Tour de Links - good bread

New York City - Former Mayor Ed Koch finds the bike theft stings to be outrageous.

Danbury, NH - New Hampshire's longest rail trail (at 46 miles, with 14 more coming) has opened.

Iowa - I never thought I'd live to see the day when Longhorn colors were used to support an Aggie for president. I feel so dirty.

Las Vegas - A cyclist was killed by the wife of a LVPD officer. The driver was drunk, but because of who she was, the police covered it up. "Although there were two witnesses to the incident, the officers did not take a statement from either and failed to record one witness’s name or address. The officers soon realized it was a conflict for them to investigate and called the Nevada Highway Patrol (NHP) to the scene for a “parallel” investigation. By that time, however, the Metro police had already prepared a report faulting Erin for the collision, saying she had crossed in front of Wagner’s SUV and listing Wagner’s sobriety as “apparently normal.”"  Her family spent the next 14 years seeking justice on her behalf. After settling with the driver and the police, the police department's insurance company has refused to cover the costs.

Portland, OR - Former NFL quarterback Joey Harrington was hit from behind while riding his bike and suffered a serious, but non-life threatening injury. The 26 year old driver was cited. Also, bike advocates are pushing for a bike-sharing system.

Seattle, WA - Despite a recent rash of bicycle crashes and fatalities "In just over two weeks, bicyclists have been struck by vehicles in four accidents, three of them fatal." injuries and fatalities are down county and state wide.

United States - Bikeleague argues that making bike funding eligible for transportation funds instead of a  set aside for bike programs isn't good enough.  "Before ISTEA, states had the option of spending up to $4.5 million of their highway funds each year on independent bicycling and walking projects (up to a national cap of $45 million), and the funds required NO state matching funds. In the 18 years before 1991, a total of $40 million was spent by all 50 states combined – approximately $2 million a year." On the one hand, the idea that states should be free to make their own decisions makes sense. But on the other, not setting aside money for biking means less money will be spent on biking. But it's disingenuous to say that setting aside money for transportation is good, but for bike transportation is bad. If you REALLY think states should make their own decisions, just send them money and let them spend it on whatever they want - even a giant ice cream party. But I see the paternalism line as binary. Either you cross it or you don't.

Also, bikes fly free on Frontier airlines.

Amsterdam - The Dutch culture of cycling has some advantages not yet considered. "Cyclists can’t carry six bags of groceries; bulk buying is almost nonexistent. Instead of shopping for a week, people stop at the market daily. So the need for processed loaves that will last for days is gone. A result: good bread." Though, cyclists can carry six bags of groceries.

Vilnius, Lithuania - Surely you've seen this video of a tank driving over a Mercedes parked in the bike lane. It's the biggest thing since Dan Maes.

Sasebo Naval Base, Japan - An Australian woman was killed after a crash with a military vehicle during an exercise. If the Constance Holden incident is any indication, the investigation will get nowhere.

Comments

[Michael H.]

Are they going to link up that NH rail trail to the "East Coast Greenway"? I know the ECG isn't really a single trail. But it would be interesting to add such a long trail to the ECG route, even if I never head up there myself.

Interesting that you should post about cycling and bread. I had to throw out a loaf and a half of bread yesterday because of mold. The expiration date hadn't even passed yet.

[Michael H.]

The article on a Portland bikeshare system includes a picture of SmartBike DC. Aren't the BikePortland people aware of CaBi yet? CaBi is a far better model than SmartBike. If you're listening Portland, go with a CaBi-type system.

[Bilsko]

HEck, a medium sized Chrome messenger bag will fit two 6-packs with room to spare for other stuff.

6 bags of groceries indeed.

[michael n]

There is a Bike Portland blog entry about the push for a bikeshare system in Portland. It's all caught up in their local bike politics.

In some ways the comments are more interesting than the article - it becomes clear that the otherwise-advanced-cyclists in Portland don't grok the bikeshare concept.

[charlie]

I think the issue of too much packaging material in the EU is more related to garbage disposal regulations than biking.