Welcome to the week. Here are the most noteworthy items we came across in the past seven days…
Federal transportation bill: Streetsblog USA has highlights of the $287 billion transportation bill making its way through the sausage-making process on Capitol Hill. The takeaway? It’s far from the reforms we need; but it could be worse.
Self-driving bicycle: Probably more of a proof-of-concept than a revolutionary step for cycling, this robot-bicycle can understand commands and roll by itself.
Oregon’s $15,000 road bike: Argonaut, a bike brand formerly based in Portland that has set up shop in Bend, got their carbon road bike featured in VeloNews.
E-bikes are so hot right now: Electric bike share provider Lyft was forced to pull its fleet from the streets of San Francisco after a few of them caught fire. The company, embroiled in a fight over exclusivity to provide the bikes in SF, now says the fires could have been work of vandals.
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E-scooting polluting: A study published last week found that e-scooters had a more negative environmental impact than you might expect, especially when you factor in the use of cars to rebalance them.
Bicycling and climate policy: As the U.S. devolves into partisan bickering over climate change and our DOTs claim that expanding freeways are good for the environment, the Dutch have put bicycling at the forefront of their aggressive climate policy.
More punishment needed: Drivers who do dangerous things should face stronger consequences says a NY Times columnist who opines that misplaced blame on bicycle riders that began in the 19th century still influences policy and public sentiment.
Uber extremism: A small suburban town in Ontario, Canada is discovering what happens when city planners replace public transit with Uber.
Serves him right: This driver admits his guilt in hitting a bicycle user and then can’t believe the insurance company blames him for it. Thankfully, the newspaper’s transportation columnist answered his letter correctly.
— Jonathan Maus: (503) 706-8804, @jonathan_maus on Twitter and jonathan@bikeportland.org
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