The Monday Roundup: Myopic marketing, wheelchair biking, pedaling protest, and more
Posted by Jonathan Maus (Publisher/Editor) on February 5th, 2018 at 9:45 am
Welcome to the week. Looks like the rain is gone for a bit and we’ve warmed up a bit. I might even try riding without gloves today. I know, right!
You might notice something new this week: I’ve started giving credit to sources of links we use in the roundup. Giving credit is one of the most important tenets of the web, and it’s always bothered me that I didn’t do this in the past. I also hope you’ll discover new and smart people to follow on Twitter.
Here are the best stories we came across last week…
Unsafe at any level of nudity: A man is suing the City of Portland for $566,000 after he hit a median curb on SE Morrison and suffered injuries on his way home from the World Naked Bike Ride in 2016. (via The Oregonian)
On a related note: Los Angeles paid out $19 million last year to bicycle riders and their families to settle lawsuits related to crashes caused by unsafe road conditions. (via @bikinginorange)
Pedaling for net neutrality: A protestor rode his bike around FCC headquarters — and purposely held up a full lane of road users — to make a point about net neutrality. (via Steve K.)
Bad dockless: When you plop a bunch of shareable bikes into a city that has no supportive bike cutlure or respect for cycling in general, you get a huge mess (and lots of dockless naysayers). (via John L.)
Good dockless: China has had a huge problem with dockless bike messes too, but Streetsblog reports that, “Cycling rates have doubled in Chinese cities since the advent of dockless bike-share system.”
Picking up trash by bike: That feeling when some cool people actually did the thing you’ve been thinking about for many years: a bike tour devoted to picking up trash. Imagine if we got dozens of people together and did this in one quadrant of Portland? (via @BarbChamberlain)
Segments a security risk: How come nobody told soldiers and army staff to turn off Strava when logging bike rides in war zones? (via @BikeRadar)
Advertisement
Biking emerges after the storm: As we’ve seen with many major natural disasters, people re-discover the efficacy of bicycles as a transportation tool. People for Bikes has the latest from Puerto Rico, post Maria.
Industry’s myopic marketing: There’s a lot of talk in the bike industry that road cycling is way down. Maybe that’s because the pain-and-suffering and win-at-all-costs marketing imagery is very unappealing to all but the tiny percentage of hardcore riders already participating in the sport. (via CyclingTips.com)
Cross-border bike share: El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juarez, Mexico are about to launch a two-country bike-share system. (via @Pflax1)
Future transport pact: Fresh on heels of Uber’s big integration with Jump (formerly Social Bicycles), 15 bike-share and ride-hailing companies signed a pact promising to do keep the best interests of urban livability at core of their mission.
Quick and cheap sidewalks: We talk a lot about protected bikeways. Have you seen Seattle’s “protected walking lanes”? They make them with just paint and curbs. (via Streetsblog)
Biking for all: A wheelchair biking program has popped up in Sequim, Washington. With the demand for adaptive bikes in Portland, I wonder if someone could make this work here? (via @IansRide2016)
Prioritize walking now: When cities make walking easier and driving less convenient in dense urban areas, fewer people die. This article has shares a provocative insight: U.S. fatality rates have only gone down because we took people off their feet and put them in cars — which ultimately leads to less safe conditions. (via @awalkerinLA)
Video of the week: The definition of entitlement is, “the fact of having a right to something.”
Here’s more of what we saw from #Skycam9 as drivers took to the bike path to avoid a crash SB LSD past 57th. @WGNMorningNews pic.twitter.com/QsSdB6onDj
— Sarah Jindra (@SarahJindra) February 1, 2018
— Jonathan Maus: (503) 706-8804, @jonathan_maus on Twitter and jonathan@bikeportland.org
Never miss a story. Sign-up for the daily BP Headlines email.
BikePortland needs your support.
NOTE: We love your comments and work hard to ensure they are productive, considerate, and welcoming of all perspectives. Disagreements are encouraged, but only if done with tact and respect. If you see a mean or inappropriate comment, please contact us and we'll take a look at it right away. Also, if you comment frequently, please consider holding your thoughts so that others can step forward. Thank you — Jonathan