Welcome to the week.
We’re excited to announce a new sponsor: Lovejoy’s Tea Room at (NE 33rd and Killingsworth). Owned and operated by a BikePortland reader, you’ll get a 10 percent discount if you arrive by foot, bike or transit!
And with that, here are the most noteworthy things we came across in the past seven days…
Next level indoor riding: A must-read from Bicycling about how Zwift is making indoor cycling not just a training tool but a new discipline altogether.
Clearcutting the Corridor: Sellwood resident Edith Mirante laments the loss of trees near her home adjacent to a newly paved section of the Springwater Corridor path.
Helmet ads in hot water: The German transport ministry is facing harsh criticism for a pro-helmet ad campaign that features scantily-clad models.
Bike taxes lowered: In a bid to reduce congestion and promote cycling, the Belgium parliament voted to drastically reduce taxes on the purchase of new bicycles from 21 to 6 percent.
Street protest collision: A man who drove his truck through a crowd of protestors in October and allegedly hit one person on purpose, had the case against him dismissed when the plaintiff said he wouldn’t testify.
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E-scooter injuries: As the next wave of e-scooter use comes this summer the Centers for Disease Control are taking a closer look at how people were injured while using them. In San Diego, 48 percent of people injured had a blood alcohol level above the legal limit for intoxication and 52 percent tested for an illicit substance.
Get rid of cars in cities: Not only is Portland not on this list of eight cities taking bold action to limit car use in cities, we are actively working to expand car use (thanks PBOT and ODOT!). Sorry.
Hate crime with a car as the weapon: A jury ruled that a man with ties to a white supremacist gang is guilty of a hate crime when he purposely used this Jeep to run down and kill Larnell Bruce in Gresham in 2016.
Role reversal: Ford has a problem with their Explorer SUVS as hundreds of people say fumes inside the cars are making them sick.
“The best offense is none at all”: The Bike Snob says no matter how angry you are, it’s never worth it to confront an auto user.
Longer commutes: New data show higher housing costs in Portland are leading to longer-distance commutes and the bad news is public transit users spend way more time getting to work than drivers do.
Helmet testing: After the big debut of new “WaveCel” helmet tech last week, VeloNews reports that the folks behind MIPS say more standardized testing is needed to make accurate comparisons between safety ratings.
No more cars: A NY Times columnist says private car ownership is on the way out and she’s practicing what she preaches.
Twitter thread of the week:
Cars are the perfect late capitalist consumer product: an expensive, often de facto mandatory, solution to a problem that the product itself has largely caused.
— Michael Tae Sweeney (@mtsw) March 22, 2019
— Jonathan Maus: (503) 706-8804, @jonathan_maus on Twitter and jonathan@bikeportland.org
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