(Photo: Ed Yourdon)
Here are the bike-related links from around the world that caught our eyes this week:
“Road homicide”: It’ll be a new offense in Italy, associated with minimum prison sentences of two to eight years and 15-year bans from driving.
“Bike Batman”: A Seattle engineer who confronts bike thieves and returns bikes to owners describes his work as “kind of fun.”
Skinny biking: A study of 150,000 adults found that bike commuting makes you weigh about 10 pounds less than car commuting would.
Unshaved legs: A 26-year-old Slovakian racer has ignited pro cycling’s latest scandal.
Sidewalk biking: Taipei legalized it, and apparently it’s working.
Criminalized texting: “Using your cellphone while crossing a street could become illegal in New Jersey.”
Fixing Atlanta: The capital of the Southeast may be putting some of its racial divisions aside as it adds bike lanes, streetcars and crosswalks to its central city.
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Metrorail shutdown: D.C.’s subway system unexpectedly closed last Wednesday, making bicycles (and apparently skateboards) the fastest way to travel clogged streets.
Transit tweeting: The guy who runs the Twitter account for Bay Area Rapid Transit dropped some late-night real talk about infrastructure during a shutdown, and people liked it.
Autonomous cars: Google has written Three Laws of Robotics for them, supposedly naming walking and biking safety as top priority.
“Stopping gentrification”: One Detroiter leads multicultural bike rides that help her neighbors learn the area’s history from one another.
Anti-gentrification tips: Five bike equity experts offer tips for navigating bike lanes and race politics.
Safety targets: The federal government has for the first time called for all states and regions to set targets for biking and walking safety.
Why people bike: Living in a denser neighborhood makes you more likely to bike or walk if you’re poor, but not if you’re rich, a study found.
Risky tradeoffs: What can buses do to travel faster? Be more dangerous, one man argues.
Portland, boomtown: A Bloomberg columnist visited Portland and left in awe of our relative economic prosperity.
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.