
That claim is flatly absurd, but if you want to expand on it, Paul… what’s your gripe about Cali? At least, that has anything to do with the stories linked in the Monday Roundup? Lots of good things about California?
California is what it is, not simply due to people of California, but of the entire nation. California’s been one of the key economic and cultural dynamo’s of this nation, which the entire U.S. public has benefited from and mostly stands behind.
If California’s so great, why do they all move here, pricing the locals out of housing, and take up all our jobs? Why do they raise our electric rates by going to flat market value then defaulting on the bill when it comes around? We’ve dropped nuclear weapons on people for less than that.
“If California’s so great …” paul
Who’s saying it is? Two articles related to things going on in SF, here on this bike weblog don’t seem to say that. L.A. might not exactly be a ‘jewel in the crown’, but otherwise, a lot of what California is and does is excellent.
About those other laments you raise; What do you propose doing to address the problems they refer to? I hope you aren’t going to suggest Oregon put up a fence on its southern border (or around its entire perimeter) similar to the one between the U.S. and Mexico.
Paul, I started to, but I refuse to turn this into a political debate. I’m one of the locals you refer to that was priced out of Oregon. It wasn’t a Californian’s fault (every buyer takes a seller, mind you), but again, this is a bike blog.
Some of your recent relevant comments I appreciated and learned from, and I’ve been trying to ask you in as polite a way as possible to refrain from simply bashing CA whenever you can. I’m not happy about having had to move away from my home and family and friends (yes, to California) and it pushes my button.
I’ve been reading this blog since its inception, and I appreciate that it reaches globally despite a primary focus on Portland. I’ve logged thousands of Oregon miles on a bike and hundreds in California, but my experiences on the road there have taught me lots.
Pete, you’re part of the problem, not part of the solution, then. Maybe if you stayed in California and solved your state’s problems, you wouldn’t be spreading them here. Go back where you came from.
Paul…I’m an Oregonian..have been all my life. I’m not priced “out of the market”…..maybe its time for you to stop blaming others for your situation and be a bit more proactive in the changes you want in your life, eh?
and no, we haven’t dropped nuclear bombs on people for “less than that”…you need a remedial history lesson.
Paul, you’re not paying attention. Pete said he is an Oregon native who was priced out of Oregon and moved to California. “Going back where he came from” puts him back here – sounds like he’d like that.
If you’re going to argue, have the decency to actually read the post you’re commenting on rather than just skimming it – or no one’s going to take your post seriously. Then again, if that’s not your goal, then… whatever.