The Monday Roundup: Activism in D.C., memorial signs in L.A., progress in the U.K., and more

Welcome to the week. Getting a bit of a late start; but hold on to your hats because we’ve got an exciting week ahead.

But first, here are the most noteworthy items we came across in the past seven days…

Distraction up: Latest results from distracted driving survey conducted by the Institute for Highway Safety is not great.

Just a mix up!: The mayor of Yakima, Washington drove her SUV 30-feet into a Rite-Aid because she claims to have simply mixed up the brake and gas pedals.

Enough is enough: D.C. cycling advocates have moved from grief to action following the death of a well-known activist.

Memorial signs: The city of Los Angeles has a new program that will erect permanent road signs at the location where people riding bicycles were killed. (There was a bill in Oregon for a similar program in 2008 but it failed to gain necessary support.)

Framing matters: New research how people perceive traffic problems and potential solutions from a U.K. sociologist finds that, “Cycling stigma combines with the weakness of anti-car narratives to reinforce controversy obstructing active travel policies.” Yep.

Chalk it up: A federal appeals court ruled that when parking enforcement officers use chalk on peoples’ car tires it’s a violation of the fourth amendment.

Phoenix likes deadly streets: Cities often deserve criticism for not living up to lofty Vision Zero proclamations. But in Phoenix, elected officials don’t even care enough to make the proclamation in the first place.

Not so clean: A research institute in Munich, Germany has found that the (coal-powered) production of batteries used in electric vehicles creates more CO2 emissions than diesel-engine cars. (UPDATE: A commenter says this study has been debunked.)

It’s the infrastructure, stupid: Another week, another example of “build it and they will come.”

Too much brake: About 1,000 electric Citi Bikes have been pulled off the streets of New York City after reports of front brakes that were poorly adjusted and caused crashes. Some people have lawyered-up to recover damages.

Tweet of the Week: Did you hear what happened on an I-205 overpass?

See more

Folks, @OregonDOT maintains a couple of pedestrian/bike ONLY bridges over I-205 in the precinct. Shaking our heads over this one. This is at SE Steele St between 92nd/96th. Please honor the crime scene tape and avoid the overpass until @OregonDOT can assess. #pdxtraffic pic.twitter.com/A54RbWUQ8I

— PPB East Precinct (@ppbeast) April 28, 2019

— Jonathan Maus: (503) 706-8804, @jonathan_maus on Twitter and jonathan@bikeportland.org

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