Here’s the bike news from near and far that caught our eyes in the last week:
— Everybody’s talking about this amazing video of a Wall Street Journal editorial board member telling us what she really feels about bikesharing in New York City. Definitely worth waiting through a 15-second Honda or Chevron ad to see some of this hard-hitting journalism:
— A new report about people of color who ride bikes shows that over the last decade, bicycle use grew five times faster among African-Americans than among white Americans. (Followers of Seattle’s Sightline Institute have known this for a while.) As Streetsblog DC shows, people of all backgrounds want to ride if they only have the chance.
— L.A. Weekly profiles Margot Ocañas, the first city pedestrian coordinator for car-clogged Los Angeles, a brainy Quaker with “a nose for business” and a guerrilla sensibility for humanizing the streets.
— Fast Company hosted a Q&A with MIT scientist Sandra Richter, who’s found that bike helmet mandates tend to reduce biking and even bike safety.
— Progress continues on a dream project for Oregon bike tourists: planning to convert the Salmonberry Rail Line to a bike, horse and hiking trail, connecting our beloved Banks-Vernonia trail to the Pacific Ocean.
— Striped bike lanes tend to reduce the number of bike/auto collisions, The Oregonian reports, but not their severity – darkness and traffic speed are bigger factors in how bad a crash is. Unfortunately, the article concludes by inaccurately summarizing a recent City Club study; the piece fails to mention that the report endorsed physically separated bikeways as well as neighborhood greenways as an alternative to striped lanes on busy streets. Update: kudos to writer Joseph Rose making a quick fix.
— For the second year in a row, bike sales in Italy have outpaced car sales. A main reason is the Italian economic crash, which has forced Italians to look for ways to save money – they’re finding bikes do exactly that. (In the U.S., by the way, we buy three times as many new bikes as new cars.)
— “I didn’t even have time to tense up or touch my brakes … he came out of nowhere.” Yes, that’s what a Lane County woman told the Register-Guard last week about the giant black bear that she says darted in front of her Honda Accord. Hansen was unharmed; the bear was killed on the spot.
— Have you seen those scale maps of the world’s rail systems? Now there’s one for bike sharing systems. Check out Minneapolis, the one that’s likely to be most like Portland’s in its scale.
If you come across an important or fun bike story, send it in or Tweet @BikePortland and we’ll consider featuring it here next Monday.