It’s time for the Bike News Roundup! Here’s a glance at some of the bikeish stuff floating around the web.
First up! Lots of people in the world’s most populous city bike despite few bike lanes:
The Gaman Spirit: Why Cycling Works in Tokyo from STREETFILMS on Vimeo.
Pacific Northwest News
- Highway 99 may be named after black Civil War veteran | The Seattle Times – Take that, white supremacists!
- Seattle’s 400-Foot Wide Stroad – The Urbanist – But please, tell me again about all the problems caused by bike lanes.
- How does Seattle pay for bike lanes? | Q13 FOX News – This again?!? And just months after we passed a PROPERTY TAX to fund most our bike investments. How does this garbage get past station managers?
- A crash, a DUI suspect, and no response from SPD| King 5 – This is infuriating. Huge props to the callers being persistent and keeping this dangerously drunk person from driving away.
- Bainbridge Island considers speed limit reduction | King 5 – Cool!
- ‘Cycleangelo’ turns Victoria B.C. rides into elaborate GPS doodle art – CBC Radio
- Seattle’s plan to annex White Center gets boost | The Seattle Times – What could this mean for biking and walking safety and access in White Center and the rest of South Park?
- Pedestrian struck by Metro bus in Renton | KIRO-TV
- Pedestrian killed in Auburn rollover crash | KIRO-TV
- An Evening with Janette Sadik-Khan in Covnersation with Mayor Ed Murray – March 21. Tickets are $32. Maybe she can inspire him to get back to making decisive, bold changes to our streets.
- Finalists Announced: Who Will Take Home an Advocacy Award? – Alliance for Biking & Walking – Cascade Bicycle Club in nominated for “Winning Campaign of the Year” (Let’s Move Seattle) and Cathy Tuttle is nominated for “Advocate of the Year”
- Can’t we all just get along? | Family Ride – Hey dude bike dudes: Don’t be assholes! Madi knows more about biking than you can dream. She could even write the book on it. Oh wait, she did.
- Auburn police searching for hit-and-run driver | The News Tribune
- Mukilteo mulls ferry ‘road diet’ | King 5 – Do it! That ferry entrance doesn’t need to be so scary for people walking, and biking up the hill can be terrifying. But it doesn’t need to be this way.
- Can Vancouver avoid Seattle’s bike share missteps? | Business in Vancouver
- Longtail cargo bike on BoltBus | Family Ride – So odd that a packed discount bus line is among our more cargo-bike-friendly modes of transit. Their rule: If it fits, it can go. Take note, Sound Transit.
- Symbiotic Relationship: Westside Bicycles + Cycle University – Velocity: The Seattle Area Cycling Blog
- Memorial ride planned for hit-and-run victim | Local | yakimaherald.com
- Teens delay getting licenses — and their driving is worse | The Seattle Times – The solution isn’t to get your license sooner, it’s to never get it…
- ‘Aging in place’ on Capitol Hill | CHS Capitol Hill Seattle
- Seattle, density doesn’t have to be a dirty word | The Seattle Times
- A Year After New Microhousing Rules Went Into Effect, Neither Side Should Be Happy With The Outcome – The Urbanist
Halftime Show! How New York City is revolutionizing life and travel on Queens Boulevard first with low-cost changes, then with major investment:
The Transformation of Queens Boulevard, Block By Block from STREETFILMS on Vimeo.
National & Global News
- A sneak peek at the protected bike lanes in NACTO’s new transit guide | PeopleForBikes
- Retail Parking: A View from Google Earth | Planetizen
- For Female Bike Messengers, Street Harassment Is Literally Life-Threatening | Broadly
- St. Louis Outlet Mall Sells for 98% Off | NextSTL – This is a remarkable story of highway-fueled suburban retail sprawl failing spectacularly. When I was growing up, the state was building 370, a freeway nobody needed. From what I could tell, it was just there to get people to this new mega mall in the middle of nowhere. That mall put strain on existing malls, which have since gone under. Now it is going under, too. So much money wasted. This is the worst urban planning imaginable, led by a windshield-blinded state DOT.
- Bike Cleveland | Working For Safer Streets | Timothy Wolf Killed Two People – Found Not Guilty
- Invitation to bid on RNC police bikes requests specific bike model made in Seattle – newsnet5.com Cleveland – The RNC is in the pocket of Seattle bike makers.
- The car century was a mistake. It’s time to move on. – The Washington Post
- New cycling laws: One of the first bike riders hit with $319 fine for not wearing a helmet | DailyTelegraph – The fine for biking without a helmet in Sydney is now double the fine for driving a car in a bike lane. Australia continues to demonstrate how not to promote biking and bike safety, and helmet laws are a major piece. Take note, Seattle and King County Public Health.
- BikeIndex’s February 2016 recoveries! | Bike Index – Always an interesting read!
- Google’s Self-Driving Car Caused Its First Crash | WIRED – Hubris. It’s classic hubris. The next time someone tells you about how self-driving cars will never crash, tell them about the steam liner that will never sink. I’m not against self-driving cars, I’m against people believing that they are the engineering solution that will finally solve our traffic safety and congestion problems.
- Boris bike cyclist crushed to death under lorry in Victoria was mother-of-two and wife of energy boss | London Evening Standard
- Panel kills mandatory bicycle helmet bill | WAVY-TV – Virginia bill would have required helmets for everyone under 18, and even that failed. Seattle and King County’s all-ages helmet law is very rare and odd.
- Mikael Colville-Andersen on Building Effective Bike Lanes: Just Do It | Streetsblog Denver
- Comparing What Counts as Acceptable Delay for Pedestrians and Motorists | Streetsblog USA
- The Controversy Surrounding Illegal E-Bikes in New York Relies on Stereotypes and Inconsistent Enforcement – CityLab
This is an open thread. What’s up?
Comments
6 responses to “Bike News Roundup: The world’s biggest city has few bike lanes, yet people bike a lot anyway”
Gotta love those “divisive, bold changes…”
Ha! That was a funny typo. *decisive*
While you are probably better off not reading the comments at the Times, MyNorthwest etc., I’m pretty sure you were right the first time.
The RNC patrol bikes article often uses the phrase “volcanic bike” without capitalizing the brand name. I’m not sure whether to picture a police bike being grunted up to the mouth of Mordor or being ejected from it!
If it’s seattle bike cops, they’re leaned up against the wall outside of the coffee shop at the base of mordor, waiting to get loaded into a van for the long trip home.
Thank you Tom for digging up the video of Tokyo. I was just in Tokyo at the end of January and did see a fair number of bikes even in the cold weather. The video missed a very important thing that makes cycling feasible, most likely because they take it for granted – lack of bike theft. The only locks I saw were the rings mounted above the rear wheel and keep the rear wheel from turning. In the downtown area, I also saw bike parking stations that look like proto stations. You put your bike in and then there is a clip around your front wheel. But the clip is there to be sure you pay when you come back to get your bike.