Welcome to the week.
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Here are the most notable stories our writers and readers came across in the past seven days…
Tribal tragedies: Far too many Indigenous people are killed on the roads because of the built environment on reservations is so highway-centric. (NRDC)
Revenue ideas: A bike and scooter share tax, higher car fees, and more expensive photo radar camera tickets are among the ideas Seattle City Council members floated to raise transportation revenue. (The Urbanist)
More bikes in Montreal: North America’s best cycling city will get even better thanks to strong leadership from its mayor, Valerie Plante, and her “vision velo.” (MTL Blog)
Faster Feet: A company thinks the way to boost the appeal of walking is to make it faster so they’ve made wheeled “Moonwalker” shoes and hope to launch them via Kickstarter. (CNET)
Crash causes: A safe streets nonprofit has launched a campaign to do in-depth investigations of fatal car crashes — and the effort is open to nominations. (Strong Towns)
Bicycle oracle: Bike futurist Gary Fisher opines on a wide variety of topics in this revealing interview from the big Eurobike trade show. (Cycling Industry News)
They are not accidents: It’s nice to see a major outlet like NBC News tell folks we must stop normalizing traffic crashes and their aftermath, but it’s unfortunate they still have no clue about why we should say crash, not “accident.” (NBC News)
Auto industry is exhausting: It’s so totally on-brand that Ford and other automakers are so greedy and so clueless about the negative externalities of their product they think adding noise to EV-cars is a good idea. (The Drive)
Video of the Week: Activists in Amsterdam used bicycles to ride onto the tarmac and disrupt private jets to bring attention to the climate change crisis:
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It’s fascinating how this “leadership” is de-politicized in the original article. Plante was a board member of Canada’s leading social democratic think tank who reinvigorated a decaying centrist party with her lefty municipalism when she successfully ran for Mayor. For example, the top plank of Plante’s 2019 platform was the creation of 60,000 social housing units in 10 years. It’s hard to imagine Portland ever electing someone like this to council, let alone mayor.
https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/plante-unveils-800-million-plan-to-buy-land-for-affordable-housing
Sure sounds like Plante is a left-NIMBY, just like me.
The epitome of left-NIMBYism.
Pretty amazing what they were able to pull off.
and I think I see the distinction – reductively, no private housing market development, but pro state developed/owned housing with what I imagine capped rent or managed rent increased schedules.
there was a funny moment on the BHD stakeholder panel (zoning reform for apartment buildings) where the YIMBY was irked because i argued that we should further upzone non-profit “deeply affordable housing” while refusing to support further upzoning of market housing. so it’s not that i want to eliminate private housing but rather that i think we should be handicapping the “invisible hand” and giving the non-profit market a massive boost via bonuses, subsidy, fee-abatement, de-zoning of non-profit housing#, stream-lined approval, community/tenant opportunity to purchase, bonding/public-ownership*, and eminent domain. YIMBYs will often claim that these policies are “unrealistic” but these policies exist in many cities that are actually doing something to address their housing crises (as opposed to advocating for a few more ADUs and duplexes).
# nonprofit housing should be legal to build in every residential zone with little or no size/FAR restriction.
# a left-YIMBY government could get around the Faircloth amendment by creating a city-controlled non-profit that would own property in perpetuity.
I’ll admit that I am YIMBY that wants housing development with the intention/theory of increasing supply of housing for lower income workers/families or at least reducing gentrification to areas where lower rent was at least stabilized – that said your proposals do get at the heart of the affordable housing shortage far faster and directly..
I spent sometime in Oakland prior to moving to Portland and I think of local development non-profits like EBALDC – wondering if there’s an org that’s analogous in Portland.
https://ebaldc.org/
https://oaklandside.org/2022/06/29/lake-merritt-land-with-controversial-past-could-become-100-affordable-housing/
The epitome of left-NIMBYism is opposing a shovel ready project with 50% affordable units in favor of leaving a lot vacant in the hopes of securing funding for a building with 100% affordable units. Both projects financed, built, and owned by private parties.
Perhaps this is an odd question as I’m not familiar with the term, but why is the she “left-NIMBY” and not “left-YIMBY” as the creation of 60,000 units seems very development heavy and would likely require shifting the mindsets of folks where these housing units are being built.
“left-NIMBY” is a term used by YIMBYs to diparage those who view speculation-caused housing scarcity as a problem and social housing as the only proven solution. it has been ironically adopted by tenant rights activists and others who support de-commodification of housing. the adoption of this label is also mockery of the false YIMBY-NIMBY dichotomy.
I wish people would stop using all these labels, as I don’t think it fosters dialog and communication. I know that working with (and acknowledging the views of) people you disagree with is out of step with the times, but I’m old fashioned that way.
You’re here dialoguing, just no longer about the substance, but the labels. You don’t need to use the labels.
Law enforcement should never be seen as a revenue source. That always leads to abuses.
Wow. Gary Fisher at best is a carnival barker.I don’t think he has a damn clue about the bike industry and you’d have to be a fool to listen to anything he has to say.
He bases so much of his understanding on his own personal experiences and many of the changes he talks about that are happening are driven by reasons other than he cites.
I don’t think this guy has every done any real research and/or data analysis. He’s just a marketing guy and all he wants is attention and his name on stuff.
I’m grateful for people like Tom Rtchey who actually designed and built quality bikes & components that I’ve confidence and trust in knowing that they will dutifully serve my biking needs for many years to come.
One of the big problems, I, a nobody in this world sees with e-bikes and tech built into bikes like he talks about is proprietary, vendor lock-in. Great for the manufacturer, very bad for the customers and the rest of the bike industry who can’t repair, upgrade and/or make after market parts and accessories.
When I clicked on the The Drive article about car manufacturers adding noise to EV-cars, I was assuming I’d be reading about some sort of low-level noise added for safety, like backup beepers.
It’s incredibly worse and obnoxious.
I am of a opposite opinion on this I think it sounds great. I give you something to ponder. If the country is going to move the needle from ICE to EV, then giving a Petrolhead a car that sounds like a V8 muscle car can help. It can show them that they don’t have to drive a gas car to get a great exhaust note. And trust me the sound of that Mustang is good enough to give said Petrolhead wood, at least the male ones.