Hi friends. Welcome to the week. Below are the most notable stories either I came across myself or folks shared with me over the past seven days…
Sober argument for transit: Transit expert Jarrett Walker pens one of his most powerful pieces yet on how urban/rural politics and car-centric thinking impacts our approach to adequately funding public transit. (Bloomberg)
My kind of research: A working paper from researchers from Italy and Switzerland about how the presence of the Tour de France (a “place-based intervention”) impacts voting patterns and economics. (SocArXiv Papers)
GREEN Streets Act: Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley teamed up with Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and others to propose active transportation legislation that includes a fix-it first provision, GHG targets, public transit support, and more. (Senator Markey’s Office)
Stockholm’s approach to downtown revitalization: “We want people to really think about whether it’s worth it to own a car, or whether it makes more economic sense to rely on the public transport network.” (Politico)
Golf carts FTW: I’m not necessarily anti-car, I’m anti-big, unsafe, loud, toxic, society-killing vehicles — which is why I am truly fascinated at how many golf cars are used in this town in Georgia. (Jalopnik)
E-cargo bikes are here to stay: I know this is preaching to the choir, but I just love seeing non-bike outlets screaming from the rooftop that folks should stop buying cars and consider an e-bike instead. (The Verge)
Trump Admin taking us backwards: Among all the other challenges facing transportation departments these days we have a president who is directing his cronies to take away grants that fund bike/walk/transit and wants to refocus the funding on car-centric projects. (Streetsblog USA)
Carfree highway costs politician: A city supervisor in San Francisco who was ousted by voters for his role in making a coastal highway carfree says it was all worth it. (NY Times)
The e-moto problem: I’m happy to see national industry nonprofit People for Bikes lay out the reason we have to stop calling e-motos, “e-bikes.” (People for Bikes)
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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According to the Streetsblog article it would seem that the Trump administration has a lot in common with the Kotek administration. I sure didn’t see that coming!
“The Trump administration bias for “vehicular travel” — and the burning of fossil fuels that it requires — rears its ugly head again.”
Not at all like the Oregon Government that has been trying for 20? years to spend all its transportation money on a lot of extra freeway and also a bridge.
“Look, if your definition of improving quality of life is promoting vehicular travel, that’s, just on its face, bad. Increase vehicle travel, increase pollution, increase safety risks,” Dunne told CT Post. “Taking this money from this project, putting it into highway travel is in no way going to increase economic efficiency. I don’t see how you argue that it improves the quality of life of Americans.”
Dunne is absolutely right. Substitute “Kotek” with “Trump” and the article still reads true. What a bummer!!
One difference is that kotek and Oregon democrats at least try to tack on bike and transit infrastructure and service funding alongside the major car transportation protects. It may be that the ultimate outcome is largely the same: greater and greater reliance on sov transportation and fossil fuel consumption. But Trump is openly hostile to active transportation and transit whereas Oregon democrats merely indifferent.
They can say the messaging was consistent: e-bikes are bikes, not motorcycles, but I haven’t forgotten the rhetoric that the Gelgameks NEED a 30mph throttle. Just like in that South Park episode, I don’t think it was anything we needed to sweat. E-motos are a direct exploit of that edge case, and the laissez faire undercurrent of this so-called revolution. Good luck putting that toothpaste back in the tube.
Noble goals are repeatedly subverted by the pursuit of the almighty dollar. At home, you and I probably have more shopping bags than can ever be reused enough to offset single use. Even more plainly in the street, you and I see (hybrid-)electric vehicles that increasingly trade efficiency for power. Maybe we should stop falling for it.
Happy Monday.
Should be an easy problem to solve: cops pull over people riding e-motos and give them a ticket for operating an unlicensed motor vehicle on a public road, and even confiscate the vehicle (where the law allows it – probably allows a tow almost everywhere). The problem would be cleared up pretty quickly. It’s the lack of consistent law enforcement that allows problems like e-motos to grow and fester.
I agree but at least insofar as pure electrics are concerned (cars or ebikes), I don’t think they trade efficiency for power all that much. The real factors are drag coefficient and cruising speed. Cruising at 30 mph I easily operate at 50 W-hr/mile whereas at 15 mph it’s less than 15 W-hr/mile. Another reason to adopt the 20 km/hr (~16 mph) top speed limit for throttle or assist — much better efficiency.
“insofar as pure electrics are concerned (cars or ebikes), I don’t think they trade efficiency for power all that much.”
As far as cars go, the efficiecy gains from using electricity directly instead of turning gasoline into heat with a little bit of propulsion are huge. It’s why burning coal to produce electricity to move a car emits less CO2 than a gas car does.
As far as bikes go, the energy question depends on what assumptions you make about how much extra a bike rider eats and what the CO2 impact of that is. And a lot of other assumptions.
I regard electric cars to be a definite 100% total winner and electric bikes to be a general loser but maybe sometimes not. It really all depends.
I meant electrics vs. electrics, adjacent to the comment of hybrid-electrics increasingly trading efficiency for power.
I grew up in the town with the golf carts and visit my folks there at least once a year.
It’s not great. The golf carts end up being an extension of car culture, not an alternative to it.
The paths include very steep and punchy climbs (think SE Core between 41st and 43rd) and very tight blind turns almost constantly. Thanks to battery advancements, the golf carts have got larger, heavier, and faster. When I go for runs on the paths, I can expect to almost get run over by a teenager in a golf cart who looks at me with the same dead eyes you see in car drivers when they almost kill you. All the carts do is get kids car-brained faster
Riding on the roadways there would be wholly unacceptable to most folks around here.
Very steep grades (there is no flat land around Atlanta), and narrow, windy roads with 55 mph speeds limits and barely a fog line next to square curbs. Neighborhoods are all cul-de-sac’d and circuitous. Sometimes you can piece together a route through neighbors and short cart path connections. But if you need to get anywhere with a purpose and on a timeline, you’re probably going to ride a 6-lane surface street that is wider (total width and lane width) than most of a I-5 through Portland.
https://maps.app.goo.gl/oQPfPJx3McUxg8RQ9
https://maps.app.goo.gl/DLLkUUVMbDtRHdCJ8
https://maps.app.goo.gl/noHUgLnn145Nwc6K9
To say some positive things: I was able to ride my bike to elementary school, unsupervised (and never once locked my bike). But that’s primarily because the school wasn’t along a route to a high school. My middle school was a 30-min bus ride down a 65-mph, 5-lane arterial. The route to my high school was similar, though shorter.
Ask me anything
Yeah, I see them in the leafy rich white neighborhoods here in Greensboro NC too. Only white people are able to use them without getting pulled over by police. Usually it’s a family, no one wearing a seatbelt of course, no doors. I’ve seen a 6-person version with a tiny table and fridge.
Where is SE Core? Did you mean SE Corey? I wanna find it on a map.
Wait: do you mean S Corbett Ave? Try riding the section south of Nebraska – I have never made it up w/o having to walk the bike.
That should have been “SE Cora”. Sorry for not catching that “autocorrect”
There are golf carts all over Coronado Island in San Diego too.
That’s a good article on e-motos. I hope you’ll start using that language to describe those vehicles – we all should.
Fred. I’ve already been using that term! I was using it long before that article.
The e-moto article was very illuminating. I always assumed those things were some variety of class 2 ebikes
Last week a couple of kids (my guess is mid-teens) rode their
e-bikese-motos through the Chavez Trader Joes! Like a mini street takeover…in a grocery store? So weird.