It’s time for the Bike News Roundup, a list of some stuff floating around the web lately that caught our attention.
First up, Grist dives into the anarchist roots and capitalist evolution of bike share:
Pacific Northwest News
- Executive Constantine proposes new approach to Metro fare enforcement – King County
- A ban on apartments hurts public education | Real Change
- August 2018 – Friends of East Lake Sammamish Trail – Good legal news for the region’s second-most litigated trail.
- Bellevue’s slow roll into bike share could lead to something big | Crosscut
- Cascade Bicycle Club E-Bike World Record Ride & Expo | Cascade Bicycle Club
- Thanks to Comprehensive Street Design, Vancouver Sows for the Future – Sightline Institute
- This electric bike experiment could change how we design cities | Grist
- Suburban Seattle Parking Purists: We Didn’t Plant Those Fireworks on That Bike Lane Construction Site – Slog – The Stranger
- Bike Share Stations Out and Dockless Bicycles and Scooters In | Baltimore Magazine – Bewegen is the company that nearly won a contract to expand bike share in Seattle before then-Mayor Ed Murray pulled the plug. I was against killing the program back then, but it sure seems like a great decision now. I admit now, with 20/20 hindsight, that I was wrong.
- Seattle police need help locating bikeshare brake cutter | king5.com
- Safety Improvements on Rainier Avenue South | Office of the Mayor
- Counting on volunteers to tally people who walk and bike | WSDOT
- Ofo saying goodbye to Seattle, will donate bikes | king5.com
- Durkan Torpedoes Transit Shelter Modernization Plan, Forgoing $97 Million Or More In Revenue » The Urbanist
- Lime pilots in-app donations, encouraging bikeshare riders to give money to local nonprofits in 3 cities – GeekWire
- Trail Spotlight: Eastside Rail Corridor – King County Parks Plog
National & Global News
- A second dockless bike-share company is exiting D.C. – Curbed DC
- Saturday’s Pedal-Assist E-Bike Legalization Leaves Delivery Workers Out in the Cold – Streetsblog New York City
- Relax — the bikes and scooters don’t bite – The Boston Globe
- House GOP Transportation Bill Would Raise Taxes on Transit and Bikes – Streetsblog USA
- America spends over $20bn per year on fossil fuel subsidies. Abolish them | Dana Nuccitelli | Environment | The Guardian
- LeBron James opened a public school for at-risk kids in Akron – SBNation.com – Students will receive free bikes.
- American Cyclists Killed By ISIS In Tajikistan | Outside Online
- Cyclists of Color Weighed in on CPD Bike Ticketing at the Wheels of Justice Ride – Streetsblog Chicago
- Outlawed Abroad, Killer “Bull Bars” Are the Hot Fashion Accessory for Police Departments – Streetsblog USA
- Bikepacking Might Kill You: Coal Headwear & Friends Do The Swift Campout on Vimeo
- Scooter Company Bird Offers to Pay Cities to Build Bike Lanes – Streetsblog USA
- The LeBron James Interview About Bicycles – WSJ
- Biking Pol is Killed, So Louisiana Parish Blames Cyclists – Streetsblog USA
- We’re well on the way to disastrous ‘hothouse Earth,’ climate scientists warn in new study | OregonLive.com
- Considering Ways to Prevent America’s Deadliest Type of Bike Crash – Route Fifty
- Tell Your Senator: Don’t Leave Trails, Walking and Biking Behind – Rails-to-Trails Conservancy
- The social ideology of the motorcar – Uneven Earth
- A Hit-and-Miss Debut for Dockless Citi Bikes in the Bronx – Streetsblog New York City
- Scooters Aren’t a Public Safety Hazard. Dangerous Streets Designed Only for Cars Are. – Streetsblog USA
- Insights on bike-sharing from Harvard researcher – Harvard Gazette
- America’s Car Culture is Literally Shortening Your Life: Study – Streetsblog USA
- Is It Time to Redefine the Bike Lane? – Streetsblog USA
I have never seen anyone use a bike-share bike with a helmet. Never. Not once.
I counted over several days commuting along the Burke – about 1 in 20.
And how did the cyclists’ failure to wear a helmet affect you?
And how did the cyclists’ failure to wear a helmet affect you?
They clearly care so little for their own safety that they are willing to break the law. Which means they for sure don’t care about my safety while we are sharing a multi-use facility.
So I have to be more alert to their actions which leaves less capacity to be aware of other things going on around me.
@Law Abider: That’s insane. Riding a heavy bike on the Burke-Gilman at 10 MPH is a perfectly safe activity without a helmet. We know this because we have tons of data and case studies. Looking at the Netherlands alone should be evidence enough. Do you think one is irresponsible if they don’t wear a helmet while walking on a multi-use trail?
@Nick: Just using the same, bizarro logic as the anti-helmet crowd. Feel free to refute it.
Riding a heavy bike on the Burke-Gilman at 10 MPH is a perfectly safe activity without a helmet. We know this because we have tons of data and case studies.
*Citation needed* I know of the fatally flawed Melbourne study linking helmets to a decline in cycling. I know of another flawed report from England (?) that somehow arrives at the opinion that helmets are killing people.
There IS the 1989 study in the New England Journal of Medicine, which shows a vast reduction (85% to 90%) in head and brain injuries. That alone should be justification for wearing a helmet.
Do you think one is irresponsible if they don’t wear a helmet while walking on a multi-use trail?
No. Human bodies are designed to brace themselves and avoid head injuries when falling from a standing position.
Right.
Where would the internet be without brilliant arguments like that one?
@AP:
I don’t expect you to refute my bizarro logic, which was meant to be tongue in cheek, but feel free to debate my valid arguments, where I back them up with facts and studies.
This is where the anti-helmet crowd typically breaks down. Their argument boils down to the pseudo-libertarian “a few people don’t want to wear helmets, so the law shouldn’t make them”.
Another plug for the Seattle Transit Blog post on SDOTs deadly incompetence on Beacon Hill –
https://seattletransitblog.com/2018/08/23/school-safety-beacon-hill/
Unbelievable that we are openly putting kids lives at risk to save drivers from a few seconds in delay. Is Trump the interim head of SDOT now that Goran is fully checked out?
Speaking of Trump, why is it taking Durkan longer than Trump to appoint key leadership positions to keep our city functioning? As a Seattle resident it feels like we are constantly getting sucker punched by the national “conservative” right hooks and the local “liberal” left jabs.
Another transit project Durban’d:
https://www.theurbanist.org/2018/08/24/durkan-torpedoes-transit-shelter-modernization-plan-forgoing-97-million-or-more-in-revenue/
>> why is it taking Durkan longer than Trump to appoint key leadership positions to keep our city functioning?
She had to replace a lot of positions. Police chief is obviously the highest priority (of every mayor) and she seemed to have done a very good job. Both the rank and file as well as reformers love the new police chief (that isn’t easy).
SDOT was a mess, and it took time to figure out how much of a mess it was. The original head resigned, and I would imagine she figured the old head would be fine for a while. Then she discovered how messed up the agency was (https://crosscut.com/2018/08/after-cronyism-accusations-sdot-promises-do-better-employees). Those sort of systemic issues lead to really poor results. One of the big issues is the MoveSeattle fiasco, which has blown a hole in every project the city wanted to complete.
She has formed a committee to look for a new head. Hopefully someone from outside can step in and clean up the department. I’m sure there are good people doing good work inside, but when you have a dysfunctional culture, I think it is best to get someone from outside to shake things up.
On the topic of disposing of former shared bikes, did Seattle ever find a buyer for the old Pronto equipment? The most recent update I could find suggests that they’re still sitting in storage.
Is there anything constructive we could do with these bikes instead of just letting them sit around in a warehouse indefinitely?
Are the pronto bikes compatible with other cities? Could they be repainted into CitiBikes?
What do we do if we discover an Ofo bike left behind months after Ofo has packed up and left town? Who picks it up? What if the bike is found in a hard-to-get-to place, like a hiking trail, nowhere near a road.
asdf2 – there is an ofo bike in Carkeek Park about 3/4 of the way down the Pipers Creek trail, before the orchard. I doubt that anyone except maybe the Parks Dept will move it
Erica C. Barnett is reporting this morning that Andrew Glass Hastings is leaving (has left?) SDOT, and is being replaced by his deputy, Christina Van Valkenburgh. With the organization seeming so adrift, it’s maybe not surprising to see shake-ups and high profile departures. But with no incoming director in sight, it’s hard to see this as anything but more bad news for biking, walking, and transit.
Meh. SDOT was messed up, big time. https://crosscut.com/2018/08/after-cronyism-accusations-sdot-promises-do-better-employees. You can see how they screwed up very important projects, like MoveSeattle: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/transportation/the-930-million-move-seattle-levy-shortfalls-are-clearer-but-the-solutions-arent/
Some of the blame goes to the previous mayor (of course) but there were obvious problems in SDOT. Even the lack of communication that lead to the streetcar investigation (which lead to other issues) shows an agency that was arrogant and incompetent (not a great combination).
It will be a while before someone new takes over, and they will take over a mess (with lots of underfunded projects). But unless we get unlucky, we will eventually be much better off.
asdf2 – there is an ofo bike in Carkeek Park about 3/4 of the way down the Pipers Creek trail, before the orchard. I doubt that anyone except maybe the Parks Dept will move it
I wrote an essay which I referenced in an email to the mayor regarding the streetcar project: https://seattletransitblog.com/2018/09/03/mobility-alternatives-to-the-ccc/. It is basically a more detailed set of ideas based on this argument: https://seattletransitblog.com/2017/10/19/replace-ccc-better-bus-service/
Hopefully the mayor will get more emails and calls explaining how stupid and unpopular the streetcar is, and she can put the money into better bus service.