It’s time for the Tuesday Bike News Roundup. Here are some links from around the region and the globe for your reading pleasure. As always, this is an open thread.
First up, Kona thinks Portland is cool (spoiler alert: It’s because of all the biking):
How Bikes Make Cities Cool – Portland from Kona Bikes on Vimeo.
Pacific Northwest News:
- Reminder: Ravenna Blvd resurfacing project is underway « Cascade Bicycle Club Blog
- Residents Question Parking, Pedestrian Access at Northgate Light Rail Station | PubliCola
- Schools Shout Out Series! Pt 1: Elementary schools riding with us in May « Cascade Bicycle Club Blog
- The Secret to Seattle’s Booming Downtown – Jobs & Economy – The Atlantic Cities
- Seattle ‘Regulatory Reform’ could push mixed-use deeper into Capitol Hill | CHS Capitol Hill Seattle – Or as the Seattle Times put it: OMG! The city wants to make it harder to park!
- SPD Blotter » Hit & Run to Parking Enforcement Officer
- Disturbing Seattle public servant tweet of the week:
Seattle PD ticketing a transient for no helmet. twitter.com/andrew_f_marti…
— andrew f martin (@andrew_f_martin) March 23, 2012
- Fun Seattle public servant tweet of the week:
SCL job perk: construction inspections by bike. twitpic.com/91np6b
— Meghan Pinch (@megbikes) March 26, 2012
Halftime show: How can America translate bikeway design from the Netherlands?
From the Netherlands to America: Translating the World’s Best Bikeway Designs from Streetfilms on Vimeo.
National and Global News:
- Bike-Share Programs are Wanted In Red States Too | Transportation Issues Daily – Seriously, Seattle? Oklahoma City is going to start a bike share system before we do?
- Infographic: When Reagan, the GOP, and Democrats Doubled the Gas Tax | Streetsblog Capitol Hill
- French Market hoping bike racks will help attract locals | NOLA.com
- Americans Hit The Brakes On NASCAR : NPR
- Riding Our Way Fit – Not Thin* — an intermittent record
- Why Are Three Out of Four Cyclists on the Street Men? | Streetsblog Capitol Hill
- Biking Bis – National Bike Challenge: Ride bike, log miles, repeat
- Go Means Go! » The Bike Butterfly. By Brompton.
- Why Bicyclists Are Better Customers Than Drivers for Local Business | Streetsblog Capitol Hill
- A Bike Company Offers a Prescription for America’s Health Care Cost Crisis | Streetsblog New York City
- Walkonomics » Improving Street Walkability Reduces Crime
- Jugs of urine, butts part of oil-patch odor issue – North Dakota has a disgusting problem.
- The Bike-sharing Blog: India’s Bike-sharing Tipping Point
- Slow to Cycle San Diego – USP Senior Sequence Class of 2012 Video Projects on Vimeo – Features Seattle Bike Blog (for like a half second)!
I looked at San Diego when visiting and tried to figure out why people don’t commute on bicycles there. The weather is perfect. Yes there are hills, but Seattle has them too. But what I observed is that San Diego has this topography with plateau with a canyon with a road in it going from top to bottom. Now that wouldn’t be a problem except that the speed limit is 45, which means folks drive 50. So even though there is a curb “lane” marked for bicycling, riding in it means being passed going up hill by cars going 40+ mph faster than I’d be riding.
It’s not safe. And that’s the conclusion of nearly everybody who rides there as well. The way they get around it is group rides on the weekend, where there is a mass of people to attract attention and get the cars to shift one lane over as they pass.
Until that infrastructure is fixed, ie either slow the cars down, or give the bicycles a whole lane instead of just the shoulder you’d have to be insane to ride there.
Yeah, you hit the nail on the head. I rode SD back in 1990, and then revisited it three years ago, its even worse now.
Also check out this collision, the roadway has all these unregulated freeway ramps, so crossing the entrance to the freeway is dangerous because cars don’t yield.
http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2012/mar/22/pedestrian-killed-balboa-avenue/
Interesting to read that in India, a deterrent to bike sharing is the perception that bikes are for poor people. Here, we come across the opposite perception. Life is interesting.