Here are the bike-related links from around the world that caught our eyes this week:
When women dare to ride: “I want you, when you get married, to make riding your bikes a condition of marriage,” advises Amna Suleiman, the leader of a defiantly countercultural women’s cycling club in Gaza.
Biking jobs: 2.4 percent of the nation’s scientists bike to work, a higher rate than any other profession. Following them, at 1.5 percent: cooks and servers.
Housing costs: Seattle Transit Blog has a concise explanation of why they’ve been rising so drastically in cities that have added jobs.
Bike movie: An “unapologetic, misfit crew of young women of color” in Los Angeles that uses bikes to resist vioence is Kickstarting a documentary headed to South by Southwest.
Bike subsidies: California already subsidizes “clean” cars, so why not bikes?
“Anti-fun legislation”: The Australian state of New South Wales has approved hundreds of dollars in penalties for biking without carrying official ID or wearing a helmet.
Small corrections: The magnitude of the typical body movement is the basic difference between a skilled and novice cyclist, a new study found.
Vancouver bike share: Our Canadian sister city is getting a 1,500-smartbike system in June, before Portland’s 1,000-bike system launches.
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Bikes vs. horses: Equestrians have successfully lobbied to ban bikes from an 80-year-old footbridge across the Los Angeles River, even if they’re being walked or carried.
Death toll: Car crashes have killed 1 million Americans since 1990, about a third more than all Americans killed by HIV.
Highway mistakes: The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office warns that the U.S. highway system needs to immediately reallocate existing money from construction to maintenance. “The addition of new lanes is likely to have little effect on congestion within 10 years,” it said.
ODOT lawsuit: Eight people with disabilities have sued the Oregon Department of Transportation for failing to build proper sidewalk ramps when it repaves a street. ODOT doesn’t deny that it has been out of compliance.
Virtual bus: TriMet’s latest operator training equipment cost $327,000 and actually looks pretty effective.
Public interest: “City streets belong to the entire city, not just the people who live near them,” writes the New York Observer on a case of bike lane NIMBYism. “It’s the city’s role to ensure that the larger public interest is served.”
Bike lane trial: Prospect Park West’s protected bike lanes, once radical and supposedly unsightly, are heavily ridden and widely imitated, but they’re still subject to a costly civil lawsuit in court last week.
Biking actor: Ed Begley Jr., of St. Elsewhere and elsewhere, once again biked to the Oscars wearing his tux.
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.
— Michael Andersen, (503) 333-7824 – michael@bikeportland.org
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