Today’s newsletter brings you two perspectives on the e-bike boom.
One, from Felix Mariano, looks at the riders pushing their bikes to the limits, and where safety comes into play. “What we once saw as freedom is now criminalized,” Mariano writes. “And it didn’t have to be this way.”
The other, from Streetsblog NYC contributor Julie Lichtblau, processes the aftermath from being t-boned by an e-bikeshare rider on a protected greenway — and how that informs her role in the safe streets movement.
“I admit to being dismissive of e-bike complaints before. After being decked by a 60-pound e-Citi Bike rider, I can say unequivocally, yes, it’s different when it happens to you. So to my fellow Safe Streets activists, I want to say that if we let the most aggressive riders set behavior norms and dominate perceptions, we’re giving anti-bike reactionaries ammunition to blast us back to the bad old days with all the bad faith they can muster.”
Read all of that and more below.
The common denominator in every car crash is a car. So why don’t we talk about it?
The people of Toronto have shown up big to protect their bike lanes from removal. Will Americans stand with them?
Jalopnik points out that there are certain vehicles that average people have no business driving.
