The interwebs have produced an unlikely phenomenon, a bike locking celebrity. Meet Hal Ruzal of Bicycle Habitat in Manhattan. Hal, as usual, has some great bike locking advice, meets up with international fans and critiques the bike locking style of fashion blogger George Hahn, the most dapper man on a bike I’ve ever seen.

Keep those bikes well locked!

The Elf is a kind of aerodynamic, electric assist tricycle with solar panels to charge the batteries. It’s a type of vehicle, somewhere between a bike and a car, that a number of inventors have tinkered with over the years.

Good arguments exist for and against this type of transportation. On the one hand it uses far fewer resources than an automobile. But one could also argue, as does the owner of a bike shop in this video, that we’d all be better off with a far simpler and less expensive bicycle. I can see both sides of the argument. Perhaps younger folks should take to bicycles and older people or those with disabilities or heavy cargo could use something like an Elf. Plus the Elf would be better in bad weather.

One issue not brought up in this video are safety concerns during a theoretical transition period from hulking Hummers to lightweight human and battery powered vehicles. Is the greater risk I’m taking (by choosing a lightweight vehicle over an SUV) worth the ethical/ecological benefit? If everyone else is driving a big heavy vehicle don’t I need one too?

Separating bikes and cars partially solves this conundrum to some extent, but not for transitional vehicles like the Elf. I would not want to see an Elf on a bike path and I’d not also not want to be in an Elf vs. auto collision.

I think there’s a future for vehicles like the Elf. But we’ll have some ethical, as well as technological issues, to sort out.

It’s well past time to begin the conversation in this country about fully protected bike lanes like they have in Europe. Far too many bikes languish in the garage because our cities feel like a game of Frogger.

Right hooks–what happens when a distracted motorist turns right and hits a cyclist going straight–are one of the main objections to protected bike lanes. This proposal from the George Mason University 2014 Cameron Rian Hays Outside the Box Competition addresses the right hook problem.

This type of infrastructure will make intersections safer for all including motorists.