Welcome to the week.
Here are the most notable items we came across in the past seven days.
Onion’s overpass: Terribly on-point piece in The Onion about a new government program to provide shelter to evictees via a 35-mile overpass.
Big PR for antiracist planners: A planning firm led by Black women that aims to atone for racism by changing how cities are designed and built earned major airtime on ABC’s Good Morning America.
Unbreakable: A new material made from, “ceramic spheres embedded in a cellular structure made of metallic foam,” shows promise as a theft-proof U-lock.
Old bikes, new uses: Thousands of used bike share bikes will be saved from the scrap heap thanks to a nonprofit in Buffalo, New York that use them to create free “transportation libraries.”
Biking while Black: Bicycling and walking advocates in Kansas City, Missouri are going through state statues and working to erase laws that give police officers unnecessary opportunities to stop and hassle Black road users.
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Bike marshals: When people used bikes to support protests in Chicago, police confiscated dozens of them and the community rallied and raised money to replace them.
More on the end of cars: “Chiefly relying on cars as a form of transport has run its course,” says this piece in Fast Company about how cities are re-imagining transportation in the COVID era.
Death by gentrification: Attorneys represented Breonna Taylor say the police who broke into the home where she was shot to death were serving a warrant predicated on clearing out the property for a redevelopment plan.
Better police bikes: A new company named after a slavery abolitionist event and run by a Black man aims to sell high-tech police bikes at a time when policing and police bikes have become controversial.
Devices for ransom: Hackers have taken down the the software that runs popular Garmin GPS and fitness devices and they want $10 million to hand it over.
Video of the Week: Gain some perspective from this “Disabled People Do Bike” video created by nonprofit Rooted in Rights:
— Jonathan Maus: (503) 706-8804, @jonathan_maus on Twitter and jonathan@bikeportland.org
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