Welcome to another wonderful week. Hope you’ve been able to enjoy the great sunny weather and all the fun rides that have been going on.
Below are the most notable items our writers and readers came across in the past seven days. But before getting to that, I want to make sure you know that this week’s roundup is sponsored by Freeya, the new app (based in Portland!) that makes giving and getting free stuff simple. Support them because they support us (and because it’s a seriously cool idea).
Behavior change: Never gets old to read about how gas prices and the general state of things are leading regular folks to drive less and bike more — especially when the story is from our close northern neighbors.
E-bikes are EVs too: Great to see North American Bikeshare Association (NABSA) make a clear statement that when it comes to EV charging infrastructure, bikes and other micromobility vehicles must be included.
Bike delivery FTW: A new report from the Institute for Local Self Reliance shows how national delivery companies like DoorDash and Uber Eats are terrible for our community economy and local services — like ones that use bicycles! — are much better for everyone (except Wall Street investors).
Amazon e-cargo bikes: I am not a fan of Amazon, but if they get serious about using small(ish) e-cargo bikes and push innovations like these “micromobility hubs” being tested in London, I might dislike them a bit less.
Roller-coaster ahead: Bike industry expert Rick Vosper lays out three reasons he thinks the bike biz is in for a wild ride in the coming year.
The answer is yes: The Guardian asking ‘Should cars be banned from cities?’ is just the latest sign of how the Overton window has shifted in the past few years.
SUVigilantes: A group of environmentalists are tired of waiting for government to regulate huge cars so they are going around and deflating tires as an act of protest.
Killer support: A novel approach to drunk driving legislation in New York would require people who kill a guardian of a child while driving drunk to pay child support until the child is 18 years old.
Thanks to everyone who sent in links this week!
Thanks for reading.
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Vigilante action is rarely a good idea. Have these people learned nothing from history?
Yeah, right, the American and French Revolutions were failures.
The Reign of Terror was your idea of success?
Besides, comparing small-scale petty vandalism to Enlightenment era revolutions is a bit much, in my opinion.
Maybe catalytic converter thieves should organize into a protest group to ingratiate themselves into the gen-pop.
And, do transportation advocates who happen to own SUV’s get a special sticker or something to put on their cars so they don’t have to deal with the petty vandalism?
“I steal catalytic converters as protest. The meth is just a side benefit.”
Even hinting about messing with vehicles here is a bad idea. There are people who would think nothing of taking your life if you decided to mess with their car. So irresponsible.
A single incident of driving drunk and hurting another person should result in a lifetime prohibition from operating any motor vehicle. This child support idea isn’t a bad start either.
Why should you need the bad luck of actually hurting someone to be punished?
The crime is the driving drunk; once you’ve gone down that road, the consequences are largely a matter of chance.
I almost omitted that caveat, but I figured this position would win more support than being even more strict. Baby steps.
Regarding the Vosper insights: “#1 Flat to Declining Ridership”…I was passing through Portland over the weekend in the Mississippi & Interstate/ Kenton commercial corridors and I was very ‘shocked’ that most of the bikes I saw parked at public racks (>80%) were Biketown bikes and NO private bikes. And even counting the shared scooter vehicles parked all over the sidewalks it was not a lot of alt vehicles vs 2000s. Thinking back to Portland Peak Bike v4 (& this it being a Pedal Palooza period with higher gas prices) what has happened? Other than everyone has moved east (or to Vancouver) or on-line?
[And I was just in London and Amsterdam and peak bike does not seem to have retrenched there like in Portland.]