Hi friends. Welcome to the week.
And now a word from our sponsor: If you love cycling, you will not want to miss this weekend’s Portland Criterium races. Organizers have two fun-filled days planned and will bring the speed and spectacle of competitive community bike racing (and running!) to downtown Portland and the Lloyd. Check out PortlandCriterium.com for more info.
And with that, here are the most notable stories that came across my desk in the past seven days…
Parenting in America: It’s maddening that our government and judicial system have created inherently deadly road conditions and then when people try exist among them, it’s innocent parents who get jailed for letting their kids walk to the store. What a shithole country this is sometimes. (NY Times)
Used e-bikes: The author of this piece says a company called Upway wants to be known as the “Carvana of e-bikes” as it looks to tap the market for good quality, used e-bikes. (Streetsblog USA)
Playing politics with our lives: Some political candidates are so desperate and devoid of sound policy ideas that they stoop to campaigning against proven bike infrastructure in a bid to gin up anger among their base. (Boston Globe)
We need noise cameras: As someone who lives just a few hundred yards from an I-5 freeway onramp, I’d love to catch all the assholes who gun their engines onto the freeway. Loud noise is yet another negative externality of driving. (And oh look, the new company PBOT contracts with offers this technology.) (Wall St. Journal)
Shared micromobility: Shared scooter and bike rental systems across America have proven successful and their use reached an all-time high in 2024. Now, let’s double-down on our public investment in them! (NABSA)
New Zealand funding innovation: Oregon legislators might want to make a fact-finding mission to New Zealand, where they seem to have accomplished something Oregon had dreamt about for decades: Moving from a gas tax to a road user charge. (Interest NZ)
Another reason driving should be more expensive: A large number of major wildfires start near highways because of cars, yet people who drive these cars never pay for this negative consequence of their actions. But yeah, let’s keep arguing about how ‘cyclists don’t pay.’ (NY Times)
Speed hump salute: I actually have come to now like speed humps because of how they hurt my but whenever I roll over them, but I can appreciate how effective they are in slowing down drivers so I guess I’m a reluctant fan. (Bloomberg)
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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I love the idea of noise pollution cameras! We live close to 217 (currently being widened) and endure the sounds of car tires and illegal exhaust daily.
Yeah, same. I live near the Terwilliger curves on I-5 and between all the big freight trucks illegally using their unmuffled engine brakes as they enter the curves and the street racers with their modified exhausts zipping through, the noise at night makes leaving the windows open in summer a challenge.
“I’d love to catch all the assholes who gun their engines onto the freeway. Loud noise is yet another negative externality of driving.”
1000 percent yes!!
The intentionally raised noise degrades the humanity of those forced to constantly listen to it. When we were being gentrified out I was frantic looking for work and found something near Olympia. We didn’t have time to explore or do much follow up and picked a place on a road that turned out to lead to an ever increasing suburb/small town in its own right. The arrogant bad people in their cars and trucks daily show their contempt for anyone else as they floor it from an intersection thinking they are the dukes of hazard or some other motor fantasy.
They are all speeding, but its the noise that is continually awful. I would be sooo happy to have a sound camera sending out fines to all the people who willfully modified their vehicles to make far more noise than it should. I wouldn’t even care where the money went, just that the jerks were punished for punishing us with their noise.
Crazy to think it’s been 14 years since I started lobbying for noise pollution cameras. I’ve been through plenty of nuisance disturbances in other parts of town, but to me there is still no better way break up the silence of a good night’s sleep than with an 18-wheeler with an air brake coming in hot off I5 and barreling down Going to Swan Island.
It’s funny because the problem for me is usually that people insist on entering the freeway at 40 mph, which makes me crazy