(Source: Price Tags)
Quite a lot of news to get to this morning, so let’s get started…
— We’ve heard the push for hi-vis clothing before, and we know that it sometimes crosses the line into victim-blaming. Well, police in Columbus, Ohio have taken it to a new level. After someone was struck while riding their bike, police said, “the driver will not be charges (sic) because the person on the bike was not wearing a reflective vest.”
— On the other side of the equation, a U.K. transportation blogger feels that the inclination for bike advocates to wear neon jackets actually hurts their cause.
— Maybe if more engineers and planners read the Project for Public Spaces news Rightsizing Streets Guide, we could stop talking about reflective clothing.
— Personally, I’m not a big fan of hi-vis clothing unless it’s done with style. These new reflective loafers from Cole Haan are a great example of safety without sacrificing style.
— Chalk up another case of GoPro justice. An L.A. cop with a major attitude problem got publicly shamed and had to dismiss a ticket after the guy he stopped posted video of their conversation.
— On that same topic, beloved bike component maker Paul has released a very cool GoPro camera mount.
— Is the current socio-political polarization we see around bicycling actually progress? Martin Luther King Jr. might have thought so.
— People who drive to work everyday — even if they had regular exercise — gained more than non-car commuters in a recent study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.
— Here’s one to add to the “Who pays for the roads” debate file: A new report from The Tax Foundation shows that a mere 50.7% of spending on roads comes from fees related to driving a car such as gas taxes, tolls, etc… This led Streetsblog DC to write, “The way we spend on roads has nothing to do with the free market, or even how much people use roads.”
— The latest work from artist Ai Weiwei features a stack of 760 bikes. Now that’s a bike pile.
— Our friends up in Canada share new data (from an auto lobby group no less), that the annual cost of owning a car is $10,452.
— San Francisco has made the sensible move of prohibiting car parking to make room for more shopping activity in the streets of Chinatown.
— More good news from San Francisco; city leaders have just unveiled a $200 million, five-year plan to improve bicycling conditions throughout the city.
— Often, the only way to get attention and respect for bicycling is when it directly impacts someone in power. Los Angeles is a perfect example of that phenomenon.
— This “bicycle barometer” is a brilliant hack. It analyzes a mix of weather and subway data to tell its London-based creator whether he should hop on a bike or take the tube.
— Our neighbors in Vancouver, Washington are also crunching numbers that could impact travel behavior. In short, they’ve found a geographic correlation between traffic collision activity and property theft.
— Here’s a Short History of Traffic “Engineering” from Copenhagenize:
— President Obama’s new Chief of Staff Denis McDonough used to ride his bike work; but he might have to give it up with his new job. The League of American Bicyclists thinks that’s silly and they’ve launched a campaign to save his ride.
— And here’s some good news about how bicycles are being portrayed on major TV. Clarence at Streetfilms came across three commercials running on ABC in prime time that show bicycling as a normal, beautiful thing.
We round up the best bike-inspired things we find on the web each Monday. If you’d like to share something you come across, drop us a line and we’ll give it a look. For more great bike links, be sure to follow @BikePortland on Twitter.