After a few weeks off for the holidays, it’s time to get back into rounding up the best bike news and stories around the web…
— Has Chicago taken two steps forward and one step back? Grid Chicago reports that the Chicago Department of Transportation plans to convert a stretch of protected bike lanes on Independence Blvd to buffered bike lanes after receiving complaints from neighborhood leaders.
— Speaking of protected bike lanes, this photo of a van on the Flushing Ave lanes in Brooklyn, NY pretty much sums up their safety benefits.
— Reader Jessica Roberts has a new favorite celebrity biking family: Actor Liev Schreiber and his kids grace the pages of People Magazine on his Workcycles bike.
— When the founder of Public Bikes posts on their blog with the headline, Cars. Freedom. Sex. Thanks., it’s almost a sure bet for the Monday Roundup. Check out Rob Forbes’ take on America’s changing relationship with cars.
— When it comes to understanding relationship between cars, bikes, and traffic culture in general, few are more interesting than author and pundit Tom Vanderbilt. Embrocation Magazine shared a great Q & A with Vanderbilt about biking and bike advocacy.
— A big argument against road diets and bike-friendly streets are that they impede emergency vehicles. Streetsblog busted that myth.
— As the 113th Congress gets settled in, transportation watchers have their eyes on members of the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee. The new leader of that committee is Bill Shuster (R-PA). The Hill reported that Shuster is open to the idea of a vehicle-miles-traveld (VMT) tax which is an idea Oregon is is already moving forward with.
— Here’s a feel good story: A young boy’s quick thinking during a mountain bike ride might have saved his stepfather’s life.
— How much change can one bike activist bring? Buenos Aires is finding out.
— Florida is now the latest state to enact a mandatory sidepath law. From a local news report, it sounds very similar to Oregon’s law — which is something many advocates here are hoping to repeal.
— It seems the idea that biking and bike-friendly infrastructure is good for business is finally taking hold with a broader swath of America. Bikes Belong’s Green Lane Project blog has had some great examples of this recently. There was Jay Walljasper’s article back in October, and just today, Portland blogger Michael Andersen tells the business story of the NE Multnomah project. Both are worth bookmarking.
— Mikael Colville-Anderson’s latest idea is to require cars to have reflective material on them in order to increase safety.
— Oregon’s regional planning agency, Metro asks “Could bikes be the key to reaching climate goals?“. Umm yeah!
— We’ve all heard of the cardboard bike, so why not a cardboard helmet?
— You might have joked with friends about how blinking lights can cause seizures in those with epilepsy. Well, as local rider Halley Weaver explains in great detail, it’s not a joking matter.
— And on the book news front, have you heard of the latest project from Elly Blue? The Culinary Cyclist book, naturally.
— Bike-on-bike collisions that result in a fatality are very rare; but it happened in Orange County, California on New Year’s Eve.
— You can never have too much advice on how to properly lock up your bike. Check out this rundown of tips from SF Weekly.
— How is the bike revolution going in San Diego, California? The president of BikeSD shared her thoughts in a Q & A with her local newspaper.
— An opinion piece in the Washington Times argues that making cities more bike-friendly is just a, “quaint urban trend” and that, “such policies are out of sync with the real regional world.”
If you come across stories worth sharing and want to see them in the Monday Roundup, get in touch.