(Photo: Graham T. Beck via Streetsblog)
Here are the bike links from around the world that caught our eyes this week:
A for effort: New York’s top court found that a car thief who “fatally struck a Brooklyn pedestrian during a high-speed NYPD chase” isn’t guilty of murder because the fact that he sometimes swerved to avoid people as he sped down the street proves that he didn’t have a “depraved indifference to human life.”
Bike share buyout: Portland-based Alta Bicycle Share is on the brink of a deal to sell “at least 51 percent” of itself to a New York-based real estate company in exchange for a necessary cash infusion.
Car subscriptions: “In theory, flat-rate car plans can be cheaper, but in practice they just don’t work out in the long term,” writes a deliciously detailed guide from 2035 for choosing the right autonomous car subscription service.
More deaths: After seven years of decline, the number of annual U.S. vehicle fatalities ticked up in 2012.
Exporting good: Asked what one thing she’d like to bring from Portland to her new town, the woman who did her post-doctoral research at PSU and is now “bike czar” in Dallas, Texas said “open-mindedness.”
WNBR expansion: The city council in Missoula, Mont., has OK’d the city’s first World Naked Bike Ride for Aug. 17.
“Reform laws, not lawlessness”: It’s always fun to hear one’s own beliefs spoken in The Economist’s classic authoritative deadpan.
Bike trains: In Los Angeles, “free weekly rides led by proficient cyclists across the city” are spreading awareness of the “‘secret’ routes away from the main roads.”
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Bike-shame rebuttal: A recent anonymous Guardian column claiming that bikers are the biggest threat to bikers is “nonsense on a stick,” according to a satisfying rebuttal.
Rumble strip errors: Delaware’s state DOT has been struggling to fix the rumble strips it illegally installed in the rideable pavement alongside a highway.
Civic investments: Strong Towns’ Chuck Marohn does some property tax math on a 1920s-style walking-oriented city block that his hometown wants to demolish and concludes that the “run down block that the city and others would like to see replaced is actually 41 percent more valuable than the brand new Taco John’s.”
Gas tax crunch: The near-bankrupcy of the federal transportation system isn’t being caused just by “partisanship and anti-tax extremism” but by the fact that elites have “lost touch with the rest of the country” by assuming that they need to keep building highways, argues transit activist Ben Ross.
Time competition: Even in U.S. cities with good public transit, driving is usually the fastest way to get around.
Just before San Francisco’s Lombard Street reopened to cars, locals showed up to celebrate the closure with a flash mob dancing to Pharrell’s “Happy.” It’s a shot in the arm and it’s your video of the week.
If you come across a noteworthy bicycle story, send it in via email, Tweet @bikeportland, or whatever else and we’ll consider adding it to next Monday’s roundup.