Happy Monday friends. Hope you had a good weekend.
This week’s Roundup is sponsored by The eBike Store. If you’re e-bike curious, check out The eBike Store. Portland’s original, all-electric bike shop offers great service and solid brands. Swing in for a test ride today!
Here are the best stories and other items we came across in the past seven days…
How to do carfree streets: This week’s must read is all about how Canadian cities are realizing carfree zones are a huge win. I like how this piece shares how successful they can be, and how to get around potential pitfalls. (CBC)
Letter from Sweden: It doesn’t have to be like this. Portland could elevate itself into one of the greatest cities in the world if we took steps toward charging car users more to enter our beautiful central city. Don’t believe me, learn about what happened when two Swedish cities took the leap. (Streetsblog NYC)
Future of northwest Portland: The planned streetcar line extension into the far reaches of industrial northwest Portland hold a lot of promise if we get the details right. (Portland Mercury)
Constructueur moderne: Portland’s Ira Ryan is back to building custom bicycles on his own after splitting off from Breadwinner Cycles, and this profile catches up to him in his backyard shop. (The Radavist)
‘Vagina girl’ and swollen labia: Far too many women who ride frequently suffer from swollen labia that often leads to permanent changes that force them to stop riding. Embarrassment and cycling’s suffering culture are just a few reasons why this problem has only just now emerged as a “silent epidemic”. (Bicycling)
Non-drivers in spotlight: Thanks to an excellent new book by Anna Zivarts, the idea that about one-third of Americans cannot drive cars is finally getting its due. (The War on Cars Podcast & Streetsblog USA)
Cell signals and safety: A coalition of major bike brands is coming together to push for “Connected Vehicle to Everything” or C-V2X technology so that one day car and bike users will have a direct line of communication — and maybe even stop running into each other so often. (Ars Technica)
Better bike parking: NYC’s DOT plans to launch a major bike parking initiative that will bring enclosed, secure stations to residential and urban locations in the coming years. It will be the largest attempt at next-gen municipal bike parking in the country and I’ll be watching very closely to see how it works. (Gothamist)
Thanks to everyone who sent in links this week. The Monday Roundup is a community effort, so please feel free to send us any great stories you come across.
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It’s really good to see the problem women have with bike saddles finally getting some proper press. It’s a huge problem. Especially for women with hips on the wider end of the spectrum. Even a lot of women’s saddles won’t come in wider than 145. Those that do are almost always super squishy and not in any way designed for high performance cycling. There is a real need for more options. The Specialized ones don’t work for everyone (they cut into the back of my thighs horribly) and they’ve been about the only ones that don’t have excessive squish while having sufficient width.
I love Selle Italias’ superflow line, especially the boost ones, but they need to make them wider so I can ride more! The lady bits can only take so much.
I couldn’t agree more!
I was shocked reading the article to hear how many women have issues due to pressure from their saddles. As I’ve spent more time in the community, I’m often taken aback at how much folks understate the extent of their issues. A riding pal told me for years that she had “some pain down there” – one day she shared more details and I was speechless. I couldn’t believe that fitters, doctors, and other riders had encouraged her to “put up with it” for so long once I understood the full extent of her injuries.
My optimistic side hopes that more conversation, and more budget-friendly options on the market, can help close the gender gap in cycling.
Cell signals and safety… Will this be the new “The bike rider wasn’t wearing a helmet”? Is there a future where motor vehicle operators will plead their victim’s lack of a cell phone as a defense?
How about putting a chip on every stop sign so that a smart car will alert if the driver’s trajectory continues past it?
A reasonably alert rider already knows if there’s a large motor vehicle nearby by tire noise alone. It’s even easier to identify a vehicle driven aggressively. Even most ebikes have enough of a noise signature to locate them by sound.
I’m not against improvements in technology but first we need to make it clear that the person controlling a car is responsible for everything that happens outside it, phone or no phone. If we’re going to link phones to stuff, let’s have the car identify whose phone is inside it and how fast it is moving through space. If that makes somebody uncomfortable they can leave their phone at home or maybe just drive chill.
Cell phone, or other active locating device.
Yep, if CV2X gets mainstream adoption it will absolutely become major ammunition for victim-blaming on dead cyclists. It would also be another cost impediment to taking up cycling. But wait, there’s more–it would facilitate, even encourage, yet more distracted driving. “I don’t need to watch the road; my car will do that for me”–we’re already seeing deaths from overreliance on automation technology.
Kill CV2X before it becomes mandatory.
Yes, and it’s doubly bad, because it’s not just “The cyclist didn’t have a beacon”–it’s “Not only did the cyclist not have a beacon, the fact that they didn’t bother to get one shows how little regard they had for safety”. That leads to thinking like, “Well, they didn’t have a beacon to protect themselves, so why would we doubt that they suddenly swerved into the driver’s path out of nowhere?”.
YES–CONTROL DRIVER BEHAVIOR FIRST, DAMNIT!!!!!!!
A streetcar extension on NW 23rd? That thing is going to absolutely crawl, and the intersection at 23rd and Vaughn is going to be a major challenge.
Also, this looks incredibly hostile to cycling. The cyclist in the picture is just a few inches from the streetcar track.
Would be nice if they could build a separated cycle track so folks don’t crash in the tracks. I’m alright with the streetcar extension but really hate how the want to do it with battery streetcars. They need to just run overhead wires. Do it right the first time.
ikr? copper wires and a pentograph are far cheaper than big batteries, and they weigh less too.
Cambridge still has their overhead wires, but they’ve stopped using them. Maybe they’re not so “right” after all.
They’re removing them now. Battery busses have had problems in many cities, especially in very cold or very hot weather. Protera was the largest maker, but they recently filed for bankruptcy.
If Portland is planning mixed off-wire service, the will likely end up with units similar to the ones they are using in Seattle. This hybrid approach generally works better, but it would mean more expensive vehicles, and a new sub-fleet to worry about, unless they go and do a complete fleet replacement.
I don’t have a personal opinion about overhead wires, aside from the fact that they’re ugly. Whether to use them or not seems primarily a fiscal and logistical decision, and those are best left to the pros. I know enough to know I don’t know enough to second-guess them.
EV tech is advancing rapidly, so what was available to Seattle may be different to what will be available to us. TriMet has the ambitious goal of fully adopting EVs by 2040… we may even have vehicle-based fusion by then.
Just use a bus. I’m not sure what the streetcar adds besides noise, cost, and potentially deadly bicycle hazards. It certainly doesn’t add speed.
It adds more government-subsidized profit to the coffers of real estate speculators and investors!!!1!!!
Stated another way: it’s risky to put our limited public dollars towards a project when there is no private investment in the area.
Portland should definitely upzone that area and if the area generates enough wealth/property tax we can then use it to expand street car.
The link to bicycling article is wrong, plus it is behind a pay wall…
Sorry about that. Link is fine now.