The Monday Roundup: Cars are bad (but still popular), eMTB racing, Google knows, and more

Here are the most noteworthy stories we came across in the past seven days…

Future city: Google’s Sidewalk Labs has signed a contract to develop a “city of the future” in Toronto and the plan doesn’t include private cars.

A 3-D printed bike bridge: The world’s first bike bridge to come from a printer opened in the Netherlands (of course!).

Bikes instead of “clean cars”: Continuing on the theme above, Treehugger rounds up all the reasons why cities have much more to gain by prioritizing bikes over electric cars.

Our cars are killing our salmon: Scientists in the state of Washington are sounding alarm over research that shows brake dust, oil, gas, and other toxic crap cars spew onto our streets are directly responsible for a dwindling salmon population.

Le Tour goes gravel grinding: The 2018 Tour de France route was unveiled last week. Stage 10 will include a section of dirt roads, which proves that the gravel riding trend is trickling up.

Neighborhood activism FTW: Oregon Walks will hand out a Weston Award to the Brentwood-Darlington Neighborhood Association for their amazing work to secure millions in sidewalk funding.

Hating cars is actually quite reasonable: In a way that only he can, Eben Weiss (aka Bike Snob NYC) shares his extreme dislike of cars and the culture we’ve created around them: “No invention in modern history has been as successful in eliciting the very worst from people and making death, maiming, and general mayhem a part of everyday life.”

Social capital: A major, peer-reviewed study from Spain showed that investment in bicycle infrastructure yielded an impressive socio-economic benefit (in addition to the obvious benefits to air quality, congestion reduction, and so on).

It’s called motorcross: “eMTB” racing is a thing and organizers are jazzed to be pushing the envelope of off-road cycling closer toward motorcycling.

State of bikelash: “Cars First” was one of the tamer slogans seen at this bike lane protest in Minneapolis. Perhaps a sign of things to come in Portland?

SUVs are deadly by design: When a person chooses to drive a big 4-x-4 or even a “small SUV,” they are choosing to drive a vehicle that is much more likely to kill someone in the event of a collision with a vulnerable road user.

Dockless bike share Q & A: An interview with a Seattle DOT spokesperson about their experiences with dockless bike share systems, which we continue to think would be an effective supplement to Biketown.

Wheeler “lost at sea”: Oregonian columnist Steve Duin says Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler is still without a rudder in his quest for productive leadership and that perhaps its his lack of good messaging that’s to blame.

Cars have come raging back: This breakdown of U.S. Census data on household car ownership shows that, “The boom in car-free and car-lite living that led urbanists and the media to speculate that Americans were letting go of automobiles is over.” Welp.

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

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