(Photos courtesy John Massengale)
Happy Independence Day! BikePortland is taking the rest of today off to celebrate the country we love, warts and all. We’ll be back first thing Tuesday morning. In the meantime, here are the bike-related links from around the world that caught our eyes this week.
Missing sidewalks: As New York City’s croweded sidewalks overflow into bike and car lanes, some are pointing out that people are basically reclaiming space they had in 1906.
Tour history: The Tour de France, which started this weekend, no longer bans teams, requires riders to make every repair personally or features people trying to slip poisoned wine to contestants.
Job access: Real estate site Redfin has used the number of jobs you can reach by transit and foot within 30 minutes to create a Walkscore-style rating for any address.
Transit cleanliness: Yes, mass transit vehicles are crowded with germs, but they’re mostly the harmless kind we live with daily.
Bike share death: A Chicago woman killed by a right-turning truck Friday was the nation’s first to die on a bike share bike.
Autonomous car death: An Ohio man killed by a left-turning truck May 7 was the first person to die behind the wheel of a self-driving car. His Tesla, in autopilot mode, reportedly failed to detect the truck as it moved into his lane.
Negligence penalty: The case of a woman who killed a 20-year-old on a bike in Iowa while texting behind the wheel has some calling for felony penalties for negligence rather than just intent.
Contributory negligence: In a handful of states and the District of Columbia, you can’t claim any recovery payment unless a court finds you were less than 1 percent responsible for a collision that hurt you.
Safety ruling: In a potentially momentous ruling, a state appeals court in Washington found that cities must provide safe roadways for all traffic, including bicycles.
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Party cycles: Amsterdam is banning them from most of its downtown.
Gated cities: A “growing body of economic literature” suggests that zoning laws that drive up prices in prosperous cities are contributing to national economic inequality.
Underground, visualized: Here’s a neat old 3D illustration of a subway station.
Friends like these: As some call for the national transit association to become more progressive, the top story in its most recent newsletter was a happy birthday letter to the Interstate Highway System.
I-5 bridge crashes: The Columbian mapped all Interstate 5 bridge crashes from 2009-2014 by location, year, hour and day of week. One of the 834 was fatal.
Bear death: A grizzly bear killed someone biking through Glacier National Park. It’s the park’s 10th bear-related death since it opened in 1910.
Tiny houses: They’re usually illegal. Sightline looks at the barriers.
Infrastructure exchange: As on-street protected bike lanes spread in U.S. cities, Europe is building off-street bike paths and calling them “cycle highways.”
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.
Correction 8 pm: An earlier version of this post inaccurately summarized the Tesla collision.