Hope everyone had a nice weekend. I got through three graduation events and family in town, so this week should be a bit more chill for me. I’m really looking forward to Bike Happy Hour Wednesday where we’ll have our sort of annual sticker swap.
And with that, here are the most notable stories that came across my desk in the past seven days…
Boosting U.S. bike industry: A bill introduced in Congress with bipartisan sponsors would eliminate tariffs on components used to assemble complete bikes in the U.S. (Bicycle Retailer & Industry News)
Land sell-off: In their latest attempt to screw up our country just to own the libs and make a quick buck, the Trump Administration is prepping to sell millions of acres of public lands, including over six million acres in Oregon. So much for “This land is our land.” (The Wilderness Society)
No fare, no healthier air: As you debate about fare-free transit, make sure to understand that it only has a positive emissions impact if it results in drivers switching to transit — and many examples show that doesn’t typically happen. (Bloomberg)
‘Fake’ e-bikes: A report by a UK parliamentary workgroup recommends taking aggressive action against what they call “fake e-bikes,” warning that their unsafe batteries, impacts on gig workers, and regulatory confusion is a threat to public safety and to legitimate e-bikes. (All-Party Parliamentary Group for Cycling and Walking)
Destroying a good thing: New York City continues to try and ruin all their progress as a cycling city by allowing their police officers to seek out cyclists with a heavy hand. (Streetsblog NYC)
Bikes save the day: A transit strike in Montreal led to a massive upswing in cycling trips as folks flocked to shared bikes and shattered daily ridership records when they couldn’t get on the bus or train. (CBC)
The Caravan Route: A new, 520-mile route in Morocco that follows the path of ancient trading caravans (hence the name) looks to be a perfect adventure to add to your bucket list. (BBC)
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.
Thanks for reading.
BikePortland has served this community with independent community journalism since 2005. We rely on subscriptions from readers like you to survive. Your financial support is vital in keeping this valuable resource alive and well.
Please subscribe today to strengthen and expand our work.
In regards to the abomination of a public land throw away with no regard to the land’s history, it’s future or who the buyer is I extend a middle finger in the direction of Washington DC. What a national disgrace! Thanks to JM for putting the info out!!
From “No fare, no healthier air”:
Utterly astounding, if true. Which it isn’t.
I did some quick control-f-ing in the source document. Here what I found:
So that’s for the entire US. Combining that with Bloomberg’s (mis)interpretation/assertion implies that only 7 people rode transit 2018.
That 63 MMT CO₂e is put into better context here (page 15):
Yes, they meant all US transit riders, not one individual person. A fairly major yet understandable error, since most journalists are not trained to interpret scientific studies. But we mustn’t miss a chance to disparage public transit at every opportunity, must we?
who’s disparaging transit?
Honestly I don’t think NYC is wrong to enforce traffic laws for people on bikes … as long as they do it for cars, too. A lot of hand-wringing about dangerous cyclists is over-the-top, but there genuinely are lots of sidewalks there where e-bikers doing delivery pickups will just bowl straight through a crowd of people going pretty fast on very heavy bikes. I spend lots of time in places where pedestrians and cyclists mix, by a variety of modes, doing a variety of activities, and I mostly think they work fine, even when the occasional jerk acts like a jerk — I mostly think there’s no reason to slap down overly restrictive rules or speed limits. I’ll take an overcrowded ped/bike space over “smoothly running” roads a lot of the time. But I’ve been to NYC and I agree there are some real problems there. A few well-publicized tickets sounds to me like a good thing — make an example of a few people and people will get in line. Ticketing a blond-haired professional-class “Brooklyn Mom” who’s so entitled she’ll complain to the media about getting caught breaking traffic rules is a low-key brilliant strategy by the NYPD to get free coverage. She sounds like every driver that thinks they need to speed, double-park, park in bike lanes, blow red lights, generally act like psychos, “just to do my job”.
Ditto with eScooters. The number of times I’ve almost been bowled over by teenagers joyriding Lime scooters on sidewalks…
FWIW I actually have got a ticket for going through a red light… years ago in CA, a light didn’t detect my bike, I sat there through three cycles while everyone else got turns to go, figured a time where I’d be able to get through safely if there weren’t too many oncoming left turns, took it, then immediately got pulled over by a motorcycle cop. Later I learned that I might have had a defense because the signal wasn’t detecting my bike and I went through safely but at the time I didn’t know and just paid up. Kinda sucks but … IDK the cop wouldn’t have seen how long I waited and just thought I was some dumb scofflaw, and I was young and wasn’t going to argue with a cop. Later I lived in Chicago where, at the time, cyclists could do the most insane nonsense right in front of cops and they didn’t care at all. Sometimes you just have to know what’s going to fly where you are.
No one is saying they shouldn’t enforce traffic laws. Traffic tickets are a civil law issue. They are issuing criminal summonses to bicyclists in NYC over regular traffic violations. That’s not just enforcement, that’s blatant harassment.
Did you read the article? You have a bizarre take.
There’s two things happenning here:
1) On the surface, a cop gave a criminal summons to a person who went through a red light. Except, she stopped, checked the intersection which had no one else, and kept going. That is reasonable behavior which ends not with a traffic ticket, but a criminal summons. Theoretically, if a person in a car did the same, they would get a traffic ticket and pay it online. Except, that behavior is widespread across all modes.
2) Is it easier for Adams to tell the NYPD to target speeding drivers (9610/9647 injuries were caused by cars), or scapegoat people on bikes (e.g., moms with kids)? Which one garners more political support from the “law and order” crowd during an election cycle? Adams pretty much burned all his bridges with anyone in the transit advocacy/street safety crowd by ignoring the city council Streets Plan that mandated separated bike and bus lanes. He’s doubling down now by removing cycling infrastructure in places that garner more support from people who drive exclusively.
Yes, there are people on ebikes who behave recklessly. This mom with a kid was clearly not one of them. Targeting super speeders with hundreds of speeding tickets, or reducing speeds city-wide (and adjusting speed cameras) would be actual effective safety policy. This simply targets mostly delivery workers who have no political power, guarantees they have a criminal record, and makes sure ICE is involved when they go to the courthouse.
The Bloomberg article is quite misleading, bordering on deception.
The central argument is that free fare programs don’t really encourage drivers to use public transit but rather help non-drivers take public transit more frequently. Therefore, what entices drivers to ditch their cars is not offering cheaper fares, but rather better service. Meanwhile, not charging fares can prohibit capital improvements and service expansions.
The problem is the strength of the claim, that “such shifts […] increase net emissions, not lower them.” This makes no sense. VMT is used as a proxy for emissions (so far, so good). The cited studies indicate either a very modest decrease in VMT or no clear correlation between VMT and free fare programs. There is no mention of an increase, nor does the article propose a possible mechanism for one.
The US examples are all monthlong pilots. Unless free fares mean buses are running more frequently—unlikely because a city wouldn’t purchase a larger fleet for the purpose of a month-long pilot—carbon emissions would remain the same as before. Free fares would lead to fuller buses, not more buses. It also just takes more time to facilitate behavior change.
That’s where the years-long European examples come in, all of which are arguments by hyperlink. In fact, the Dunkirk article and Frydek-Mistek paper directly contradict the Bloomberg article. Once again, if we use mode-switching and VMT reductions as proxies for emissions reduction, the paper concludes
Meanwhile, the Dunkirk article states that “of the new users, 48% said they regularly used the public transport network instead of cars.” That is substantial mode-switching. The Tallinn report is a dead link and not on archive.org, so I have nothing to say about it.
Lastly, it’s misleading to position service expansions and capital improvements in a zero-sum battle with free fares. The point of public transit is to catalyze economic growth, social justice, and other positive externalities—not maintain a balanced internal budget; there are other ways to pay for public transit. While transit being cheaper may have less of an impact than it being better, transit getting both better and cheaper will certainly encourage more mode-switching than either will alone. Most wealthy countries have figured that out. The United States must (re)learn that lesson too.
While overstating a contrarian position in a title is a surefire way to generate clicks, the cynic in me says Bloomberg may have also published this article to discredit NYC’s free fare movement. Par-for-the-course from billionaire-owned news media.
Also, sadly, par for the course for many YIMBYs and other miscellaneous “abundance” libertarians.
“There is no mention of an increase, nor does the article propose a possible mechanism for one.”
Here’s one. If you have to run 2x as many buses to get 30% more riders, your emissions per rider will increase. They may even increase by more than those new riders would have otherwise emitted.