Afternoon links: more bike safety and streetcars edition

If wishes were offices: At yesterday’s streetcar hearing, David Catania argued that a line to Bolling will create economic development in Anacostia, and that a future extension to National Harbor is in DC’s best interest. Richard Layman delves into this issue more deeply and concludes: maybe, but probably not, and we should have some economic analysis before blindly doing so. He also argues that turning Anacostia into an office center may not be the best goal even if we would succeed.

Motorists break the law too: WashCycle is as annoyed as I am about the many comments attacking traffic-law-flouting bicyclists every time a car kills someone. He points out the many ways drivers break laws every day, yet nobody says “I’ll share the road with drivers when they start following the law.”

If you can’t beat ‘em, legalize ‘em: The Bay Area is considering a different solution to lawbreaking bicyclists: changing the law. Cyclists would slow down, but not have to stop entirely, at a stop sign (treating it like a yield sign) and could continue through a red light if it was safe after stopping (treating it like a stop sign). In fact, Idaho already does this. Via Streetsblog.

(And apropos of this morning’s copyright discussion, I don’t think Idaho can assert copyright protection on its laws as they do on that page; in the U.S., documents produced by the government are not subject to copyright. Nor should laws be copyrighted, morally; they ought to be accessible to all.) Update: commenter jenny pointed out that states can copyright their documents. But laws oughtn’t be copyrighted.