busy streets to neighborhood greenways.
(Photo: Will Vanlue/BikePortland)
Here’s the news that caught our eyes this past week…
– After telling a crowd at the Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting that it’s, “very unlikely we will have a surface transportation bill during this year of Congress,” USDOT Sec. Ray LaHood has changed his tune. He now, says “things are moving.”
– San Francisco has started construction of a separated bikeway in Golden Gate Park on John F. Kennedy Drive. The bikeway is one component of San Francisco’s planned crosstown bikeway network which they hope will include 100 miles of connecting facilities by 2020.
– Chicago’s new coffee and bike shop, the Heritage Bicycles General Store, is now open. Along with looking like it could have been lifted from a Portland neighborhood, the shop will smell like Portland too: Heritage serves Stumptown coffee.
– Christine Grant lived in the world’s most bike-friendly cities for six months and brought back 10 lessons for the Pacific Northwest in how we could make our cities better for bicycles.
– One of Grant’s lessons is to say “thank you” to people who ride bikes. The Danish invented the bicycle counter to do exactly that, and an interview with the Deputy Chairman of the Cycling Embassy of Denmark explains why the devices are perfect for the job.
– When the Miami Marathon snarled traffic around American Airlines Arena, NBA superstar LeBron “King” James rode his bike to avoid traffic jams on his way to the Heat-Bulls game.
– Seattle scheduled 11 miles of neighborhood greenways for installation in 2012 and expects to install 11 more miles in 2013. The focus on greenways comes from a recommendation by the Seattle Bicycle Advisory Board to shift a limited budget away from installing sharrows on busy streets and towards the construction of low-traffic greenways.
– Portland’s public toilets are gaining notoriety for their durability and an article in The Atlantic Cities alludes to the fact that Portland Loos offer enough room for you and your bicycle.
– The historic Kelly House outside Canberra, Australia has gone up for sale. The house has an interesting past including being used as a film set, a bank, a bakery, and the home where the first Austrilian-made bicycle was assembled.
– “Bicycle Man” Moses Mathis is looking for a new home for his shop for the ninth time. 74-year old Mathis relies on donated space to store the 1,100 bikes he gives away each year at Christmas to those in need around Fayetteville, NC.
– Michael Thompson, the man who built the world’s fastest completely wooden bicycle, is set to construct the third iteration of his SplinterBike which he hopes will beat the wooden bikes’ previous records. SplinterBike: The Movie, which follows the design and construction of the SplinterBike, is due to be released in early February.
– The Gentle Giant moving company in Somerville, Massachusetts will start offering an option for customers to have their things moved by bike. Gentle Giant currently has three employees who run bicycle deliveries but it expects to have up to a dozen pedal-powered vehicles by this summer so they can offer customers “a continuous stream of movers loading up the bicycle trailers.”
– The 5th annual international film fest Bike Smut (NSFW) has completed its European tour and is coming to Portland on February 17th. The festival is a collection of short erotic films (with titles like “Lego Bike Porn Inspired by the 2008 Republican National Convention”) meant to bring the “synthesis of transportation and sexuality to life.”
– The state of Iowa has found the cycling industry provides $1 million per day in value to the state. The $365 million per year from bicycling includes healthcare savings, sales tax revenues, and other sources of funds.
– Living in Portland’s Hawthorne neighborhood for a week gave one Urban Planning student at Texas A&M a “lasting impression” of the potential of active and sustainable communities.
– A close look at federal and state taxes shows why inflation is partly to blame for decreasing gas tax revenue.
– This Big City explains why “urban bicycle networks could provide our cities with a much-needed economic boost” at the local level.
– Finally, Cycleicious tracked down this great bicycle commercial starring Evel Knievel:
Did you find something interesting that should be in next week’s Monday Roundup? Drop us a line.
Thanks for reading.
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I had the bmx version in the mid-70’s and it was awesome! I loved that it had a “gas tank” like a real motorcycle, and the race numbers made it seem fast… I remember it being way heavier than my friend’s bikes, but looked way cooler… it was like a tank… but I jumped off lots of stuff and never broke it…
I thought Stumptown is >50% NYC owned now.
Rex Burkholder commented on the Christine Grant article, saying, “Its a wonder what will happen when you actually make cycling a priority rather than ‘accommodating’ cyclists. In Portland, we have unfortunately stalled and the City, with the acquiescence of the Bicycle Transportation Alliance, are pursuing a separate but unequal strategy of designating side streets as bike boulevards. Fine as far as they go, but they don’t go where people want to go: like to shops and work destinations. Major streets are still car-heaven and bike hell.”