Welcome to the first full week of 2018.
Here are the best stories we came across last week…
Scofflaw science: A study in Florida found that — surprise, surprise — people break traffic laws at similar rates regardless of the type of vehicle they operate.
Breaking barriers: ESPN has the story of Ayesha McGowan, a woman who wants to be the first African-American to land a professional cycling contract.
Dutch data: The great Bicycle Dutch blogger and filmmaker Mark Wagenbuur starts off the year with a slew of interesting datapoints about cycling in The Netherlands. Don’t miss the video at the end.
Bike Snob, truth-teller: In one of Eben Weiss’s best-ever columns (and that’s saying a lot) he argues that people who think biking with kids in traffic is dangerous are completely brainwashed: “Perhaps the greatest toll the car has exacted upon our culture: it’s completely annihilated our ability to perceive and understand danger and act accordingly.”
Drive with good morals: Pope Francis singled out driving behavior during his New Year’s Eve address, saying that people, “who move in traffic with good sense and prudence” are “artisans of the common good.”
Terror response in NYC: Bill de Blasio announced that New York City will install 1,500 metal bollards to prevent people from using cars as weapons and protect spaces where people walk and bike.
Bikequity: Elly Blue, the Portland publisher who coined the term “bikenomics”, just published the 14th issue of her feminist bike zine. It’s titled, “Bikequity: Money, Class, & Bicycling” and its contributors include Adonia Lugo, Tamika Butler, and 12 others.
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Neighborhoods are the new backyards: Federal policy to encourage people’s connection to their neighborhood have had unintended consequence of excluding others and resisting change (aka NIMBYism) says this piece in the NY Times.
Sideguards save lives: A bill working its way through Congress would require the use of guards on the side and front of large trucks to prevent other road users from going under the wheels in collisions.
Cleaner buses: This should give you hope: A major city in China has switched all of their buses — a whopping 16,359 of them! — to electric power just six years after it promised to do so.
Visionary path and park: A $40 million project in Ohio will lean on a public-private partnership to create a seven-mile “world class” park and bike path along a riverfront.
An hour just to find a parking spot: In addition to drivers and bike riders and Uber drivers, urban street capacity is being tested by the surge in delivery trucks due to increased use of online ordering. Hopefully cargo bikes can help solve this one.
Truck culture: This inside look at Ford’s MegaRaptor, which is essentially a consumer monster truck, should stoke the ire of every street safety advocate. These trucks are extremely dangerous to vulnerable road users.
Protect it and they will come: The number of people who commute to work by bike into downtown Denver rose 25 percent (to an 8.3 percent mode share) and it follows the installation of four miles of protected bike lanes.
Video of the Week: The BBC sheds light on how the Tour of Colombia bicycle race helps unite the country, as told through the eyes of a young woman whose ex-racer father was killed in the drug wars.
Thanks for all the submissions everyone. And by the way, we’d love to find more sponsors for this regular feature. Please contact me for rates and more information.
— Jonathan Maus: (503) 706-8804, @jonathan_maus on Twitter and jonathan@bikeportland.org
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