The Monday Roundup: Highway myths, expensive cars, ‘100% cycling’ in Paris, and more

Welcome to the week.

Here are the most notable items BikePortland editors and readers came across in the past seven days…

Scrap it already! You know we’ve reached a new level of scrutiny on the oft-maligned federal Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices when academics eviscerate it in the Harvard Law Review and say the almighty manual, “biases transportation behavior in dangerous and inequitable ways”.

Highway myth-busting: David Zipper is at it again with a cover story in the Washington Post that blasts some of the most pervasive and persuasive myths about highways.

Normalization of traffic violence: Even mainstream outlets like NBC News are starting to educate their audience about the human toll of car supremacy.

Barcelona’s “bicibus”: Don’t miss this wonderful look at how a neighborhood in Barcelona fostered a biking school bus that now attracts hundreds of kids!

Dispatch from a carfree city: If I ever travel to Europe again I might go to Slovenia’s “idyllic” capital Ljubljana, which went carfree in 2007 and has never looked back.

Parking reform in our backyard: Read and then bookmark this detailed look at Portland’s parking policy changes by none other than Catie Gould in her first piece for Sightline.

The con: Create a system where cars are the only option people can use and then sit back and reap the profits as prices of those vehicles climb to record highs.

Paris, next level: Already a darling of bike activists everywhere, Paris has released a new cycling plan that includes 112 miles of protected bike lanes, tons of new secure bike parking, and more restrictions on driving in a bid to make the city “100% cycleable”.

Advice from Brits: This deep dive from the venerable BBC (which includes a cameo from our very own Metro) lays out what it will take for the U.S. to kick our driving habits and finally start to drastically cut emissions from the transportation sector.

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