The Monday Roundup

Happy Monday everyone. Let’s take a look back at the stories you might have missed last week…

— Watch this video of a dooring incident in San Francisco and then ask yourself how Geico Insurance could have partially blamed the rider for going too fast and losing control of her bicycle.

— Portland-based writer and rider Heidi Swift highlights the amazing story of a women’s cycling team that’s has emerged in Afghanistan and the woman trying to raise funds to produce a film about them.

— As the debate over how to pay for transportation infrastructure rages on, this analysis of a report by Todd Litman of the Victoria Transportation Policy Institute is a must read. It explains how auto-centric planning that fails to consider the high cost of car ownership unfairly impacts lower-income populations.

— Lovely Bicycle opines on “Passive Transportation” and gives us great food for thought for how we frame various mobility options.

— I’m really loving the League’s deep dives into legal and policy issues. Their latest is a state-by-state analysis of “Share the Road” license plates.

— Bad news for bikeshare in Vancouver BC and it looks like their mandatory helmet law is at least partially to blame.

— As a traffic safety nerd, transportation culture observer, and veteran of three home-births, I always wondered if I’d ever see this headline: “Cars are as dangerous for pregnant women as alcohol and cigarettes, yet few mums-to-be are warned of travel risks, a lead injury researcher says.”

— Streetsblog shared a fascinating look at the history of hit-and-run laws in New York City, where there’s some momentum to make it a felony offense. Again. Turns out hit-and-run used to be a felony up until the 1920s when the, “rapid expansion of car ownership meant that an increasing number of the voting public saw themselves as more likely to be behind a wheel than under one.”

— Another place (Sonoma County) is looking to pass anti-harassment legislation. I’m split as to whether such laws reflect a bike-friendly culture or one that’s so inhospitable that laws like this are necessary.

— When an 81-year-old woman gets her bike stolen, the only sensible way for a community to react is to get her a new one. ASAP. Nice work Colorado Springs!

— Good news about bicycles in Riverside, California is good new for bicycles everywhere.

— At USC, students and faculty are pressuring planners to make campus more bike-friendly.

— More signs of the vast political and pubic agency support for electric cars in Oregon. We’ll know bicycling has truly arrived when it can amass that much political capital.

— Check out this awesome interview in VeloNews on local bike industry icon Chris King.

— I’m late to this one, but a neighborhood in Santa Monica, California has actually implemented the “woonerf” or shared-space road design. When it comes to traffic calming and truly human-scale planning, “woonerf” is sort of the holy grail.

— In the weekly, cars-are-not-the-future department, The Atlantic Cities explains why cars are likely to follow in the footsteps of landlines and steamships. As in, the automobile’s days are numbered.

— In New York City, bike activists continue to pressure the NYPD to take fatal biking and walking traffic collisions more seriously. On the recent Criminality Suspected Ride, non-profit group Times Up! mixed a street graffiti campaign with a hard-hitting message. Watch video recap below:

— More bad news from New York City for activists that want the system to be tougher on those that drive recklessly and hurt others. A high court now says prosecutors must not only show that a driver was negligent in causing a collision, their actions must have risen to a level of “moral blameworthiness.”

— And speaking of life and death, The Guardian (UK) took a global look at road carnage with this compelling interactive feature.

— When a bike-sensitive LA Times columnist calls your bike policy “foolish,” you know it’s probably not a great idea (I’m looking at you Washington state).

— How important is it to keep multi-use paths clean and smooth? The University of Iowa just learned that answer the hard way.

— On a positive note, The Oregonian published a great profile and update on Evan Ross and his Cycle Portland Bike Tours business.

Come across a great bike story or news item? Drop us a line and we might include it in the next roundup. Thanks!

Front Page