From the Seattle Times:

Rescuers pulled three people with minor injuries from the water after the collapse, which authorities say began when a semitruck with an oversized load struck a steel beam at around 7 p.m.

That caused a massive piece of the northern side of the bridge to wobble, and then fall into the water, taking with it a gold pickup, its travel trailer and an orange SUV.

Rescuers did not believe there was anybody else in the water but were planning a morning search to be sure.

Perhaps the most amazing part of this story is that on a bridge that carries more than 70,000 cars daily and at a time of day when traffic could be expected to be moderate at the least, only two vehicles fell into the yawning gap and into the water. Along with everyone else, we at T4 America are relieved that no one died in this tragic bridge collapse.

Just like several years ago in Minnesota, attention quickly turned to the bridge itself. So what do we know about it today?

The Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) has announced another shift in their approach to transportation planning and it couldn’t come at a better time. As recent national research and major news headlines continue to reflect a move away from automobile use among major swaths of the American public, and as highway funding levels nosedive, smart transportation agencies are beginning to adapt.

To respond to these changes, ODOT has announced “Intermodal Oregon” a new initiative that will help the agency “move away from a siloed and highway-centric approach to business.” Here’s how ODOT describes the transition they’re going through (emphases mine):

Like all public agencies, ODOT is facing challenges and changing expectations from the public. Funding is increasingly constrained, and because our footprint as an agency is not financially sustainable, we need to be more efficient. At the same time, economic and demographic trends are shifting the public’s transportation needs and behaviors, driving a need for more transportation options.

These forces all point toward the need for ODOT to evolve as an agency, moving away from a siloed and highway-centric approach to business. While ODOT began life as the Oregon Highway Department a century ago, today we are much more. While highways will long remain the core of our portfolio, today we have extensive involvement in rail, freight, public transportation, active transportation, and interfaces with aviation and maritime resources. Governor Kitzhaber has challenged ODOT and the state’s transportation leadership to reenergize this multimodal transformation.

The City of Austin Bicycle Program worked to create the protected bike lane at Barton Springs Road as part of their commitment to the Green Lane Project. Barton Springs Road previously lacked bicycle facilities, making it an unfriendly route for those on bikes. The arterial road now boasts a westbound protected bike lane, or green lane, and an eastbound widened buffered bicycle lane. The improvements make the road a complete street to serve motor vehicle, pedestrian, and bicycle traffic, and provide safer, more convenient access to local businesses.

According to Hill Abell, owner of Bicycle Sport Shop in Austin, the new green lane is a long-needed improvement to the bicycling network in Austin. “This area was already heavily traveled by cyclists, as it’s in the center of the city and connects Zilker Park to downtown; but it was a tight and congested roadway for everyone traveling it,” he said. “Now, its smooth sailing and seeing greatly increased use by cyclists, and the driving public is not slowed by the increased number of riders using the corridor.”

Over the years, numerous agencies worked to build a foundation. Further progress was made once we had a bike friendly governor who initiated Complete Streets and the First State Trails and Pathways Plan. In addition to funding, legislation and infrastructure, we have made inroads in education, enforcement and encouragement. But we have a long way to go. Funding is necessary but that alone won’t do it. First, we have to ensure that whatever funding we receive is put to best use. Certainly, we should consider recreational opportunities since they impact quality of life and health. We also need to encourage more people to use their bikes for transportation, which will help our citizens, communities and environment in so many ways. That is perhaps the most difficult challenge, since it is impacted by so many factors, including attitudes, knowledge, infrastructure and land use.

He did a cool little experiement. He was here for two weeks and only got around by asking people on the street for directions, instead of using tech-gadgets. He wrote about it here, on the Better World by Design blog.

He told me about it at Bang & Jensen café in Copenhagen one evening and I thought it to be cool.

One of his observations is that Copenhageners – besides being helpful – never really gave him complete and specific directions. They sent him in the right direction and then suggested he ask someone else for further details once he got closer. I found that interesting.

I’ve spent a awful lot of time thinking about it since then. Making mental notes of my own experiences. Asking friends about their wayfinding habits. In addition, I’ve been using a valuable resource at my disposal – all the guests who stay with me in my flat, my Airbnb room.

The baseline of my observations it that Copenhageners aren’t very good with street addresses. They’ll rarely be able to tell you what house number a certain establishment is at on a certain street. Street names, too, are not something that roll right off the tongue when describing how to get somewhere.

“Bike lanes are coming to my neighborhood, and now I will no longer be able to afford living there,” is a common reaction in low-income Portland neighborhoods says Olivia Quiroz, Educator for the Multnomah County Health Department.  Some minority and low-income people view bike lanes as signs of imminent gentrification.

That was a central topic debate at a Summit on Bike Lanes & Equity, an ethnically diverse gathering of more than 30 transportation leaders and public officials from around the country held Wednesday and Thursday in Austin, Texas under PeopleForBikes’ Green Lane Project sponsorship.

Indeed, there was skepticism among poor and minority communities in Portland (declared America’s #1 bike city by Bicycling magazine) about protected bike lanes on North Williams Avenue planned for their neighborhood. The project went forward only after transportation officials and bike advocates slowed down in order to listen carefully to the concerns of community members, some of whom had been displaced by other projects in recent Portland history. A genuine process of engagement emerged over a series of meetings and forged the consensus to go ahead with the project, says Gerik Kransky of the Portland’s Bicycle Transportation Alliance.

There has been a lot of confusion between statistics that show that helmets reduce head injuries and helmet laws which are designed to force everyone on a bike to wear a helmet. While helmets arguably reduce head injuries (although even here there is some contra-evidence), the fallout of helmet laws have been unclear at best and negative at worst. Dennis’ study focused on rates of hospitalization across Canadian provinces and compared provinces that implemented helmet laws to those that didn’t with their relative hospitalization rates for head injuries. They found little evidence that helmet laws did much to reduce injuries across a population.

Rates of hospitalizations for any cycling-related injury decreased by 28% (95% CI 22.8-33.2) among individuals younger than 18 in provinces with helmet laws and by 22.3% (95% CI 15-29.6) in areas without the laws, “suggesting fewer young cyclists, improvements to cycling safety, or a change in hospital admission policies,” according to the researchers.

Hospitalizations for any cycling injury among adults hovered around 10 per 100,000 person-years in provinces with and without the helmet laws, with no significant differences seen.

For the next two days, we have an extra set of goodies to give away to three lucky donors: a commuter pack courtesy of Planet Bike. This bicycle accessory horn-of-plenty includes all of the following:

• SuperFlash taillight and Blaze 1-watt headlight
• K.O.K.O. Rack – tubular aluminum rear rack
• Fenders of your choice
• Protege 5.0 five-function computer
• BRT Strap – LED safety light
• Planet Bike socks
• Courtesy bell, brass
• Blaze 2 watt Micro and Superflash Turbo set
• Planet Bike gloves
• Planet Bike shoe covers
• Snack sack

Give by Thursday at midnight to be eligible for this drawing. And don’t forget that anyone who gives $50 or more at any point during the pledge drive will be entered to a win a new Dahon folding bike.

Thank you for supporting Streetsblog and Streetfilms. If we could give all our donors a free bike, we totally would.

• Who would actually invest in development in the area?

• Can one project act as the catalyst for change?

• Does the size and scale of the project dictate the success of the catalyst (does it need to be something like the Sprint center or PAC or can a small grocery store work)?

• How do you draw in the existing community in an area so that they’re not only supportive of the project, but actively engaged?

The answers to these questions are still a bit elusive for us, but we may be getting to closer to a few answers. Just the other day, a friend mentioned a skyscraper in Bogota, Colombia, financed by crowd-funded methods. Curious. The first thing that jumps to my mind is the Troost Corridor.

Crowd-funding is something of a recent phenomenon, allowing people and companies to get help achieving small and large goals alike, by providing some kind of incentive or token of appreciation to those investing (and the scale of those rewards often vary depending on how much you invest). The skyscraper in Bogota takes all of this a step further by allowing investors to gain monetary returns on their investment over the lifetime of the building.

Take another step forward, and we start to see companies like Fundrise whose whole business model focuses on letting individuals buy shares (for $100 each) of real estate projects they’re interested in or passionate about.

They reopened the service April 2, and as of May 7th had already logged 85,000 trips. If they keep up this pace the system should hit 1 million plus trips this year. See the email they sent me below.

We’ve made it! Another winter is under our collective belts and the miles are starting to pile up on the Hubway fleet. Did you know that since we reopened the system on April 2, riders have logged more than 85,000 trips? That’s right, Hubway is #RealTransportation.

Hubway is pleased to announce an exciting new partnership with Bicycle Benefits, your single source for discounts at local businesses throughout metro-Boston and beyond, available to you simply by riding your bike and wearing a helmet. Beginning May 1, every Hubway member will receive a Bicycle Benefits sticker in their new member packet! Affix the sticker to your helmet and you’re ready to enjoy exclusive savings at great local businesses! Already a Hubway member? Follow Hubway on Facebook and Twitter to learn when we’ll be out and about around town. Show us your Hubway key fob and your helmet, and we’ll hook you up with your own sticker! Visit http://www.thehubway.com/bicycle-benefits for a list of participating businesses and to learn more about this great program.

And don’t forget that May is National Bike Month and here in Massachusetts, May 11th-19th is Bay State Bike Week. There are dozens of great events to choose from so get on a bike and ride!