(Photo: City of Evanston)
Here are the bike-related links from around the world that caught our eyes this week:
Low-car suburb: Evanston, Illinois, slashed its parking requirements, joined Chicago’s bike share system and has seen building near rail stations boom. Eighty percent of the university town’s households within half a mile of its rail stops own either one or zero cars.
Fatality coverage: London’s media went from covering 6 percent of local bike fatalities in 1992-1994 to 75 percent of them in 2010-2012. Scientists wonder if this may have distorted public perception of biking’s danger.
Spare wheels: Jan Heine has some tips for carrying them on your bike to a race.
Safety vs. racism: When the police chief of Fayetteville, N.C., told his officers to prioritize enforcement of life-threatening violations like speeding over minor equipment issues, the racial enforcement gap plummeted.
Car-free downtowns: Oslo isn’t alone. Madrid, Chengdu and Hamburg are all pursuing similar plans.
Fake safety cams: Los Angeles activists have been installing them, complete with warning sign.
Bike light sting: Oxford police handed out $75 tickets to 167 people biking without adequate lights. People who demonstrate to police that they’ve bought lights within a week will get the charge waived.
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Flexible fenders: A one-size-fits-all fender for “foldable, mountain, unisex or fixie bikes” is currently Kickstarting for $39 per set.
Peer to peer bikesharing: Danish startup AirDonkey, which is planning a system somewhat similar to the one Spinlister is working on for Portland, is also on Kickstarter.
Seattle levy: A single Seattle landowner has spent $325,000 in an attempt to defeat its transportation levy. That’s 96 percent of the “no” campaign’s fundraising.
Detroit biking: When you build 170 miles of bike lanes where once there were none, biking has a way of quintupling.
Victim remembered: Allison Hope Liao, whose 2013 death at age 3 catalyzed New York City’s citywide 25 mph speed limit, has been memorialized with an honorary street sign on the corner where she died.
Bike-lane defiance: Chicago’s Dearborn Street protected bike lane, named the best in the nation when it opened in 2013, was built over the state DOT’s objections.
#CrashNotAccident: A letter to a newspaper in the Mariana Islands offers a concise explanation of the difference between the two words.
Driving subsidies: The business models for Uber and Lyft depend on our willingness to keep building more traffic lanes than gas taxes can pay for, notes the Atlantic.
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.
— Michael Andersen, (503) 333-7824 – michael@bikeportland.org
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Also worth noting that Evanston is a college town, being home to Northwestern University. This likely contributes to the low car usage.
Yeah, I agree. Added.
The ‘L’ and Metra trains certainly help too!
I’d love to hear about a low-car, blue collar town where the anchor grocery chain is Safeway or Kroger who located there in spite of not being allowed a large parking lot and where displacement was prevented by hardassed rent control.
T. S. Eliot once said, “Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don’t mean to do harm — but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.”
That’s what I think of rent control advocates. Both landlords and renters lose under rent control regimes. Only politicians win by gaining an undeserved reputation as being for the poor.
It is indisputable that rent controls have led to housing shortages around the world. In fact, nearly a thousand buildings in NYC alone have been abandoned by their owners due, in large part, to rent controls. That’s more than enough space to house all the city’s homeless. Rent controls discourage new construction, discourage renovations leading to dilapidated buildings, and, again, hurt landlords and renters alike.
abandoned? But people still live in those buildings, yes?
Yes and no. They’re abandoned buildings that are in disrepair and dangerous thst are filled with squatters or vacant.
Neither is a good situation. But it is the product of rent control.
Were you implying that since they’re occupied, illegally, that this is a good outcome?
I just felt like proclaiming loudly that they were abandoned (by their owners) didn’t ipso facto mean that they weren’t (possibly still) providing shelter to people who needed it. Thus undermining your claim that rent control reduces the available quantity of housing.
Well, I suppose if we want to count among available housing units those that are dangerous and occupied by illegal squatters as appropriate, well, okay I guess.
Im not sure of your point. I was replying to an advocate of rent controls by observing the adverse impacts of such controls and one particularly noteworthy example of that effect.
So, yeah, these dilapidated and dangerous buildings are occupied, but is that acceptable? Is that the preferred housing outcome? To simply say, well, they’re occupied, even if illegally and in dangerous conditions?
I dont think so.
Yea, Good for the woman. We need more rich, “blessed” old people to spend money to prevent cities and agencies building things for the public good. Transportation and parks are the devil’s playgrounds.
Well, that’s certainly one way to unfairly and inaccurately caricature my comments.
And she’s not campaigning, at least we can’t tell from this article, to stop all projects. She’s opposed to this proposed tax.
I appreciate that she is participating, expressing her political stance on this issue. Sure, I happen tonagree with her that, like PBOT, the City of Seattle has sufficient transportation funding, but it squanders it just like PBOT.
I thought the article was doing a disservice to the community with it’s critical tone of this woman’s participation and, hence, expressed my gladness for it.
“She opposes the levy, she said, because of its burdensome taxes for basic government services and misguided priorities promoting buses and bikes at the expense of cars. Never mind, she said, that the levy proposes a list of “illustrative” but not mandatory projects.
“I’m trying to do what’s right. I’m blessed that I have finances enough to do something about it,” Garneau said. “I’m only against buses when they take away parking from small businesses.””
Direct quote from the article. She opposes public transit when it removes publicly subsidized parking for private cars near her businesses. You can’t build fast, useful transit in a congested city like Seattle without removing street parking or spending billions to build elevated/underground rail lines. I think her position is very clear, and has been for some time. You are either blind to it, or are intentionally taking a counter position because you enjoy doing that on this blog.
“…She opposes public transit when it removes publicly subsidized parking for private cars near her businesses. …” Chris I
Faye Garneau said no such thing about private cars and her business.
Elsewhere in the story, is this:
“…She opposes the levy, she said, because of its burdensome taxes for basic government services and misguided priorities promoting buses and bikes at the expense of cars. …” seattle times
The paper didn’t print a quote, but rather, a summary of what she said. So exactly what she said about these things may differ from the summary. She did not say she opposes transit, or bikes. Does have differences of opinion about priorities.
“…Both landlords and renters lose under rent control regimes. …” beavertonrider
BeavertonRider…what is your suggested alternative to rent control, for city populations with people struggling to meet the cost of ‘market rate’ and so called ‘affordable housing’ ?
That is, aside from advising they move outside of the city, assuming there is housing somewhere they can afford…and commuting back into town where their jobs are? Or, thinking ‘tough luck, join the rest of those folks, y’know…under the bridge’?
It’s important that the economy stay healthy, and business owners able to do a little better than break even on their investment, but taking away the roof over people’s heads doesn’t sound like a smart way towards cities becoming healthier.
Well, first, we cannot limit our thinking to a single factor, ie, rent control or…?
It’s ironic that we’ve been doing rent control and affordable housing for decades and when confronted with the failure to achieve anything significant, the call is more of the same, lol.
Look, I don’t have an alternative that does also consider the broader economic context and governmental intervention in the economy. I am interested ne of those who strongly believes that government intervention, in areas like education, employment, housing, health care, generally worsens conditions rather than improving them.
I mean, here we are, fifty years or more into greater federal government intervention into education, housing, employment, health care ajd what is being consistently reported…worse outcomes. And what’s the typical response of the do-gooders… MORE MONEY.
So, a better question is, why do you think more rent control will alleviate the problem you’re trying to resolve given our history with rent control?
My take is that government overregulation is retarding economic growth and government deficit spending and monetary policy works together to keep money cheap which leads to these cyclical housong booms. Add in local zoning and regulatory requirements and you continue to down economic opportunities.
This is a hard, hard problem, but the government in my opinion has made the problem worse and more difficult to resolve.
There are more possible angles than your caricature allows. I do not habitually crow for more money; I don’t (any more) hold out much hope for government improving things as easily as we (some of us) once thought; but myopic calls for MORE economic growth, which you seem to favor, is in my view worse than the misfortunes we’re trying to fix.
I dont make calls for economic growth. It is simply a fact of life that economic growth is a requirement for human progress.
define “progress”
“It is simply a fact of life that economic growth is a requirement for human progress.”
Hilarious.
Given where economic growth has taken us: right up to the edge of the cliff, and where it is almost certainly going to push us next: over the edge, your facile claim is wildly obtuse.
“It’s ironic that we’ve been doing rent control…”
Rent control is illegal in OR…but I suspect you know this.
I didnt. But thats irrelevant as you can see from my posts that I am referring to rent controls generally, hence thr NYC experience.
to devise strategies, you first need to agree on objectives. should everyone have a safe place to sleep? yes/no. if yes, then how do we provide that? if we insist on keeping rents low, private landlords will withdraw from the low-end market, is what i hear you saying. okay, then how about we subsidize the higher rents? section 8, etc. only, make the subsidies more easily and broadly available. raise the minimum wage. well, i hear you say, these approaches will have undesired effects elsewhere in the economy, the end result of which might be we have simply moved the problem up some number of dollars. that is as may be, but what we have actually seen playing out on the ground over the last twenty or thirty years is that the spendable cash in the hands of the very poor has gone down while the prices of necessities, including rent, have gone up.
also i challenge your assertion the quality of services in various sectors in which “the government” has intervened over the past fifty years has gone uniformly down. i was here and sentient fifty years ago, and i am here to say grudgingly some things have improved.
Subsidized by who exactly? As we have seen with federal and state subsidies across the board – they only expand. Further, raising the min wage is just subsidy by another name, except, rather than the govt providing the subsidy, consumers pay it via higher prices. Either way, rent controls, affordable housing programs and min wage increases all have perverse results. Rent controls lead to reduced quantity and quality of units; affordable housing subsidies create chronic dependencies and have yet to solve the problem it’s intended to solve; and raising the min wage hurts young workers and minorities and leads to displacement of unskilled and under-skilled workers.
Those are real adverse effects and you cannot dismiss them with a wave of the hand.
As for government worsening things:
Each year we hear that standardized testing results are down, hence, every year the call for new testing regimes and this despite 40 years of the federal govt pouring billions and billions into public education;
Despite decades of Federally-subsidized college tuition assistance, college tuition continues to go up, up, and up.
Despite decades of federal transportation funding, every year we continue to hear how bad our transportation infrastructure is.
I mean, I can go on…
My point was not that everything has worsened.
As clearly stated above, my point is that government involvement is solving a problem generally results in worsening that problem.
Affordable housing is another. At both the federal and state levels, despite decades of so-called affordable housing initiatives, what do we hear today, a growing problem, a spiraling problem, etc., with the corresponding demand that we – wait for it – spend more money on the same affordable housing programs.
i just want to put people in homes. what do you propose?
possibly the subsidies you cite are badly designed, i.e., the design is to put dollars ultimately into the hands of the rentiers. maybe if we just built the housing and invited people to live in it. same with college tuition. just let people go to school. don’t be putting in some elaborate mechanism to put money in the hands of lenders. or obamacare, a subsidy ultimately for insurance companies, who in turn keep the medical industrial complex and big pharma afloat.
“…So, a better question is, why do you think more rent control will alleviate the problem you’re trying to resolve given our history with rent control? …” BeavertonRider
I don’t know that cities need ‘more’ rent control, but it does seem rather fundamentally essential that there continue to be ‘some’ rent control. How much, I’m not sure. If not for rent control there are many people that simply could not afford to live in the city. Or maybe even have a place to live at all.
The people qualifying for rent controlled housing should be those that justifiably have a need for it. Is there abuse of rent control, such as people that could afford to pay market rate, but somehow have wangled their way into rent controlled housing? I’ve read of this happening. Cut out the abuse and waste by going after them first.
The least amount of necessary government is definitely a good objective. Not though, when it creates undue, avoidable, harsh living conditions for poor people. Using poor people to bear the brunt of a dysfunctional economy does not contribute well towards a healthy society.
>Both landlords and renters lose under rent control regimes.
Some renters benefit, because they get a deeply discounted rate on their apartment. With suitably strong renter protection laws that mandate minimum standards an active renter can force a landlord to keep their place maintained.
Some landlords benefit, because rent control won’t always apply to every unit, and so it reduces the supply of market rate units. It doesn’t eliminate them. So if you have a market rate building the reduced supply of market rate units means you benefit disproportionately from a booming market.
“because rent control won’t always apply to every unit”
this is true of rent control in the usa but those who criticize the economics of rent control always assume that it does.
Sure, those suitably strong requirements might suggest a win…but only if someone actually builds these buildings and then maintains control of them, unlike in NYC where rent controlled buildings are being abandoned.
Where in NYC are these buildings being abandoned today? When the Bronx was burning there was a lot more to it than rent control. The tenant protection laws I was referring to were to force a landlord to maintain the property instead of letting it decay to the point where they can evict everyone from the building because it isn’t safe to live in. Or to protect tenants from landlords that are using shady tactics to try to force them out.
the anchor grocery store in 97214 is a safeway. i shop there often since i support unions and consequently avoid new seasons and fred meyers.
PS: krogers does not exist in the pacific northwest.
Kroger owns Fred Meyer and QFC.
Safeway and Albertsons also share the same parent company. Mergers in supermarkets have been pretty crazy.
every employee at safeway can join a union. this is not the case at fred meyers.
Re: Seattle – good for that woman! It’s interesting the tone the article takes, almost hostile, yet, without a critical eye, nearly praises the new tax advocates. Sure, the article notes that the advocates would gain, but fails to inform the reader the true extent. Unions, for example, will win big simply because the new spending will either fund more work or more employees which means a huge increase in new union dues. And you can see that’s the union’s interest in their spokeman’s comment.
Anyway, good for this woman…
Seattle desperately needs more frequent, faster transit. Driving is quickly becoming a non-option with the population explosion and difficult geography. It’s not surprising that someone her age is basically the only one fighting this. People that oppose transit expansion are stuck in the past.
“…her age…” Chris I
The Seattle Times catchy use of the word ‘octogenarian’, in its story headline and text, and bikeportland following suit in its Monday Roundup summary of that story must have clued you in to the lady being approximately 80 years old. You could try explain why you believe “that someone her age is basically the only one fighting this”.
I don’t read from this story, why in the city, there wouldn’t possibly be other people her age, and younger (and maybe even a few older.) fighting the campaign. This particular story doesn’t look into who else may be opposing the campaign levy proposal, but other S Times stories may have done so.
The story refers to Faye Garneau in no uncertain terms, as a savvy, experienced, long time Seattle resident and successful business person. Also, conservative. Seems possible Seattle has a few more conservatives than this one 80 year old lady. Apparently, increases to taxes is something she objects to about the Let’s Move levy proposal. And loss of parking for business. Sounds similar to concerns people living in Portland have for their city.
But she is backward and out of touch according to some here…all because they disagree with her.
Lets hope we can remain civil here..
“Backward and out of touch”
That is the standard charge against anyone who offers an opinion that differs from the “approved points of view” that are prevalent on this site. That is my biggest complaint about BP, that it is not a big tent at all.
Rather than the woman’s age, and apparently negative age associated insinuations some people reading here seem to have thought was a good idea to present….the more relevant point of discussion ought possibly to be whether things Seattle hopes to do with its Move On campaign, will as she says for example, take parking away from small businesses:
“…“I’m trying to do what’s right. I’m blessed that I have finances enough to do something about it,” Garneau said. “I’m only against buses when they take away parking from small businesses.” …” Faye Garneau, Seattle businessperson, quoted in Seattle Times
And if so, will that be a good thing? For people in Seattle, following discussion about the levy proposal, the bigger question likely is whether the things Move On is being designed to do, will in fact hurt, or benefit business…big and small alike.
Like most cities, Seattle no doubt, wants to do those things that will help the city’s business, and businesses in general, flourish and prosper. In that respect, attracting commitment to bike and transit infrastructure can be a dicey proposal. When Garneau says ‘buses’, ‘bikes’ and ‘cars’, logically it would seem she regards moves that may undercut support of the latter, to be detrimental to Seattle business.
Whether that’s true for Seattle, depends on the details of the proposal. So weigh the claims made, against the details of the proposal, and leave the discussion at that.
http://www.seattle.gov/transportation/docs/LevyDistrictSheetsAll.pdf
But notice that you’re attributing to her a position that you don’t know she posseses, ie, opposed to more frequent, faster transit. We don’t know if that’s her position. We only know that she’s opposed to this proposed tax levy.
I think you’re unfairly maligning her as stuck in the past.
Is it not possible to oppose this tax levy and, yet, want more frequent and faster transit? Of course, it is possible. Im one of those people. Ive posted it here.
So, dont misattribute an opinion to this single person to go after her as old and out of touch. Her participation here demonstrates that she’s not out of touch at all.
Lastly, disagreeing with you hardly means someone is out of touch.
I never said she was out of touch.
Just old and stuck in the past… Gotcha
“I never said she was out of touch” Chris I
Yeah right. You carefully avoided explaining what you meant in mentioning her age. That you won’t explain, speaks volumes about your mindset.
You two don’t realize that my “I never said she was out of touch” was poking fun at your insistence on reading everything literally and picking out minor details of comments to run away with on your frequent lengthy tirades.
And it turns out that she was/is extremely out of touch. She just blew $325,000:
http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/transportation/move-seattle/
And a great example today of why they desperately need these transit improvements:
http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/transportation/emergency-i-5-expansion-joint-repair-jams-seattle-traffic/
After pointedly and with an apparently disparaging suggestion in mind, mentioned businessperson Faye Garneau’s age as you did, I realized you had your foot firmly stuck in your mouth, and likely couldn’t be relied upon to provide an honest explanation of what you meant.
As to whether Garneau “…blew…” the money she contributed towards efforts to oppose the MoveOn tax levy proposal, considering that 44 percent and and counting, of people that voted, opposed the levy, there’s good reason to think many Seattle residents don’t believe the money was wasted. A six percent majority in favor of the levy, is a rather slim ‘mandate’, if that’s what it were to be called.
It may be interesting to learn more of Garneau’s and other residents concerned with rising taxes, ideas about what they feel the need for mass transit and biking infrastructure is, and the best way to fund it. People opposing tax increases does not necessarily mean they oppose improvements to mass transit and biking infrastructure. It’s the means of raising the money, and how much the raise may be in the form of taxes to residents and business, that gives caution to some people.
Not directly related, but also associated with tax in Washington state, is a story about Washington residents seeking by initiative, control over the state’s sales tax. According to the story: “…Despite strong opposition in King County, I-1366 led by big margins in most of the state. …”
http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/eyman-tax-initiative/
American voters are famous for wanting more services and not wanting to pay for them. So yes, it’s entirely possible she’s in favor of better transit.
“American voters are famous for wanting more services and not wanting to pay for them. So yes, it’s entirely possible she’s in favor of better transit.” glowboy
Faye Garneau is apparently concerned with city taxes possibly becoming so high that Seattle residents and business owners won’t be able to pay them. Staying in business is key to being able to make enough money to pay the taxes.
Will MoveOn’s project objectives, help, or diminish the ability of customers to get to the city’s business? Being an apparently very savvy businessperson, it stands to reason that Garneau would favor any mode of travel that would help the city’s residents and businesses towards being healthy and prosperous.
Seattle businesses are doing better than ever. The economy is booming, and transit spending is increasing. Correlation?
Pffft! I lived in Seattle and ran a service business there prior to moving it to Portland. Taxes are structured quite differently, but for most businesses the difference doesn’t amount to much. There is NO business income tax, making the overall accounting much simpler (no need to calculate and deduct expenses), though there are of course sales taxes that have to be collected and submitted, plus a Business & Occupation tax (2.5% of revenue, not net income) on service based businesses.
Do you really think it’s such a good thing that someone can have so much influence on the political process just because they’re lucky enough to be rich?
You’re presuming she is influencing it simply by throwing money at it. Maybe, maybe not.
Do you level similar complaints when Bill Gates, George Soros, or other more liberal rich folks contribute to politcal issue/advocacy campaigns?
Politcal spending is political speech. Some of you have lots of money (I dont), but some of you have time and talent (I have time, not much talent, lol). Why get bent that wealthy folks get their money involved?
I dont recall much complaint ’round Portland when wealthy folks were dumping money into campaigns for gay marriage legalization.
Further, what we ought to be concerned about, since we’ re talking fairness, are these unions pouring money into political campaigns and advocacy. This is money coercively taken from their members and spent on political causes those members may not agree with, but those members have to pay for or they lose their job (if working a closed shop environment, eg, cops, fire, teachers).
“…Further, what we ought to be concerned about, since we’ re talking fairness, are these unions pouring money into political campaigns and advocacy. This is money coercively taken from their members and spent on political causes those members may not agree with, but those members have to pay for or they lose their job (if working a closed shop environment, eg, cops, fire, teachers).” beavertonrider
Rather than a political campaign, Seattle’s MoveOn campaign is primarily a transportation system and infrastructure building levy proposal. It sounds as though the projects of MoveOn will mean work for union workers, so it stands to reason they may be in favor of the levy.
Always one of the unfortunate consequences of these get the vote fights, is the money spent on trying to win voters over. Together so far according to the Seattle Times reporting, the ‘for’ and the ‘against’ is spending more than $300,000 on beating each other.
Liberals celebrate rich liberals throwing their money into political campaigns precisely because it is so RARE. The deluge of campaign money is overwhelmingly conservative. If we cleaned up our corrupt politics and got the obscene amounts of cash out of it, I think most of us would be JUST FINE with George Soros, et. al. staying out of it too.
Really? You do realize that, per opensercrets.org, that left groups dominate political contributions, right?
Tell me you knew.
OK all, let’s not get any deeper into this particular exchange, please. It’s a biking website, not a C-SPAN camera.
Crash vs Accident: the basic point is of course correct. But as I’ve pointed out here repeatedly, the history of the term accident is far more involved than this glib dismissal would suggest. For details see Risk and Misfortune by Judith Green
“Do you have a bike that needs a set of fenders, but you are not sure what size to get? And once you have the right size, do you feel unsure about how to install them on your bike? Can you simply not find a functional and beautiful set of bicycle fenders?”
It used to be that you had to use Google Maps and the special incantation “bike shop” to find stockists of these rare items and practitioners of such dark magicks as determining tire size and bolting stuff down.
Now you can do it yourself: just cut the bamboo down to size, run a heat gun over your tire for five minutes, and THEN bolt stuff down. What a time to be alive.
Link to Allison Hope Liao Way memorial street sign:
http://www.timesledger.com/stories/2015/44/allisonliaoway_2015_10_30_q.html
I’m not sure which name is worse, mandy fender (“man defender”) or “airdonkey”.
You left out “bam-boobee”
Too late on that one.
http://www.buybamboobies.com
Regarding the reporting on cycling deaths and the perceived dangers of cycling in London: On a per hour basis, cycling is not significantly more dangerous than driving. Adding in the health benefits and subtracting the drunk ninja salmon leaves it about as safe per mile as driving. Yet, cycling is perceived as risky, likely because cyclists don’t kill themselves, they are killed by motorists. This lack of control is likely what makes people think it is risky.
The obvious thing to do about this is clean up motorist behavior by improving licensing standards, increasing penalties for unlawful driving and by doing traffic law enforcement. All of this exists in the European nations that have achieved reasonable ridership. However, who is going to push for those things here? Cops hate doing traffic. Legislators all drive as to almost all of their constituents, so any perceived barriers to driving are nonstarters and our “advocates” only see the segregation infra and not the social infrastructure.
Sadly, segregation can’t do the job as a stand-alone approach. However, as was shown in Davis in the ’70s, traffic law enforcement can create extremely high ridership even in the absence of high licensing standards and physically separated infrastructure. But no, we’d rather expend our efforts and capital, both monetary and political, getting a few more blocks of segregated lanes with questionable intersection issues than pushing for zero-tolerance traffic law enforcement. It’s disturbing at best.
All valid points. Hate riding in traffic next to the stereotypical distracted texting person, who is very confident he/she will never be ticketed. Might kill someone, but never a ticket…
>Adding in the health benefits and subtracting the drunk ninja salmon leaves it about as safe per mile as driving.
Are you also excluding the deaths of ‘drunk ninja’ drivers? Something like a third of fatal crashes involve a drunk driver (the driver isn’t necessarily the one who died) and about half are single vehicle crashes.
“Are you also excluding the deaths of ‘drunk ninja’ drivers?” – lop
Not many drunk ninja drivers to subtract, a term which I assume means driving drunk with your lights turned off
Actually bicycle riding is much safer than driving. The ridership counts across this country are far lower than most people think it is here in the US. And the “advocates” are just starting to figure that one out. fatalities and injury rates only account for location (on a road or off a road) of incident and not the type of riding. So if I decide to jump off a loading dock on a BMX and biff it hard on the street and die, I’m still a bicycle traffic death. If I’m injured because of a crash while racing on a closed highway – it’s a bicycle injury. Then again so is a heart attack if it happens during a ride.
It’s the biggest thing I like about bike share is that it does supply phenomenal statistics. Here the ride style between users is similar, equipment is all the same, accurate mileage counts, accurate ride counts. Forget the apps and the polling we are only now seeing the real numbers. Bike share and public access to bike counter information are the big game changers in what is going to be the new safety stats for bicycle riding.
“Actually bicycle riding is much safer than driving.”
in portland, san francisco, and a few other cities. elsewhere in north america, not so much.
You do realize that we (Portland) have injury and fatality rates very close to Copenhagen – some years even better – despite fewer cyclists and way more automobile exposure. I believe it was 20012 when Copenhagen had 7 bicycle fatalities while Portland only had 5 in the years 2010,11,12 and 13 combined.
That should read “ridership numbers are much higher than most people think”
“…It’s the biggest thing I like about bike share is that it does supply phenomenal statistics. Here the ride style between users is similar, …” gutterbunnybikes
As to riding style of people using bike share bikes, I think that road use knowledge, skill and ability will have that style will vary widely, just as it does with the style of people driving…only all of the latter are obliged to do at least some study and be tested for knowledge and ability to use a motor vehicle on the road.
Regarding VW, will they turn to make bikes and buses?
Reports are VW plans to transition to all electronic very soon.
What does that mean? All electronic what? NOx capture?
Motors, batteries… No IC system to output exhaust that they can be suspected of cheating at.
Sort of a realization that they can sell VW cars that are electric or sell not enough ICE powered cars. They have too much of a PR black eye to think that they would be able to gain back worldwide trust more quickly than they could just side step they old technology issue.
An issue which I think the EPA & maybe the US Justice Department are investigating on ALL car makers because it is reasonable to believe that ALL car makers do this.
I mean think about it… What does our own DEQ tell us to do to get a marginal car to sneak under the limit? Fundamentally everyone in Tha Biz knows that America cars are Hobbson’s Choice.
VW has another option.
Nice read – Interesting back story article on the CDOT pushing forward against their state DOT on the Dearborn Street protected bike track. I wonder if any of cities in the NW would go it alone in a similar scenario…even with the NACTO tool box more proven now.
Thus is the importance for Oregon’s larger cities to regain jurisdictional control over their arterials. (Washington cities have historically had more jurisdictional control over arterials in practice than Oregon…assuming they choose to use it.)
Victim Remembered link is mixed up…
http://www.timesledger.com/stories/2015/44/allisonliaoway_2015_10_30_q.html
And? The poster I was responding to explicitly said that this woman was opposed to all projects for the public good. I think you’ ll agree that, at best, we don’t know that and, at worst, she is opposed to the suggested projects which reduces car use to improve transit.
Im not sure how you or the other poster can extend her opposition to this tax levy as opposition to all projects that are claimed to be in the public good. It just doesn’t follow logically.
Advancements in medicine, technology, defense, agriculture, etc.
http://www.clubofrome.org/index.php/the-limits-to-growth/
Nice computer model…sure hope nothing happens to it – like reality.
It’s ironic that you refer to a computer model without qualification. Just today, three months after NASA breathlessly tells us that sea level rise caused by melting polar ice is even scarier than they previously predicted (, http://m.csmonitor.com/Science/2015/0827/Rising-seas-even-more-dangerous-than-thought-says-NASA) NASA released a statement that – wait for it – polar ice has been expanding for the last 30 years (http://m.csmonitor.com/Science/2015/0827/Rising-seas-even-more-dangerous-than-thought-says-NASA).
Of course, unwilling to acknowledge that there might be a problem with their “scientific” approach to modeling climate change, the NASA gang says this just proves how hard it is to measure sea ice.
Yeah, no doubt it is hard, but where was that humility just three months ago whem issuing their renewed warning about scarier risks caused by melting polar ice? Lol.
So, pretty model and all you got there, but it’s meaningless. To date, absent ecomomic growth we don’t have the technological ability to even suggest a limit to growth via computer modeling… Oh the irony, lol.
Huh? What? Economic growth has taken us to the cliff’s edge? Now that’s laughable. Economic growth can do no such thing. What is this economic growth’s name and address? What decisions has he made for us? Lol…
The breathless pursuit of Economic Growth Űber Alles is the law of the land around here. Even you trumpeted this just upthread.
Economic Growth is another word for Energy Using Technical Change, aka substituting cheap fossil fuels for everything else. This is all very natural to the Economists (most of them) but it has overdrawn all our biophysical accounts and the time to pay up is nigh.
The fact that you think it is all bunkum has no effect whatsoever on the pace with which we’re heading for heartbreak. Remember Cassandra, whom no one believed?
it’s interesting how you frequently complain about ad hominems but show little restraint when it comes to using ad hominems in your own comments.
Indeed. One commenter seems to always dominate any discussions that have any hint of political conflict. It’s sad, really. I used to enjoy the constructive conversations on this blog.
Good video on “Safety vs. racism” that was mentioned in this BP article: (quite a coincidence that this just came out today – same day as this BP article)
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/11/02/dashcam-video-undermines-texas-profs-claim-racial-profiling-says-chief/?intcmp=hpbt2
But, but, but…it cant be true, this was reported by FauxNews. Lol
Wait, what? Whose money are you “giving” to renters or wanna-be college attendees?
how exactly do you come into “ownership” of money, BR? where does it come from? what are the mechanisms that determine who “should” have how much? we are all of us born onto this planet at this particular moment in history. we gotta eat and we gotta sleep. the machinery is mostly already in place, nothing you individually can take credit for, and most of it is a mess, put in place by people who have been able to appropriate resources from others and maintain their advantage through force.
sorry, michael, as long as BR is posting here you get CSPAN
Patrick Moore, one of the founders of Greenpeace on the man-caused Global Warming Hoax:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0Z5FdwWw_c
Found it in this comment. Scroll up to view the article, just published today.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-11-03/another-inconvenient-truth-new-nasa-study-finds-antarctica-gaining-ice#comment-6745752
Doesn’t take much search foo to ‘debunk Patrick Moore.’
Sorry, to be clear “pffft” was directed towards wsbob’s allegation of a high tax burden in Seattle.