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…

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.

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.

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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