(Photo: J.Maus/BikePortland)
Note from the Publisher: Before we get started on what will surely be another interesting week, please consider making a financial contribution to BikePortland. Your support is crucial to our work. Thank you! – Jonathan
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Here are the bike-related links from around the world that caught our eyes this week:
Biking while older: A Danish study of biking obstacles among people over age 50 found that the top three needs were (in descending order) good pavement quality, good lighting and quiet.
The “IKEA bike”: REFRAMED, now early in a Kickstarter, aims to be “a fully customizable self-assemble bike.”
Better crash reports: Police reports about bike crashes should start categorizing by crash type, according to a new Harvard study.
No rush: “Why am I pushing him so hard?” asks the father of one of the 72 percent of 16-year-olds who don’t have driver’s licenses (up from 54 percent in 1983). “An Uber is going to be so much safer than a 16-year-old behind the wheel.”
Courier’s tale: “I had secretly wanted to be a bike messenger ever since I learned that the MSNBC host Rachel Maddow once worked as a bike messenger in Washington,” writes Anne Foster in a personal essay about her work as a courier in Manhattan.
May use full lane: A Salem print shop owner frustrated by people failing to realize that bikes can claim the travel lane made two signs of his own to inform people. The city forced him to take them down.
Street casualty: The traffic death last month of Guadalajara’s best-known bike advocate could cause his movement to fizzle — or catch fire.
The speed of life: London’s 20 mph speed limit zones cut traffic deaths by 35 percent, writes Vox in a roundup of the case for lower local and freeway speed limits.
Bike lane buffers work: Shot; chaser.
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Distracted driving: A Republican-backed bill that would have banned all touchscreen use behind the wheel, including using phone-based maps, has died in the Washington state legislature.
CRC aftermath: Republicans who killed Washington’s support for the defunct Columbia River Crossing expansion are finding their colleagues uninterested in rebooting the process.
Ad ban: Virginia Beach has banned bike-powered rolling ads on its boardwalk.
Solar bike tunnel: Korea has built a bike lane roofed by solar panels down the middle of the highway.
Ghost bikes: A man who co-created the first such memorial tells the story.
Miles traveled: Americans are driving less, but those of us who drive to work are driving farther than ever.
Anti-theft advice: Our friends at Bike Index and local designer Aubree Holliman have created a graphical guide (PDF) on how to not buy a stolen bike.
Pedal city: The latest city to install a bike lane protected by parked cars and posts is Detroit.
Tomorrow’s cars: “We are becoming more of an information company,” the CEO of Ford Motor Co. said last week, predicting self-driving cars within 15 years.
Private mass transit: Good for the rich or good for everyone? CNET investigates.
Street funds: Like most U.S. cities, Vancouver, Washington, is facing a big road funding shortfall and trying to figure out how to raise new money to prevent deterioriation.
And for your video of the week, McDonalds created a bike-through window at a single store in Copenhagen as part of an international campaign to create “gifts of joy.” Hmm.
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.