Annals of Cycling – 53 | Viewpoint Vancouver

An occasional update on items from the Velo-city.

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A MOST INCREDIBLE RIDE

For a short time in the spring, Yellowstone National Park opens the roughly 50-mile section of road between park headquarters in Mammoth Hot Springs, Wyo., and West Yellowstone only to bicyclists, walkers or rollerbladers. Given the variety of wildlife, the scarcity of vehicles and the sweeping vistas of snowy mountains, waterfalls and boiling thermal features, it has to be one of the most incredible and unusual bicycle rides in the United States, if not the world.

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BICYCLES RUN ON GASOLINE

From Treehugger:

The sad thing is, is that just as agencies such as the Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) start to achieve success in turning people from their cars to their bikes, they also start to suffer a funding crunch.

Because, as Jonathan Maus points out in an article on BikePortland, much of the funding for transportation agencies comes from, yes, you guessed it, the gas tax. Unfortunately or fortunately, In Portland, and in other parts of the Northwest, driving has continually fallen in recent years. That means less money for bike lanes, and less money for routine things like fixing pot holes, and less money for big-ticket projects, too.

It’s a classic Catch-22 – the more transport agencies are successful in encouraging drivers to bike, the less money from gas taxes there is in local coffers to build out the necessary bike infrastructure to make biking as efficient and universally popular as driving.

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