Here’s the bike news from around the world that caught my eye last week:
– Oregon is home to a thriving artisan bicycle building economy, but it’s hard to make a living that way.
– A Sunday Opinion piece in the New York Times reflects on why America is so “manacled to the car” while Europe is moving beyond them. The author includes an interesting tidbit about Dutch drivers, who are taught to open car doors with their right hand, forcing them to swivel around and look for bike traffic.
– Women are still a stark minority across the bike industry.
– According to a new research paper, commuting by bike doesn’t just save you money compared to driving — the resulting sense of well-being means you need less money to be happy.
– An American living in Amsterdam has come to see bikes as a ticket to individual freedom and mobility and cars as limiting these things.
– In New York City, bike counts show a 14% increase in people riding over last year.
– In Pleasanton, Calif., new sensors use microwave technology to detect bicycles at intersections.
– Miami’s bike sharing program is popular, but finding advertisers to fund it as planned has proved problematic.
– In London, a group of people on two wheels planned to ride slowly over the Blackfriars Bridge to protest the city’s plans to raise the speed limit and change the road design to be less bike-friendly.
– Chicago is getting ready to install its second separated cycle track.
– In San Francisco, wrangling continues between staff and management over plans to allow bicycles on light rail trains.
– From the annals of anti-bike rage: One man is repeatedly busted harassing people on bikes over the course of a decade; a woman runs a group of riders off the road and brags about it in the local paper; and the NYPD respond ungracefully to a dooring incident.
– British television audiences were baffled and bemused by the bright green bicycle lapel pin sported by a US Representative during an appearance to discuss the debt ceiling.
– Do you ever daydream about buying one of those mobile, bike-powered bars and going into business? It turns out there are some bureaucratic hoops to be jumped through.