(Photo: J.Maus/BikePortland)
Here are the bike links from around the world that caught our eyes this week:
Parenting by bike: A diary travel study of 37 Dutch women concluded that mothers there bike as much as childless women and see transporting their kids by bike as “pleasant and natural.”
Hidden costs: Todd Litman notes that to build an auto-dependent city is essentially to put a tax on your population — hidden in the cost of their car payments and gas bills.
SoulCycle cashes in: The “boutique fitness firm,”” which says it’s not in the business of changing bodies but rather of changing lives, is going public.
Reverse e-bike: This company makes fitness bikes that plug into the wall and pay your electric bill.
Millennial housing preferences: Among the highlights from a new survey: 83 percent of Millennials say they like walking, but only 71 percent like driving. That compares to a 2-point gap among Baby Boomers.
Boris “backsie”: The mayor of London got in tabloid trouble after he was videoed pedaling his bike while his wife rode in its seat. (It’s illegal in the UK.)
Devolve the Interstates: Evan Jenkins says Democrats should embrace a GOP suggestion to give complete freeway funding duties to the states, removing their incentive to overbuild to win federal dollars.
The Interstate error: Sending freeways into cities rather than just between them was a huge mistake, conservative environmentalist Reihan Salam writes.
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Virtuous cycle: Making it safer to walk and bike makes it easier for cities cut car use, of course. But taking the steps that reduce car use also makes cities safer.
Chris King speaks: The bike-part magnate, explains how Zen Buddhism, among other ideas, influenced his entrepreneurship.
Self-driving cars: They’ll be good for cities only if the cities are also using urban planning to reduce car use, MobilityLab predicts.
Vision Zero class: All 30,000 NYC employees who drive government vehicles have been assigned to a six-hour driving safety course that includes a “hardcore” video about careless driving consequences.
Gas tax hike: In Washington, that is. Its legislature agreed on a deal to hike gas tax seven cents, or 19 percent, to improve transportation funding.
Finally, your video of the week is sort of like those stories about mothers lifting cars into the air to save their children. Sort of:
— If you come across a noteworthy story, send it in via email, Tweet @bikeportland, or whatever else and we’ll consider adding it to next Monday’s roundup.