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The Monday Roundup: Bike lane maps, mandating reflective cars and more


miami
Miami with only the bike lanes showing.
(Image: Washington Post)

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Here are the bike-related links from around the world that caught our eyes this week:

Bike lane maps: The Washington Post mapped what four cities look like with just their bike-only infrastructure showing.

Mandatory reflection: Copenhagenize.com provocateur Mikael Colville-Andersen started a clever petition in response to Volvo’s spray-on reflective “Lifepaint” for bikes: because black cars are 50 percent more likely to get in collisions, every Volvo should be painted in Lifepaint. Plus he urged Volvo to encourage car helmets, for the sake of safety of course.

Shifting blame: A DC-area transportation agency urged people to “wear something bright or reflective” to avoid being killed by cars. A local man proposed an alternative version.

Infotainment inventors: Jaguar Land Rover is expanding the engineering team at its Northwest Portland lab that researches in-vehicle “infotainment” technology.

Crowdfund gems: Matt Haughey, creator of Metafilter.com, local bike racer and Oregonian, writes about some of his favorite Kickstarter bike projects over the years.

Venture cycling: Tech startups are cranking out bike-related innovations with help from venture capital.

Mountain-bike shortage: “Portland, you are not bike-friendly,” writes BikeMag.com in a scathing column. “Not when you now offer up less than a mile of singletrack within city limits to the thousands of mountain bikers who call you ‘home.'”

Quantifying costs: Every mile in a car costs society six times more than a mile on a bike, according to a new Swedish study. The cost of bicycling appears to be declining.

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Broken coalition: TriMet is trying to rally public transit supporters to a rally Thursday that aims to “send a powerful message to Congress” to support federal transit funding — but the region’s two most prominent pro-transit organizing groups, the transit workers’ union and OPAL Bus Riders Unite, don’t seem to be involved.

Transpo bill: The federal DOT has a complete proposal, for what it’s worth.

Hillsboro streets: A Washington County judge has dismissed a Hillsboro resident’s lawsuit to block the city’s conversion to two-way streets downtown.

Hit and run: A Portland man got 15 years’ prison for driving on prescription drugs, hitting a woman in Vancouver and leaving the scene.

Driverless carnage: Toyota has reached a milestone: A car that commits hit-and-runs all by itself, reports The Onion.

Bike share software: NYC’s Citi Bike says it’s replaced the bad software that made the popular system a money pit.

Bike share equity: Instead of trying to squeeze equitable outcomes out of bike sharing systems, bicycle anthropologist Adonia Lugo argues that maybe we should conclude that bike share is inherently inequitable.

Saving Florida: After decades of sprawl, Florida is turning around, narrowing its urban state highways to 10-foot lanes and considering roundabouts for every project.

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.

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