The Monday Roundup: Commute discrimination, cultural appropriation, Dutch inspiration and more

It would be nice if optometrists had to report anyone with eyesight bad enough that they cannot safely drive. Social workers, doctors, nurses, school workers, etc. all legally have to report child abuse. Visually impaired drivers are at least as dangerous. It is far too easy to get and keep a licence to drive a 5000 pound vehicle that can go 80 or more miles per hour as we see every day.

Hey, any chance you might be covering this bikeshare conference? I’m really interested to hear about it.

https://www.oregonlive.com/commuting/index.ssf/2018/09/portland_will_host_bikeshare_e.html

“About 350 bike-share experts and industry representatives from around the world will be in Portland this week.

The North American Bikeshare Association is holding its fifth annual conference, and Portland will play host for the first time.

The organization is the only one of its kind. It represents cities, nonprofit organizations and private companies operating the on-demand bike rental programs popping up in cities throughout the country.”

Vision More Transit: When I was a student working on my MURP at PSU, I had a professor Strathman who taught that whenever you did a correlation taking 2 seemingly unrelated items that are using the same variable on both the x and y axis, in this case “per capita”, you will always get a hyperbola and a very strong correlation. Since then I’ve used it many times to make very convincing, though basically untrue, arguments in the favor of my agencies points. Interesting that StreetsBlog is willing to publish this piece of academic GIGO.

Reader the scooter story gave me a business idea. According to Evan the biggest problem with the e-scooters was finding one near the end of the day that still had juice in it. It seems that the scooter bro’s would find it advantageous if they could purchase some kind of shaped foil blanket ( to act as a faraday cage) that they could drape over a scooter after it was stashed in an out of view location, so it would become invisible on the apps, so it would be available to ride home at the end of the day , or to take on an evening bar run.

Weird, no link to the KOIN article from yesterday that shows a 20% decrease in scooter ridership from week 3 to week 5? I was wondering why PBOT hadn’t sent out an instagram update since week 3. Is the novelty really fading this quickly?

https://www.koin.com/news/local/multnomah-county/by-the-numbers-e-scooters-in-portland/1415855608

Why is appropriating “Dutch cycling culture” not cultural appropriation?

Biketown has been down for at least the last two hours as confirmed by my call to support. Been emailing them since 9:30 this morning and they still have not sent out a system wide message to users via the app or email last I checked.
Late for work and missed dentist appointment.

I have to wonder how many of the people who claim to be afraid to ride bikes have been unduly influenced by so-called cycling advocates. Folks who claim that we need to build completely separate infrastructure are likely making those who are considering riding bikes look around and believe they can’t safely ride a bike because all, most or some of their routes will put them on regular roads. Worse, we’re now condemning even decent bike lanes (not saying most bike lanes are decent, but many are) as though they are some sort of death traps.

Cycling requires a handful of easily obtainable skills. Even in the worst conditions, it’s no more dangerous than being in a car, and it is known to add years to lives. Why is this not the primary message of cycling advocates?