It’s time for the Bike News Roundup! As always, this is an open thread. Discuss anything localish and bikeish in the comments below.
First up, the most terrifying short horror film of 2016 was released in October by the North Carolina Department of Transportation. Watch as this proposed road widening project demolishes old buildings and builds an impenetrable division in the middle of the humble communities of Matthews, Stallings and Indian Trail. Rated R for graphic community violence.
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Pacific Northwest News
- Goodbye BTA, hello The Street Trust – BikePortland.org
- Tiny town of Kendall fights for community safety | KING5.com – Go get ’em, Kendall! We’re with you.
- King County Metro Moves Slowly on Eastside Bike Share | Seattle Transit Blog
- Traffic Calming Questionnaire (A) Survey – Take this SDOT survey
- NE 65th Street Vision Zero Project – Wedgwood Community Council
- To Make Streets Safer, Seattle May Get Rid of Traffic Signals – Streetsblog USA
- SDOT plans additional analysis of Broadway-John-E Olive Way for all-walk intersection | CHS Capitol Hill Seattle
- ‘How many more deaths will it take?’ Distracted-driving bill rolling ahead in Olympia | The Seattle Times
- How Cars Still Dominate Downtown’s Right of Way | Seattle Transit Blog
- Getting The Bike Master Plan Back On Track » The Urbanist
- Another Capitol Hill crossbike to be installed on E Pine | CHS Capitol Hill Seattle
- Zoning, Anti-Trump, and Hypocrisy — Michael Maddux (dot org)
- Q&A With Dongho Chang, a Traffic Engineer Who Stresses Safety Over Speed – Streetsblog USA
- Action Needed: 6th Ave NW Greenway In Jeopardy | West Woodland, Ballard
- The Merits Of Upgrading Seattle Center Coliseum » The Urbanist
- Memorializing Ronacin Tjhung: How Systemic Transportation Issues Can Lead to Tragedy | South Seattle Emerald
- What Doomed Seattle’s Pronto Bike Share Program? – CityLab
- Road Warrior: More about bicycling on Agate Pass Bridge | Kitsap Sun
- Sand Point Way Safety Proposal Meeting Recap » The Urbanist
- aaronwk: Reality Bikes – A day volunteering at the Bikery
- Port Commission Approves $5M for Lander Street Project :: Story ID: 32346 :: Construction Equipment Guide
- Seattle vanpool permits skyrocket 4,000 percent | KOMO
- EDITORIAL | Appetite for bike share done right remains after Pronto demise – Queen Anne & Magnolia News
- Using Time as a Planning Metric to Create a True Mixed Use District | Politics | Seattle Met
- Man on bicycle hit, launched over guardrail by hit-and-run driver in Tukwila | Q13 FOX News
- East Lake Sammamish Trail progresses, but not unchallenged | Sammamish Local News | theeastside.news
- Rob Sadowsky let go by board of The Street Trust (formerly known as the BTA) – BikePortland.org – Related to the first item
Halftime show! Marshawn Lynch biked around Scotland peddling Skittles and playing the bagpipes recently.
National & Global News
- The Most Dangerous Cities for Pedestrians – Bloomberg
- Bicycling Education in the United States Needs an Update – Streetsblog USA
- World’s longest elevated bike path opens in southeast China | MNN – Mother Nature Network
- Family in need of DSS learns child was struck by car while in state care | WCIV – DSS won’t release the kid until the parents buy a car.
- Review: The Iota – a tiny bike tracker with huge potential – BikePortland.org – Has interesting implications for bike theft stings and security.
- Traffic deaths up nationwide, down slightly in Washington state | The Seattle Times – Down in WA from 2015, but up from 2014.
- Get on the bike-friendliness list | PeopleForBikes – People For Bikes now competing directly with the League of American Bicyclists’ Bike-Friendly Communities program.
- Birmingham’s New Electric Bikeshare System — Strong Towns – Sounds like those Bewegen bikes Seattle almost bought could use some improvements (I felt the same when test riding).
- Mexico City’s Partial Car Ban Fails to Clean Up the Air – Next City
- The world’s best bikeway manual just updated, and it’s in English | PeopleForBikes
- » Municipalities may be liable for crashes on streets where design encourages high speeds | SSTI
- Earth Sets a Temperature Record for the Third Straight Year – The New York Times
- 15 mph speed limit might be coming to a D.C. street near you – The Washington Post – The next frontier.
This is an open thread.
Comments
10 responses to “Bike News Roundup: NCDOT accidentally made the scariest short horror film of 2016”
It’s a Friday afternoon before a holiday weekend. News dump time? What are the odds we see the announcement of the Shilshole North option-that-nobody-wants later today? Listening to Dongho’s comments at the end of Wednesday’s presentation, it was hard to escape the conclusion that they’re leaning towards the path of least organized resistance.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOO! If SDOT chooses Shilshole North, it’s going to feel like the presidential election all over again.
Wow. I guess taking out all those trees was just a bonus. What are all those weirdly shaped wide spots in the road supposed to be, anyway?
For “Michigan Left” turns, I believe: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michigan_left
U turns
I understand Michigan lefts, but I’ve never seen double u-turns like that. Crazy.
So, this is great. A long, long time ago, I used to deliver the Queen Anne and Magnolia News. I had no idea they were still around. Not only are they still ticking, but that editorial nailed it. Everything they said it absolutely correct. The helmets, the spacing, the coverage area — those were the big issues. It had nothing to do with the hills, the rain or the lack of great bike paths. If you do bike share right — even in this city — it will succeed. We should try again, hopefully soon.
bicycling education needs an update but the article doesn’t really mention what that update is except to ride on roads that don’t have parking and that aren’t busy. my personal experience is that if I ride too far to the right, drivers are more likely to try to pass in the lane giving me very little space, if I put my butt further out in the lane, drivers are mostly forced to move over into the next lane and when they do that, usually they give me plenty of space. I question whether a study done in the UK really applies to US roads
… and if you’re riding pretty far left and the driver passes close you have somewhere to go.
To me, the idea that you can change the overall rate of rear-end collisions by cyclist education is dubious. Drivers usually don’t hit things they can see, and cars take enough of the lane (and take enough different lane positions themselves) that no lane position can protect cyclists from drivers that don’t see them. We need better driver education and a better driving culture, so that the enforcement conclusion is obvious: a driver that rear-ends a cyclist is almost certainly failing in the basic duties required to drive, and should lose the privilege for a significant amount of time.
And lower speed limits. Down here in San Diego, home of the car, it’s 45 on most roads away from downtown. If you are out in traffic, you are going to get hit before the driver even sees you. The end result is less than 1% commute by bicycle even though most of the year the weather is perfect.