Breakfast links I: Bikes, parks, and parking bikes
Stop it, guys
Many women who ride bikes experience constant harassment from catcalls and even groping. Add together harassment of women with the generalized harassment of cyclists, and women cyclists have it extra tough. Ugh! (TheWashCycle, City Paper)
Truck hit by cyclist, poor truck
A Montgomery County court refused to compensate a cyclist for losing work and suffering major injuries after a truck turned in front of him, too close for him to stop. The court found the cyclists “contributorily negligent” because he hit the truck, and because after weeks of recovery he was able to ride in a triathlon. If a person is running, someone in front of him shoots him with a gun, and he later recovers, is he also contributorily negligent because he hit the bullet? (TheWashCycle)
Congressmen spend more time at the mall than the Mall
The Mall keeps falling apart, the press keeps beating the drum about it, Congressmen keep diverting the money to projects in their home districts, and jerks like House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA) keep criticizing spending to repair our nation’s most-attended national park as “upkeep [for] the grass on the lawns of Washington.” Meanwhile, WTOP points out, Congress keeps the Capitol grounds very well manicured.
Recreation? That’s not what parks are for!
Officials at the National Park Service, including NCPC and Zoning Commission representative Peter May, are blocking DC proposals to expand an ice skating rink and create a baseball academy in Fort Dupont Park. (Examiner)
Which neighborhood will get extremely green?
CarbonFreeDC, a DC grassroots campaign to reduce carbon emissions, won a $20,000 grant for its idea, “Extreme Neighborhood Makeover,” to green retrofit 20 houses belonging to low-income families. They also discussed this idea at the Policy Greenhouse. (City Renewed)
And…
Metro keeps refusing to allow bikes on trains during rush hour. But what about those empty reverse-direction trains? (Bicycle Transportation Examiner) … District and DC United officials are talking again about a soccer stadium at Poplar Point (WBJ) … Philadelphia, Chicago, Oakland, Buffalo, and many other cities that aren’t as great as Washington are preserving defunct meters as bike parking much more than we are. (TheWashCycle)