Tour de Links - XLVIXX....whatever

Maillot Jaune:Rahm Emanuel is giving every indication that, if elected, he will be a very cycling-friendly mayor. But will he build dog parks?

Podium: This guy won't wait for his local authorities to clear the snow off his trail. He does it himself, with his bike.

Podium: Despite all the complaining about building "bike paths," only about 4% of flexible ARRA transportation funds went to non-motorized projects.

Maillot Vert: A drugged driver who hit and killed a cyclist and then dragged their bike under their car for a mile (sound familiar?) pleaded guilty in California. In Ohio, Steve Magas is doing a study of all bicycle fatalities in the state in 2010. Interestingly there is the odd case where a cyclist's behavior may have killed the passenger on a motorcycle. A 7 year old cyclist pulled in front of a motorcyclist, who swerved and threw the passenger off. In another Ohio crash, the cyclist injured and the doctor who first responded were husband and wife (I thought that only happened on "Gray's Anatomy"). Also, mountain bike injuries are way down, in part because fewer people are mountain biking, but also the bikes have gotten safer.

Maillot a Pois Rouge: Research highlighted by the Transportation Research Board attempts to show how much cyclists prefer bike facilities ("the results showed that although only 8 percent of city streets are equipped with any kind of bike infrastructure, 51 percent of trips were taken on them. To Dill, this means that most riders are seeking out such routes, even if they are not the shortest.") and how facilities can lead to increased bicycle mode share. Meanwhile mathematicians are working on computer models to idealize the allocation of bikes in a bike-sharing system.

Maillot Blanc: A cyclist-driver confrontation captured by a helmet camera.

Lanterne Rouge: There is now an iphone black box app for bicyclists.

Comments

[contrarian]

"the results showed that although only 8 percent of city streets are equipped with any kind of bike infrastructure, 51 percent of trips were taken on them. To Dill, this means that most riders are seeking out such routes, even if they are not the shortest."

Or, alternatively, bike facilities get put on routes popular with cyclists.

[Purple Eagle]

Some photos and more info on bike plows are here. (from Grist)