Welcome to the week. We’ve got a lot to cover; but first let’s look back at the best stories we came across in the past seven days…
Cars vs bikes, literally: Chinese ride-hailing giant Didi is meddling in the business of dockless bike-share companies in what looks like an effort to tame their growth.
Better boardwalks: We love this brilliant, modular sidewalk expansion method from London. Where could we put wider sidewalks to use in Portland?
Funding boost: Jump Bikes (formerly Social Bicycles), the bike share company that provides bikes and tech for Portland’s Biketown bikes, received an influx of venture funding after winning an exclusive permit for dockless e-bikes in San Francisco.
Effective bike marketing: If you want your city to make real progress in getting more people on bikes, you need to internalize and implement these eight rules from Modacity.
Hey that’s cool: A paper on robot-controlled bicycles from researchers at Caltech (PDF) included this cool graphic (below) that shows the tire marks of 800 bicycles being pushed until they fall over (aka ghostriding).
(Image: Caltech)
Riding indoors without shame: “Traffic” author Tom Vanderbilt has come to not just tolerate riding inside. Because of Zwift and “smart” trainers, he actually loves it.
TriMet’s dirty buses: Did you know our regional transit provider is behind-the-times when it comes to using electric buses? Climate Solutions says 60 percent of TriMet’s trips are still taken on diesel buses and they want the agency to make a full transition to electric.
“Petextrian” is the new “jaywalker”: Both terms blame the victim and are pushed by the same forces that want to maintain a status quo that offers unfettered access for the most dangerous and harmful urban road users — people who drive. This must-read from The Baffler lays it all out.
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Race-based complaints: “Black Urbanist” writer Kristin Jeffers calls out dockless bike share critiques that she feels are rooted in bigotry.
Wrong side, ACLU: The Americal Civil Liberties Union has inexplicably joined a lawsuit that bans the use of photo radar cameras to catch speeders. That’s dangerous and it shows the org’s “windsheild bias” says Streetsblog.
Wrong side, Sierra Club: Another example of a “progressive” org that doesn’t understand transportation and livable cities is the Sierra Club: They oppose a California bill that would encourage transit-oriented development.
Cities for kids: Financial Times breaks down what makes a kid-friendly city. No surprise that it’s all about density, proximity to parks and streets built for people, not cars.
Freeways and poor neighborhoods: This story about a poor area of Orlando that’s encircled by toxic freeways is heartbreaking — and a great example of who the City of Portland should not support any expansion of I-5 through the central city.
More inspiration: London’s walking and cycling commissioner says their protected bike lanes move five times as many people per hour than regular lanes. Best part of the article is the lead photo that looks a lot like Naito Parkway and Waterfront Park (hint hint PBOT!).
could should look like this. (Photo via The Guardian)
199-year old bicycle: A collector uncovered an extremely rare and completely fascinating “hobby horse” bicycle which was first patented in 1818.
Existing traffic is a tax on the poor: Here’s a solid argument in reply to concern trolls who say congestion pricing is regressive and unfairly targets the poor.
— Jonathan Maus: (503) 706-8804, @jonathan_maus on Twitter and jonathan@bikeportland.org
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