Mountain Biking

The Monday Roundup: Profiling, transit victory, bad drivers, e-bikes and more – BikePortland.org

This week’s Monday Roundup is sponsored by the Lumberyard Bike Park, where bike-themed birthday dreams come true.

Welcome to the week. Hope the day off treated you well (if you got one). Before we get started on yet another scintillating week of news and issues, let us not forget the most noteworthy items we came across in the past seven days.

National parks open up: Trump’s Interior Secretary issued a sweeping order this week that said every trail and road on federal park land that is currently open to bicycles must also allow electric bicycles.

History of profiling: This is a fascinating story of how police used bicycle laws to target Japanese-Americans in California at the turn of the 20th century. (The author’s book about mobility and race looks worth a read too.)

Bikes rule in AMS: As someone who only walked the last time I was in Amsterdam, I can definitely relate to the tensions between foot and bike users in the world’s cycling capital.

Lease it: The largest bike maker in The Netherlands is set to launch a program where users of company bicycles (a popular option, due to tax incentives) can lease-to-own a bike for just 5 Euros a month.

Sad or funny? The Onion strikes again: This time they look at “the pros and cons of banning cars in cities“.

Birth of fat tire flying: A mountain-biking pioneer marks the date 40 years ago that motorcycle-inspired “fat tire” bikes were born.

VZ’s west coast problem: San Francisco is the latest west coast city where Vision Zero is not having the intended impact.

Bernie’s new deal: Noted urbanist reporter Alissa Walker breaks down the decarbonization of transportation plans in Bernie Sanders’ Green New Deal.

Bike time off: A German politician knows that regular bicycle riders are so much healthier business owners should give them extra vacation time.

Transit FTW! Great news from Phoenix, Arizona where, despite a push from a Koch-funded group, voters overwhelmingly supported a light rail extension.

E-bike champions: The racing world crowned its first-ever world champions in the new discipline of electric mountain biking.

Drive less please: I love the very reasonable yet powerful and convincing tone of this NY Times article about how we can make a huge impact on greenhouse gas emissions if we just drove a little bit less.

Women short-changed: Streetsblog reporter Angie Schmitt shares a list of ways our transportation system is biased against women. Any surprised for you in there?

More evidence of bad drivers: Despite “smart” cars and scary death tolls, many U.S. drivers seem to be getting worse. AAA’s latest report shows red-light running has hit a 10-year high.

Tweet of the Week: ODOT could use convincing about this tweet from active transportation advocate and WashDOT staffer @BarbChamberlain:

— Jonathan Maus: (503) 706-8804, @jonathan_maus on Twitter and jonathan@bikeportland.org

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