(Photo: The Urban Idea)
Happy Memorial Day, Portland. In honor of the holiday, this is likely to be our only post of the day.
Here are the bike-related links from around the world that caught our eyes this week:
Now that’s a demo: A South Korean neighborhood banned cars for a month in order to see what would happen.
Bikes vs. stress: Bike commuters are 40 percent less stressed when they arrive at their destination than car or public transit commuters, a U.K. study of heart and breathing rates found.
“Sky garage”: A $560 million luxury skyscraper north of Miami will “incorporate the single-family-home garage concept” by hoisting people’s cars into the air so they can keep it next to their unit.
Floating bus stops: Biking and transit advocates should team up to promote bike lanes that run to the right of bus stops, says Streets.mn.
E-bike sharing: Milan’s 3,600-bike sharing system now has 1,000 e-bikes, creating the world’s first system that lets both park at the same docks. (The news comes after Birmingham, Ala., was planning to become the first U.S. city with an e-bike share system.)
Atlanta biking: After years of pressure from advocates, Atlanta is hiring its first “chief bicycle officer.”
Cargo bike parking: The low staples in this Malmo, Sweden, parking garage are still the best we’ve seen:
Cargo bike parking at the train station in Malmö pic.twitter.com/Ikkh2ZO12H
— Green Lane Project (@GreenLaneProj) May 19, 2015
Traffic myths: #3 on writer Tom Vanderbilt’s five-point list is “changing lanes will get you there faster.”
Traffic death: Nobel-winning mathematician John Nash and his wife, subjects of the movie “A Beautiful Mind,” died in a New Jersey traffic collision Saturday as their taxi lost control while changing lanes.
Female mobility: Fuel shortages in war-torn Yemen are fostering bicycle use among women, and some locals are scandalized.
Biking’s monoculture: In the white-guy-dominated industry of fancy bikes, “it’s time to acknowledge that if you’re using sex to sell your product, what you are doing is lazy and harmful,” writes bike racer Patrick Brady.
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Hillsboro paths: The city is nearing approval of a plan to add 70 miles of bikeable off-street paths in the coming decades, tripling its current total.
FHWA backs protected lanes: A new federal design guide has formally endorsed protected bike lanes as desirable ways to make biking attractive to more people.
Tsk tsk: A Springfield man who hit and killed three children in a crosswalk with his pickup truck won’t get a criminal charge, but he did get a traffic citation for careless driving.
Idle wheels: The average UK city dweller’s car is driven for 4.6 hours a week, which means it’s parked for 97 percent of its life.
Seattle downgrade: The annual Bike Score ranking dropped Seattle out of its top 10 most bikeable cities. The executive director of advocacy group Seattle Neighborhood Greenways says that’s “healthy.”
Chicago infrastructure: As Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s second term starts, Chicago is building its first curb-protected bike lane and has various other advanced bike lane projects on tap.
“A new road order”: Seattle’s Department of Transportation filmed advice from NYC and Chicago transportation heroes Janette Sadik-Khan and Gabe Klein at an event about the city’s transportation future.
Rack theft: West Seattle sees a bike theft by rack removal.
And in your very short video of the week: your one-use, $330 “invisible bicycle helmet” doesn’t seem quite so cool now, does it?
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.