It’s time for the Bike News Roundup!
Don’t forget to vote! And whether you voted weeks ago or your ballot is still at home, you can join me for our first ever Procrastinator’s Voting Party, 5–6:30 p.m. at Chuck’s Hop Shop CD (20th/Union). We’ll then bike to the ballot box en route to the Move Seattle election party in Belltown (I’ll even deliver your ballot for you if you can’t join the ride).
Anyway, in mostly non-election news, here’s a look at some of the bikey stuff floating around the web recently. First up, here’s a great, short explanation of how the calculated derogatory term “jaywalking” became a crime:
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Pacific Northwest News
- Rep. Rick Larsen Leads House to Protect Transportation Alternatives Funding | Washington Bikes
- Seattle’s Crummy Curbs Bring Lawsuit By Disability Advocates | KUOW
- Microsoft looks to stop bike crashes before they happen, testing Minority Report-style predictive intelligence – GeekWire
- Melrose Promenade Update | Melrose Promenade
- TriMet releases video, statement on Tilikum collision – BikePortland.org – Not a great start for Portland’s high-profile bike/walk/transit bridge. I hope this is easily fixed.
- So does $100 million for bikes make Colorado #1? | Washington Bikes
- First look: New bike lanes on 3rd Avenue downtown – BikePortland.org
- UW Station Needs More Bike Parking | Seattle Transit Blog
- Study: Puget Sound traffic congestion up 19% since recession | King 5
- Put Your Feet First and Move Seattle: Vote YES on Prop 1 | The Urbanist
- John Wayne Trail unanimously supported by Spokane City Council | The Spokesman-Review
- New Pedestrian Mobility Rule–on to Next Steps | SDOT Blog
- Suspected DUI driver won’t be charged in teens’ deaths | King 5
- Efficiency, Equity Discussed at Forum on Seattle’s Transportation Congestion | The Urbanist
- Sinnema Quaale Upper Revetment Analysis and Repair Project – King County – Snoqualmie Valley Trail closure near Duvall will continue into December, missing Halloween opening goal.
- Charity bike rides earn big bucks for cancer research » Biking Bis – Obliteride raises $2.65 million for Fred Hutch
- ACTION ALERT: Tell Sound Transit to Expand the Low-Income Fare | Seattle Transit Blog
- Save the Yards! | The C Is for crank
- Faye Garneau Has Now Given As Much of Her Own Money to Kill the Move Seattle Levy as the Pro Side Has Raised in Total – Slog – The Stranger
- Announcing The Bicycle Story Podcast! Episode 1: Bike Skills Save Lives | The Bicycle Story
- Garbage truck gone rogue closes streets around E Olive Way | CHS Capitol Hill Seattle – Smashes Pronto station. Luckily, no injuries.
- Walla Walla High School teacher struck by car, killed | Tri-City Herald
- A look at the mountains and rivers moved to build Seattle | Crosscut
- Summer Parkways – Central District | Flickr
- Summer Parkways – Ballard | Flickr
- A Property Tax Primer (or Why Prop 1 Opponents Don’t Know What They’re Saying When They Say Property Taxes Are Too High) | Skunk Works
- Should Seattle cyclists be able to treat stop signs like yield signs? | The Seattle Times
- Jerry Baker’s Memorial – Velocity: The Seattle Area Cycling Blog
- Capitol Hill bicycle cafe race down to two — for now | CHS Capitol Hill Seattle
- Burke-Gilman Trail draws breweries to Kenmore | NWNews
- Seahawks fullback Derrick Coleman arrested for investigation of hit-and-run | The Seattle Times
- Guest Editorial: The “Let’s Move Seattle” Levy Will Modernize Our City’s Transportation System – Slog – The Stranger
- 35th Avenue SW and SW Roxbury Street – Early Results are In! – So far so good for travel times, which is nice. But I’m still waiting for the data that really matters: How many injuries were prevented?
- City says flashing yellow lights safe, effective | Issue raised after toddler’s death – Bellevue Reporter
- Life as an Amazon bicycle courier: Steep hills and even steeper expectations – GeekWire
- Beloved Port Orchard grandmother killed by hit-and-run driver | www.kirotv.com
Halftime Show! Seattle Police helped train Bellevue Police in bicycle tactics. I’ve never been on a bicycle ride that includes live ammo target practice…
National & Global News
- The reason fewer US women cycle than the Dutch is not what you think it is | Environment | theguardian.com
- Man tackled to the ground by Coast cop for riding a push bike without a helmet | Gold Coast Bulletin
- What You Need to Know About Dynamo Lighting | Momentum Mag
- Seeking asylum on children’s bicycles – BBC News
- How Painting Sharrows on the Street Could Keep Cyclists Safer on Shared Oakland Roads – CityLab
- European Cyclists’ Federation – Helmet effectiveness research forced to go back to the drawing board
- ‘Bloody’ bicycles left on Boulder’s formerly ‘right-sized’ Folsom Street – Boulder Daily Camera
- Open Letter to the League of American Bicyclists Board of Directors — Medium – Signed by several Seattle/WA leaders, including Elizabeth Kiker of Cascade and Barb Chamberlain of WA Bikes.
- BikeSD How Can BikeSD Make a Dent in Income Inequality? Through Advocacy and Embracing Equity – BikeSD
- We just released 159 high-quality biking photos into the public domain | PeopleForBikes – Very useful for your bike propaganda. OBEY.
- Most Cyclists Are Working-Class Immigrants, Not Hipsters
- Governor signs bill banning bridge sidewalk tolls – The San Francisco Examiner
- Stephen Fleming’s Velotopia Concept Envisions a Perfect Bike City – CityLab – Hmm… I don’t know about biking through my grocery store.
- Survey: Broadway Protected Bike Lane Would Entice More Riders, Shoppers | Streetsblog Denver
- Birmingham’s Zyp BikeShare officially gets rolling | AL.com
- DataLensDC Charts Average Consumer Expenditures Across U.S. Metropolitan Areas – CityLab – Seattle residents’ car expenses really not so bad, relatively.
- Three dead in horrific Halloween crash in Bronx – NY Daily News
This is an open thread.
Comments
7 responses to “Bike News Roundup: Watch how ‘jaywalking’ became a crime”
Thanks for the police training video!
The live-ammunition practice makes me wonder – what if someone shoots at someone on a bike? How likely is it to hit something that’ll mess up the bike, whether the chain, the tires, or something else?
I’d be much more worried about the rider…
From the sound of the article, not charging the drunk-driver with homicide was probably correct. But it’s probably more like a broken clock that’s right twice a day than wise discretion on the part of the prosecutor.
Well, I’m offended!
But a minor correction, the roads belong to the entitled toads driving the cars, not the machines themselves; “The motor-car went Poop-poop-poop, As it raced along the road. Who was it steered it into a pond? Ingenious Mr. Toad!”
Machines probably wouldn’t be so bad as long as they followed Asimov’s three laws, maybe a big “if”; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sally_(short_story) still, if the machines decide to take over it won’t matter much if you have a manual control car when your credit card doesn’t work at the gas pump (or the grocery store), and the refineries aren’t working anyway.
I for one welcome our new mechanical overlords.
That story about the “Idaho stop” was interesting, of course most of the commenters totally ignored the: “Drivers did not do much better. They came to a complete stop just 22 percent of the time.”, but it was interesting that the Times even mentioned it.
Sure, people on bicycles were much worse percentage wise, but as there are FAR more drivers the total number of drivers running stop signs dwarfs the number of bicycle riders, plus cars are much more deadly.
Since there were only about 1600 “No” votes to the poll “Should Seattle allow bikes to yield instead of stopping at stop signs?” there is probably virtually zero chance that any of those No votes were cast by someone on their phone while running a stop sign in their car, but with a (much) larger sample there might be someone who did, considering how many drivers run stops and use their phone while driving, though there are probably very few who do online polls while driving. On the other hand, it is very likely that most those who voted “no” did run a stop sign in their car sometime that same day (not to mention speeding)
Ever since the BMP Implementation Plan came out, I’ve been interested to see the rate of follow-through. With two months left, the 2015 projects are looking pretty good (the orange rows don’t necessarily represent delay, since the “2015” projects are really just projects that were supposed to start in 2015).
(I’ll try to collect on-the-ground info for the yellow rows Thursday. Generally it should be expected that SDOT accomplishes in 2015 what they said they’d accomplish back in March! The future will be more interesting.)
Jaywalking should not be a crime, but the manner that I see some people jaywalking is downright criminal.