Morning Links: Invasion of the dockless electric scooters, and Lincoln Blvd to be widened in Marina del Rey

Evidently, we were one day too soon with yesterday’s photo of a LimeBike electric scooter, since dockless scooters are today’s common theme.

Vanity Fair says San Francisco is being overrun with dockless scooters.

Wired says the invasion of the dockless scooters raises questions of who the streets and sidewalks are for, and which vehicles get priority.

A reviewer for the Washington Post says LimeBike scooters offer a whimsical ride, but he can’t imagine an adult ever using a dockless scooter.

And yet, I see people using them all the time in my neighborhood, and they haven’t even come to Hollywood yet.

In case you missed it. Upper photo from the Bird Scooter Instagram page.

………

Local

Caltrans plans to widen a slightly more than half-mile strip of Lincoln Blvd in Marina del Rey to make more room for bike lanes and sidewalks. And more cars, of course.

 

State

Plans are proceeding for what will eventually be a continuous 27-mile bike trail through San Diego’s North County region.

Evidently, Jump ped-assist ebike dockless bikeshare is coming to Davis. Although it would be nice if the story actually said that.

Ukiah’s police chief offers safety tips for pedestrians and bike riders, telling the latter to act like a car. Somehow, I don’t see how guzzling fuel and spewing noxious odors while endangering everyone around you will actually make anyone safer.

 

National

People for Bikes is looking for a new business and political engagement manager.

Honolulu drivers are confused by a new parking protected bike lane.

Bicyclists will get one last chance to ride Seattle’s Alaskan Way viaduct before it’s torn down next year.

A Jackson Hole WY sixth grader has been riding his bike to school all winter, despite the cold and snow.

Pro choice advocates followed San Antonio TX Google employees to work on billboard-bearing cargo bikes to protest false search results.

A Brooklyn paper says overcrowding on the Brooklyn Bridge has reached a breaking point as pedestrians and bike riders were turned away by police.

The Columbia Journalism Review advises reporters not to blame the victims in bike and pedestrian crashes.

The NYPD blocks a raised bike lane through Times Square to provide security for theater patrons, less than two months after previously reopening it.

Philadelphia bike riders call for protected bike lanes, despite city plans to move existing buffered lanes from the right side of a pair of one-way streets to the left, and improve intersection crossings.

The war on bikes continues, as a Virginia father is intentionally struck twice by a road raging driver as he was riding with his kids.

Your next bike helmet could look like an ordinary hat thanks to a pair of Virginia Tech students.

Tampa, Florida decides traffic flow is more important than previously planned lane reduction and bike lanes on a redesigned boulevard, suggesting that bicyclists should just ride on back streets instead.

 

International

An Ottawa city councilor is told “we don’t remove bike lanes” after he suggests removing existing bike lanes when separated bike lanes are installed on a nearby street.

British bike advocates ask that vulnerable road users be exempted from a bill that would make injuries valued at less than the equivalent of $7,000 subject to small claims court.

A Welsh cyclist follows the swallows on a second-hand bike as they migrate 4,000 miles to Africa and back. Although a local paper seems amazed he survived.

Copenhagenize author Mikael Colville-Andersen’s new book discusses how bicycles can save our cities.

A bike helmet maker points out that New Zealand’s rate of bicycling deaths dropped after helmets were made mandatory, but fails to recognize that bicycling rates for children and adults dropped as well.

Chinese dockless bikeshare provider Mobike has been sold for $2.7 billion. Dashing hopes that it would merge with fellow Chinese bikeshare provider Ofo to form a new company called Mofo.

 

Competitive Cycling

Dutch rider Fabio Jakobsen won the 2018 Scheldeprijs race race through Belgium and the Netherlands, after winds — and a parked car — knocked out many of the favorites.

Peter Flax offers a tongue-in-cheek ranking of the top 40 cycling dopers.

 

Finally…

Come for the KOMs, stay for the porn ads. If you want to drive a bus, you have to ride a bike.

And forget all those photos of abandoned Chinese bikeshare bikes; in America, we abandon cars instead.

 

3 comments

  1. wcoastbo says:

    I’m pretty sure “act like a car” means vehicular cycling. ie turning left at the intersection left turn lane like other traffic, not crossing 5 lanes a block back and going against traffic to the intersection, then turning left. Vehicular cycling is my preferred method of riding with other road users.

    I hope the comment about guzzling fuel and noxious fumes was sarcasm.

  2. wcoastbo says:

    It seems there is a MoFo partnership in SoLo, which hopefully catches on with the bohos.

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