Hi friends (and everyone else).
Here are the most notable stories that came across my desk in the past seven days…
Been saying this for years: “While many people consider electric bicycles just another form of recreation, they’ve proven to be potent transportation alternatives after natural disasters worldwide.” (Electrek)
BikeTrailerTown: Montreal’s bike share system now offers trailers along with e-bikes, which greatly expands the utility of the vehicles and gives Portland another goal to shoot for. (Montreal Gazette)
Protection at intersections: This is a great deep-dive into the Dutch-style protected intersections and their potential here in the United States. These make so much sense and should be seen as a requisite complement to protected lanes. (Bloomberg)
Driver violence: A man accelerated his car into a crowd of people waiting outside a club in Los Angeles in what appeared to be an intentional act of violence. (NPR)
Faster e-scooters: I love that there’s a company pushing the boundaries of speed with electric scooters. We let automakers flaunt speed all the time and we too often look down on the same when it comes to micromobility vehicles. I’d love to see more fast scooters on the streets. And l et’s make more—and much wider—low-impact travel lanes to accomodate them. (Wired)
Taking up space: An entire block in Manhattan is being used to park electric delivery bikes, in what appears to be an unsanctioned parking lot for the vehicles that even has overnight security. “It’s not any more of an eyesore to me than a car is,” said one local resident. (NY Post)
All white men and no bikes: US DOT Sec. Sean Duffy appointed 12 new members of the US DOT Advisory Board and every one of them is a white man and none appear to be from bicycle-related businesses or advocacy orgs. Duffy says the group will return our country to the “Golden Age of transportation.” LOL. (US DOT Press Release)
Good news about e-cars: A new study shows that electric cars create much less brake dust (and just a bit more tire wear particles) than gas-powered cars, removing one of the central critiques of e-car skeptics. (Electrek)
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.
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“every one of them is a white man and none appear to be from bicycle-related businesses or advocacy orgs.“
Disappointingly flat out racist AF! Come on. You had an excellent point with none of them being connected to cycling, but then threw it all away by making it about race.
How is that throwing it all away or racist? It’s a fact that I am pointing out. It’s also worth pointing out because it shows how little Duffy cares about actually understanding an issue and it jibes with so many other things this administration is doing — which is actually 100% racist in many ways.
Okay,
1. Using skin color as a substantial descriptor in a derogatory comment.
2. Assuming all “white” people are homogenous and have similar backgrounds, viewpoints, wealth and social standing.
3. You threw your point away when you made your point based on skin color and not any other factor that those individuals could control.
4. You could have described them as…Republicans, wealthy, carheads, trust fund babies, cronies or pretty much any other way and still made your point. You chose skin color though and assumed we’d see it as a negative in some way or why bring up skin color at all?
5. “It’s a fact that I am pointing out.“
Is it also a fact that the confederate battle flag was flown by the army of Virginia and therefore when flown from a truck is also not racist from your viewpoint?
4. I was an Oregon Guard DoD Equal Opportunity Advisor for 7 years as a secondary duty (and unfortunately at times as a primary duty) and have taught many classes and given many presentations on this very subject. The school for that was rigorous and very unpleasant.
White guys aren’t all the same, but they all have both white and male privilege. This is coming from a white guy.
Skin color matters because we have a racist as president and his administration is working towards re-implementing segregation. There is a reason they are all white and its not because of their skillset.
No, they don’t all have white privilege. I’ve been many places in the US where I was strictly a minority and I experienced quite a bit of vitriol directed at me for being white. I saw many race fights instigated by people of all colors and having grown up someplace whiter than Portland was absolutely blown away.
In China I had no idea the racism directed at me until I understood some certain words hurled in my direction, but the violence I saw later in the States wasn’t part of it. They were just being arrogantly superior towards someone like me, the Mandarin as a second language Chinese and the Japanese. Here in the PNW I agree with you, it can be a thing mainly because it’s such an unrelenting monoculture that most people spend their time in.
I encourage you if you have time and funds to go to some of the places in the US or the outside world where it’s not so protected for white people if only to experience more of the world.
I’m not sure in what way you think skin color matters when you are absolutely correct in your evaluation of the present executive administration. Can you elaborate a bit more on how the color matters?
I agree with you that they were not selected for any skill set other than as modern day robber barons looking to enhance their private portfolios at the expense of the rest of us.
As always, just because they are racist doesn’t mean we have to be as well.
Do you mean to imply that the US DOT Advisory Board convenes in China or Japan? If not, WTF does any of that have to do with this committee in this country?
As I discovered working with NAs in Portland and with many volunteers here in NC, many people who “look white” identify themselves as Latinx, American Indian, and even African-American. From the video, at least one person is foreign-born from their accent.
‘We are so not racist that we can display the result of centuries of white male dominance without shame.’ That’s your argument. You can’t recognize the output of systemic racism when the handle pops up and hits you in the chops.
So you’re saying JM’s statement is the result of systemic racism?
Nope. Nice try.
Shouldn’t you really mean “rich dominance”? White people aren’t the only oppressors or racists on the planet. I know it doesn’t fit with the current narrative that I’m guilty of vast crimes past and present against people that aren’t my skin color. And yet without any proof that I’ve done anything.
The sooner race is eliminated from all decisions, all processes, all surveys the better.
??
I’m skeptical that you have been accused of crimes related to racial issues. Acknowledging racial inequality is not the same as indicting racial majorities (I have no idea if you identify as part of the White majority here).
You get that this is calling for continued racial inequality, right? If we make everything facially race blind, BIPOC communities will get the short end of every stick. Just like they have historically. I certainly don’t have any answers, but I’m sure that refusing to talk about race is not where I want my society to go. Nobody thinks racial inequality is your fault personally, but, in turn, nobody thinks you should be able to strike race from the conversion. Ignoring racism will not make it go away.
Wow, the reverse racism card.
It’s not racist to note that there is no one on in that group with a POV other than that of the most privileged in the US.
“the reverse racism card.”
Theres no such thing, its just racism.
The point is when the committee is all the same race you can be pretty sure they were selected because of their race.
No, it can point to a lot of other monoculture problems. Wealth, school, geographical area, or something else that may or may not have come out of racial segregation (either deliberate, like Oregon and Portland or some other reason relating to constriction of emigration within the US.
I can tell you that none of those people are poor or could vaguely be described as left leaning. Yet you focus on the race as the reason for selection.
Hi Jake9,
I think you’re ignoring the political context of Duffy’s appointments. Dismantling DEI policies and structures is a leading stated goal of the Trump admin. A triumph of Trump’s ascendence is the SCOTUS rulings that make it unconstitutional to consider race in college admissions. These are key steps in the MAGA project of restoring traditional social hierarchies — it’s not like it’s a secret. Duffy’s exclusive selection of White males is undeniably a statement (of the ugliest triumphalist ‘own the libs’ kind) in this conversation. Race is inherently involved in the selection. There’s nothing racist about pointing out this dynamic –gimme a break.
“We would really like to keep the DEI programs that promote people to positions of influence based on their race, because we think people we disagree with are promoting people to positions of influence based on their race”.
“In further evidence of this, the racist whites have won in the courts to (checks notes), make sure academically high achieving Asians get admitted to the best universities in the country, oh”.
Don’t know who you’re quoting, but the statements do no reflect my views. I understand that there are principled reasons to oppose race-based preferences. I just don’t think they outweigh our duty to strive for justice and equality.
I think this is a key point of misunderstanding that often sends social justice debates sideways. I don’t think conservatives (often) perpetuate White supremacy by using racial preferences for Whites (or men or cisgendered people or etc.). Such explicit racial discrimination has largely been eliminated to the great credit of our society. I think, however, that our society has internalized White supremacy and that formally neutral structures will perpetuate traditional social hierarchies. Obviously reasonable people can disagree, but there is a cogent and coherent argument for continued societal intervention to make our culture and institutions more egalitarian and just.
You think Asians wanting to be admitted to the best universities commensurate with their academic achievement at higher level than any other demographic is “internalized white supremacy”?
There is a cogent and coherent argument for meritocracy, everything else is putting fingers on the scale and should be judged harshly.
“Academic achievement” is a socially constructed criterion, and college admissions are inherently subjective (how to weigh quantitative skills compared to verbal ones?). There is no way to avoid “putting fingers on the scale”, so we might as well be honest about what we’re doing. I think selecting for a diverse learning community is a worthwhile goal, and I think American universities have been improved by affirmative action for Black people.
““Academic achievement” is a socially constructed criterion… I think selecting for a diverse learning community is a worthwhile goal”
Admission officers can still admit a diverse college class; they just can’t do so on the basis of race.
There are tons of other, more impactful ways of seeking and measuring diversity than the socially constructed criterion of race.
I hope college is an accessible and attractive option in the future for everybody for whom it is a good idea. I hope colleges are diverse and successful going forward. And, yes, I think it is important to foster Black student populations and viewpoints specifically in the context of his country. I think diversity is attainable, even given the current retrenchment, but the move away from affirmative action and ‘DEI’ is a blow to this goal, not some ‘leveling of the playing field’ conservatives would lead you to believe.
We share these hopes. I don’t see the end of racial affirmative action in college admissions as a blow to this at all. I believe that since universities have a strong commitment to maintaining diverse classes, they will find ways to do it that are less problematic than using overt and covert racial criteria.
It will be interesting to see, a few years down the road, if diversity as measured along multiple axes increases or decreases as a result of the Supreme Court’s ruling. My prediction is that the net change will be small, but in a positive direction across the full spectrum of colleges and universities.
The real problem, however, is upstream; we need to do a much better job at preparing kids from all walks of life to succeed at college. This is a problem we need to tackle right here in Oregon and Portland.
100% agree that student preparation needs to get better. Not sure how ending AA will “increase diversity”, but I think the results of the SCOTUS ruling will be impossible to disambiguate from the results of all the other things that are occurring. I remain hopeful that progress toward equality will be made. But the SCOTUS ruling (and all the rest of the revanchist MAGA rule) is unambiguously a statement that actually doing anything about racism will not be tolerated by the American right.
Hi Micah,
It’s always pleasant to have a respectful discussion. I appreciate the time you put into your statements.
“Duffy’s exclusive selection of White males is undeniably a statement (of the ugliest triumphalist ‘own the libs’ kind) in this conversation. Race is inherently involved in the selection.”
I personally think you are giving too much credit to Duffy for having that much intelligence and planning abilities. I believe (but I don’t know, as none of us can know) that white people are the majority if not entirety of his cronies and simps (much like how a lot of people in Portland have the entirety of their social circle mono-colored.) and so those are the ones he selected.
Again I point out that having a committee of people with different skin colors is not a guarantee that they will have differing views on the world. Indeed, as an example, people who can afford full tuition for places such as Yale or Harvard will have more in common with themselves regardless of skin color than they ever will have with me.
Hi Jake9,
I appreciate how you offer your comments in good faith and consider opposing arguments. Always a pleasure to discuss things with you.
In this case it’s not like I think Sean Duffy is some evil genius — I just think he knows what team he’s fighting for, relishes the fight, and puts his all into it. I think it’s silly to test whether or not a random sample of Duffy’s social circle would have the same demographic stats as his appointees — there are political implications to his choices no matter how he makes them. Joey B. appointed Ketanji Brown Jackson to SCOTUS because she is a Black woman (he said as much). I think she was a wonderful choice. Although she is eminently qualified, and has written many great opinions in her brief tenure, I think her race and gender are also significant (‘representation matters’). I also think Black people are still a long ways from having an equal footing with White people in the USA.
“the SCOTUS rulings that make it unconstitutional to consider race in college admissions. These are key steps in the MAGA project of restoring traditional social hierarchies”
That ruling put Asians back on top of elite college admissions, just where they’ve always been — and right where MAGA wants them (apparently).
Race is, frankly, about the least interesting and impactful aspect of the committee monoculture.
I agree that race is not the most relevant aspect of Duffy’s committee selections. I’m just pushing back against all the knee-jerk comments blasting Jonathan for using racial diversity in his framing.
You’ve invoked the fact that eliminating affirmative action in college admissions benefits some nonwhite groups as (I’m inferring) a defense against (my) claims that eliminating racial preferences is a key part of the current conservative agenda and driven by a motivation to preserve traditional (including racial) social hierarchies. I don’t find the fact that Asians (and Asian Americans) stand to benefit from a policy convincing evidence that the policy is not compatible with or motivated by White supremacy. If you would like to debate the reasons for that stance, I’m happy to engage.
ETA: Asians have definitely not always been on “the top of elite college admissions.” Similar statements apply to other notable (‘model’) minority groups, like Jews, that are similarly used by conservatives when politically convenient.
Gee, I would have figured they were selected because they are powerful, rich, and major donors to someone’s campaign. But who knew? Since they were chosen by race, they being powerful, rich, and major donors to someone’s campaign is in fact irrelevant.
Por que no los dos?
I never thought of Maus as a race hustler, but here we are.
Bikeshare + Bike Trailers: this is such a “chocolate + peanut butter” idea for bikeshare members who do not own a car (or take a similar to taxi ride). During COVID-19 we in Honolulu were investigating such back when folks were avoiding taking transit. Sadly, the bike manufacture / insurance issues were barriers. So “BRAVO” Bixi for making bikeshare more useful again. THOUGH I would suggest a tweak to PBSC / LIme etc…just have the bikes manufactured with a air compressor style fitting (like Bike Friday has used for its touring trailers) and then sell an ‘approved’ trailer to members who wish to use them. This would take the maintenance and operations (parking at stations) risk out of the equation for the operators. As an aside: perhaps this means that it would be a good like for Bixi (PBSC et al) to revisit a long desired request for a surf board rack option on its bikes for tropical cities. 😉
I do love chocolate and peanut butter 🙂
I wish Biketown had cargo bikes. Maybe you could rent them from specific docks/hubs during daytime hours so drunk people aren’t just joyriding urban arrows lol.
The BYOTrailer idea is nice (I have often thought about how to attach my trailer to a bike share bike). It doesn’t help though for one-way trips and requires people having space to park their own trailer at home. A classic scenario for which I’d love to have a bike share trailer is biking to/from an airport, train station, or intercity bus terminal.
I also suspect that liability/insurance for a BYOTrailer model would be just as challenging as for actual trailer share.
It’s not my favorite, but a fat wrap of old inner tube will attach anything to anything. I’m not sure what agency would ever tell a person to get that trailer off the Biketown vehicle.
I’d like to see public rental bikes with rear racks and trailer hitches that will fit the most common types of panniers and trailers. A seatpost hitch shopping trailer should work in any case. Maybe they’ll have some of those at the new social housing developments.
re: driver violence in LA and everywhere else
Cars are deadly weapons
Cars are Weapons of Human Destruction WHD
Faster scooters:
Is this a solution looking for a problem? I get passed by scooters all the time, which is actually fine in a wide travel lane. Power is not what they lack, but better brakes and lights and engineering generally, all that sounds fine.
I wouldn’t want to ride the street on something that relies on a cell phone app and a wireless connection. It seems weak to leave out a hard wired dashboard on a device that is supposed to provide useful transportation. If a person wants to bring along their own navigation app that’s always an option.
How many scooter crashes involve the rider going over the bars? This has got to be a problem while scooters are operating on the stuff you see on city streets, and to the extent that scooters are operating on other bits of pavement that’s not much better. We know what tree roots can do to an ordinary MUP grade. In the future when light personal vehicles are operating on dedicated right of way with engineered grades having appropriate camber and radius, 30 kph might not be unreasonable.
I think this is a company that’s looking way beyond the shared scooter market and toward folks who just want a fast vehicle to get around with.
I get that, and in the US market those people will want power and speed. I’m not a skater but I’d almost feel safer on an electric long board than a scooter because the rider isn’t committed to a handle that is going to stop and fall forward if the front wheel hits an obstacle. Plus the boards look really cool and riders seem to be more on the back foot. Maybe the wireless controls are fail safe? An experienced skater already knows they have to ride it out or jump off if something goes wrong. It’s not clear to me that scooter users are on that level.
Speaking of scooters, on Sunday morning I walked around downtown Portland and was almost hit by not just one but TWO different scooter-riders! The streets were practically deserted, yet these two riders thought it was perfectly fine to ride north of 20 mph on a narrow sidewalk.
I’m all for micro-mobility solutions like e-scooters, but users need to wise up. You can’t endanger everyday pedestrians and expect the public to sanction this particular solution.
(People have) been saying this for years: cargo bikes and trailers will be really useful when a lot of infrastructure is broken. E-bikes, certainly, to the extent that they can be recharged. I’m going to guess that about three people in Portland have a solar charger for their ebike.
At least when the battery runs out they still work fine, just slower and maybe not so much uphill. Also don’t count out non/cargo bikes. With a rack and the right stuff strapped to it any bike can carry a pretty huge amount.
My partner and I are (finally, don’t judge us) putting together our “big one” kit and plan, and a solar charger setup powerful enough for the ebike is a serious consideration. I figure we’re probably cooked either way but at least I can be mobile in my waning days.
Good on ya, I am blown away by the number of people who have nothing put together.
This guy has a great take on the ultimate bug out vehicle (a bike of course)
https://youtu.be/eW6tbRQcEuI?si=ZLoMfdlAPmFwMrwU
Just in case, here’s the raw info on what to expect during and after a Cascadia event as well as what assistance one can expect and when.
https://www.oregon.gov/oem/Documents/Cascadia_Rising_Exercise_Scenario.pdf
Prep for traumatic injury care, lack of access to clean water and the longer it goes on the more likely to have feral pets roaming around. At Balad the Air Force security people had to do sweeps through the refuse piles and deal with the feral dog packs.
There’s a link in the article to this:
https://electrek.co/2025/01/22/jackrabbits-new-solar-charging-kit-keeps-your-e-bike-topped-up-from-the-sun/
The jackrabbit bike doesn’t interest me, but the solar charger set up to work without a transformer seems like a great idea. Factory charge controllers for most bikes run on 110 V AC so you’d have multiple inefficiencies plugging that into a solar charging setup. My charger gets quite warm to the touch while it keeps the battery cool.
Are there any easily available invertors that allow someone to charge an ebike on a car battery or other DC power sources (e.g., battery banks)? There’s a camp stove I like using that is able to use a wide range of fuels, even ones that are highly inefficient. During an emergency it would be ideal to have flexibility in charging, but I’m not sure how practical that is.
If the power is already DC, it doesn’t need to be inverted (converted from AC to DC), right? The voltage no doubt needs to be appropriate (sufficiently high) to charge effectively but could be adjusted upwards by connecting multiple instances of the DC power source in series.
Greenwashing alert! The good news about e-cars is total greenwashing. The article does admit that e-cars produce more tire pollution but dismisses that because that pollution is less likely to become airborne. Well, all that tire pollution is polluting our rivers and killing salmon:
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/salmon-tires-health-chemical
The article 100% fails to mention traffic violence- it is no comfort at all to grieving families that their loved one was run down by an e-car instead of a gas-burning car.
Their are undeniable benefits to e-cars, but they are often overstated and hyped up to preserve and protect car culture and mask the damage perpetuated by giant, over-powered, SOV vehicles regardless of their engine.
I think this marketing piece falls below the typical BikePortland standards
Yes, and electric cars/trucks/vans often are powered by dirty sources. The case of the Valley Generating Station is a good example — wealthy Los Angeles residents got tax breaks for buying luxury electric vehicles, while the power station that was supplying the energy for those vehicles was poisoning families, who were poorer and (yes, it’s true, I’m going to state a fact about race) more likely to be Latino/Black. Did those wealthy people MEAN to sicken/endanger the poor people? Probably not. They probably never thought about where the dirty energy for their “clean” vehicles comes from. But we can and should think about that. EVERY. DAMN. DAY. Because the US does not have an abundance of clean energy. And at the increasing rate we consume energy, it’s not clear we ever will.
I’m honestly not sure what fact about race you are stating. Is it that they are poor? More likely to be poor?
Completely agree with you on the dirty energy powering the electrics. I don’t see any change that in the future, do you? Rich people always want to outsource their pollution to somewhere else. If their car is clean, they don’t care about the factory polluting the poor folk and if they don’t care than the SoCal politicians sure don’t care.
Internal combustion cars can never be powered by renewable energy. Even fossil-fuel electrified EVs can end up being more efficient, comparing power output per amount of pollution, than internal combustion cars. The idea is that things like cars and appliances have to be electrified in order for renewables to make a difference. With the rate of electric consumption increasing, even with the Trump admin trying to go all-in on fossil fuels, I disagree that fossil fuels will continue to be the most cost-effective way to fill that electricity demand. Solar is cheap and getting cheaper, and grid-scale battery storage tech is really plugging forward too. The AI slop deluge and its power consumption is a bit of a wild card though.
Internal combustion cars bring orders of magnitude more pollution to black and brown neighborhoods than fossil-fuel electricity used to drive EVs. I think your comment is more about where we choose to dump our pollution, and who lives there than a dunk on EVs.
I love riding my my bike and the bus but I just truly do not see a future in our lifetimes where our society makes the investments necessary in the built environment to facilitate that lifestyle for even a quarter of Americans. We can’t seem to build a bike lane or some duplexes without years of studies and listening to boomers whine; there’s no way we can somehow overcome the dysfunction to build the density and electrified urban rail that we need to face climate change head on. EVs can at least help us avoid the worst of climate change.
If there are new cars, sure, let them be EVs, although I think you could make a case for a plug-in hybrid with a small displacement internal combustion engine over an all-battery vehicle. The resources put into batteries would be much less and in turn the ICE could be much smaller and tuned for maximum efficiency with the electric motors taking up the slack.
I actually don’t favor new cars of any sort, because:
–Our society puts huge financial resources into private motor vehicles, and we subsidize business use with tax write offs. We could have amazing transit for a fraction of that.
–The specific resources that EVs require are better used in public infrastructure, freight transport, etc.
–Private motor vehicles have a considerable footprint for travel lanes, parking lots, street storage, and interchanges which are often on some of the highest value land in a city.
–Single occupant vehicles are in direct competition with transit and active transportation for lanes, for signal timing, and for bodies in seats.
If we pretend that EVs are a solution we’re giving up on fast, frequent and widely distributed transit. We’ll continue to impede travel by people who don’t want or need a car, and we’ll continue to kill people who just had to walk out to work or to the store.
Well said, Lois. How many EV drivers in Oregon know that a decent percentage of the electricity that charges their cars’ batteries comes from COAL-FIRED power plants in Idaho?
Yep – PGE shut down Boardman but no one prohibited them from buying out-of-state electricity. So now they get to claim that THEY don’t produce coal-fired electricity while remaining practically silent on where they actually get their electricity. PGE has also gone big on in-state natural-gas-fired power plants, but again they don’t talk about it. All you ever hear is how they are investing in renewables and need more $$ from ratepayers to expand their renewables.
I would like EVs to be categorized not as “zero-emission vehicles” but instead as “downstream-emission vehicles,” since they are responsible for huge carbon emissions but not in the moment of use. ZEVs are a con, basically.
“I would like EVs to be categorized not as “zero-emission vehicles” but instead as “downstream-emission vehicles,” since they are responsible for huge carbon emissions but not in the moment of use.”
FWIW I think this is an excellent point and a great idea. Outsourcing of pollution to somewhere else has always been an insidious form of discrimination. From way back when in the factory towns where the bosses lived upwind of the factory stench/pollution and no doubt even earlier than that.
The same argument you made above could be made about heatpumps or induction stoves*. It’s always amusing to see how card-carrying cyclists are just as anti-sustainability as the most fanatical Trumper.
*considering that de-comission of electric baseboard heat, electric coil tank water heaters, and electric element stoves are among the best use cases for these technologies
The biggest way to mitigate e-car harm is for them to be smaller and slower. I hate that so many electric cars are hulking vanity items.
The most important thing about EVs is they emit far less CO2 than gasoline powered vehicles. Secondarily, they emit no hydrocarbons, no NOx, and very little brake dust. A slight increase in tire dust is a trifle by comparison.
…unless you’re a juvenile salmon, in which case tire particles are lethal (and EV tires typically have more 6ppd in them)
“unless you’re a juvenile salmon”
Even in that case, you still really, really care about climate change.
This might sound odd, but how do they work as robotic taxi’s to potentially maximize point to point urban transportation?
Yet everything madD said is also important.
Also, “tire dust” isn’t all they mentioned.
The point is to separate first order impacts from second order ones. Unless you are in denial about climate change, that has to be at the top of the list of concerns.
Do they actually? Can you please share some sources? EVs have the POTENTIAL to emit less CO2 but it’s not happening currently (ha) – not when PGE buys coal-fired power from Idaho, for example.
I’m waiting for the EV bumper-sticker that says “This car is powered by coal.”
Point sources (power plants) are *so much* easier to control, upgrade, modernize, and eventually replace with greener sources than distributed sources (millions of cars). Their combustion is also more efficient.
Electric cars also have an immediate and local benefit to breathing zone air quality.
Paul H, I agree, but it is important to qualify the benefits. I think it does a disservice to environmental awareness to point people to marketing pieces that portray e-cars as all beneficial and call it news. The “good News about E-cars” is not journalism, it is marketing. It has grains of truth but intentionally obfuscates and minimizes the harms of e-cars. Greenwashing!
Even when an EV is powered by coal, it emits far less CO2 than a gasoline powered car. Google it. It’s true. Electric motors are just that much more efficient.
And they got a free upgrade every time we take a coal plant offline.
The only positive thing I’m reading here is about the bike trailers. Our Bikes at Work trailer was the final piece to stop paying for delivery, renting a Uhaul, or borrowing a car.
If an electric bike is “just a bike,” then what does that make electric cars?
Quadracycles with a throttle.
I know there is always a lot to keep track of each week, but I figured I’d take a crack at my own addition to lighten the load a bit, maybe I can be a regular contributor, loop Watts in when he’s out of timeout?:
Prospective Max Rider Gets Murked (As the Youths Say): In local news evidencing how close to a burgeoning Socialist locale Portland is becoming (lol, not the Nordics, the fun ones, close to the equator, rhymes with You’regonnaneedagunzuela), a man was randomly attacked by someone who really likes being arrested, is apparently the just right flavor of radical Portland anti-social and is actually on the streets because YOU won’t give Jessica Vega Pedersen MORE money for her friends to help fix things. Anyway, this super boring local news is only transit adjacent (he wasn’t yet on a MAX train), and the victim died two days after being attacked. (KATU)
Thanks for highlighting this PS. While the comments to this week’s roundup article seem to be obsessed with more takes on white privilege and racism, Tri-Met continues to circle the drain with more security issues. My comments on an article last week on Councilor Mitch Green when I pointed out DSA’s lack of concern with transit security because it doesn’t line up with their anti police stances were dismissed by some commenters. I’m utterly convinced Portlanders can’t walk and chew gum at the same time. Activists are so busy virtue signaling and standing against the current administration that they don’t have the time or passion to fix the problems right in their own backyard.
Yeah, hard to tell how widespread these ideas are and how many people find them to be ridiculous, but the desire to double down on wild policy concepts rather than moving back to positions of moderation suggest, to me at least, Portland is cooked.
That’s okay though, it could just be me too, I am just a middle aged guy with a few young kids, so academic outcomes and safety are pretty important to me. The 28 year old, single, fine arts degree brunch crew of multicolored bowl cuts with septum piercings probably finds my positions to be abhorrent, until they meet a guy on a MAX platform at night with zero fear of consequences.
Things being done by the current administration have massive impacts on “their own backyard”.
There ARE many comments about those, in part because of the debating among commenters because their takes are so different. That’s a clear sign BikePortland readers and commenters don’t think as uniformly as you often seem to believe.
Huh, I was noticing how the comments section was a bit lighter, and missing the constant responses of Watts. I just figured he decided to take the summer off and get outside on a bike ride. Did he really get locked out? Didn’t realize that was a thing here, but I can understand how some commenters just need a break. Unfortunately, there is no “mute” function on BP, where you can choose to not have certain commenters posts constantly show up.
Watts hasn’t been locked out. But I did stop approving some of his posts because he was commenting so much and I continued to receive complaints about him. He probably just got annoyed and moved on. Not sure.
Much appreciated Jonathan! It’s certainly made the comment section a little more tolerable.
I think the lack of a mute button, but moderation for the types of stuff that makes say, Willamette Week an insult fest, is the best part of the comment section here. I’d argue the single point of moderation now is great and the conversations are consistently interesting.
That said, I am also biased the other way because I feel that Watt’s provided a unique version of nuanced critical commentary that was almost always accretive to the discussion, particularly when the status quo is a pretty narrow swing from one corner of the echo chamber to the other. I am not one that finds it to be a negative if my views are challenged, even if the approach can seem annoying.
There are a lot of regular commenters here with views I would consider unrelentingly unconstructive to the discussion and I’ve never thought once about whining to JM.
I find the situation with Watt’s to be a major demerit, but hey, it ain’t my blog and I hope Watt’s is willing to come back from a season in the wilderness and contribute again.
I was 50/50 with Watts. My problem was I feel like Watts thought, “Jeez, is no one gonna be the Devil’s Advocate here?? THERE HAS TO BE A CONTRARIAN VIEWPOINT, THERE MUST BE, I DEMAND IT”, and really, there didn’t need to be. I often wondered if Watts even agreed with Watts with some of those comments. Just a little too trolly sometimes. But other times, great comments and observations.
Watts is a great example of how you can “win” ANY argument if you: ignore most evidence, are relentless to the point where the other person wants to stop, use almost exclusively rationalist arguments (as opposed to empiricism), and argue most often from the POV of irrelevance.
Some of his comments were ok, but the purpose of the vast majority of his arguments were a deliberate use of distraction to provoke indignation (i.e., trolling).
Doesn’t seem like a good thing to joke about, PS, though I agree that allowing mentally unstable people to live on the streets is not in anyone’s best interests. Also I agree that JVP has been spectacularly ineffective and I can’t wait to vote for her opponent in the next election.