(Photo: J.Maus/BikePortland)
Happy new year, Portland — we’ve had some much-needed rest on Team BikePortland and we’re happy to be back from the holidays with you. Here, as usual, are the bike-related links from around the world that caught our eyes this week:
Lane lights: A proposed Florida law would require Florida-made solar-powered lights to be installed along every bike path or lane. (Cost: $75 each.)
DIY snow tires: For those of you with disc brakes, this might be a good day to consider this creative use of zip-ties.
Depaving streets: Facing vast maintenance backlogs, 27 states are now turning some paved roads to gravel (PDF), or letting them naturally crumble.
Sunlight disinfection: When the police report blames a woman for causing the bike collision that killed her, local media are more likely to ask questions if she happens to be well-off and politically connected. And when they do, the police report sometimes comes off looking really bad.
Helmet reviews: The Bicycle Helmet Safety Institute looks at 2016’s models.
Apodment living: “I didn’t really choose the pod life,” writes car-free Seattle journalist Suzanne Jacobs in a personal review of tiny apartments. “The pod life chose me.”
Bike Autobahn: Germany is setting out to build a 62-mile bike highway — “no red lights, no trucks, just clear sailing” — on old rail routes through its Ruhr region.
Unlicensed driving: France’s novel way to reduce danger from unlicensed drivers is to let them drive two-seater cars that can move up to 28 mph.
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Football bikers: A “growing number” of NFL players biking for offseason training have found “improved leg turnover, fresher legs, and nearly everything else.”
Growth industry: Years of booming bike sales in the UK have the BBC talking about “the unstoppable growth of cycling.”
Delhi pollution: India’s smoggy capital will test a rule that lets you drive a given car only on alternating days.
Italian pollution: Rome has also been using an alternating-day system, and Milan simply banned all cars for six hours each of three days to reduce smog.
Crime prevention: Juvenile curfews (like Portland’s) seem to increase gunfire after hours, presumably because they push law-abiding eyes off the street.
Slower biking: For whatever reason, people traveling at less than 8 mph are three times more likely to be hit.
Bus perspective: TriMet operator Dan Christensen tells a story of the sort of incident that makes a bus driver grumpy.
Immoral engineering: Continuing to design roads around “a futile effort to move more cars faster” shows “essentially the same respect for life as the one driver in five who flees the scene after killing someone on foot,” writes Tom Fuculoro.
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