Massachusetts hopes to triple mode share; man rides bike to find employment; bike-wise children make better drivers; bike boxes may actually increase crashes, and more

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* On his bike to get a job:  Fed-up with traditional forms of seeking employment, father-of-two bikes 50 miles a day with his resume on his back.

* Massachusetts is getting serious about getting people out of their cars and into biking, walking and more use of public and private transit. The Massachusetts Department of Transportation announced a goal of tripling the share of travel by modes other than automobiles in the next 18 years.

* Calgary City officials are eyeing an aggressive upgrade for inner-city cycling, and are planning for a handful of separated cycling tracks that go well beyond the traditional painted bike lane, but drivers fear the plan comes at cost to on-street parking.

* Seattle unveils the nation’s second electronic bike counter.

* Trying to catch up with the exploding bike culture, The Dallas City Council is ready to spell out the rules of the road for the city’s new bike lanes. One of the shared lanes is on Main Street downtown.

* We won’t get more women on bikes until we have environments that cater to them, pens Alex Baca in Atlantic Cities.

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* The city of Portland finds that bike boxes may actually increase crashes, the Portland Mercury reports. Earlier this year, Portlander Kathryn Rickson was killed at an intersection with a bike box, and many people have complained that the bike boxes are still a right hook zone. A 2010 study found that the bike boxes make cyclists and drivers feel safer at the intersections, but we've never had hard data on whether the boxes actually reduce the number of crashes.

* Our very own Craig Benjamin writes about riding on Seattle’s first cycletrack, recently completed on Linden Avenue North.

* Bike-wise children 'make better drivers'. Teaching young children how to ride a bike safely and testing them on road rules can make them better drivers later in life, reports Austalian paper, The West.

* NPR’s inspiring story about a man opting to bike race his way to better health has been making the social media rounds. Ernest Gagnon — a man from Billerica, Mass who tipped the scales at 570 pounds — decided to shed pounds by getting into the often intense, high-adrenaline sport of cyclocross.

* Bike mechanic is one of the fastest growing jobs in the US, according to Bloomberg calculations of US Bureau of Labor Statistics. But it doesn’t pay a whole lot - the average salary of a bike mechanic is $23,660, according Business Week. 

* Biking Seattle has discovered the “universal truth” that bike maps are the best maps.

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* The Dutch city of Oosterbrug has installed a new rain sensor for bicycle traffic lights, which turns the traffic light green faster for bicycles when it’s raining or snowing.

* Ever wanted an antique bicycle from the late 1880s? Here’s your chance. One of the world largest collections of vintage bicycles and bicycling memorabilia is hitting the auction block in three installments this winter. Hundreds of bicycles — some dating back to the 1880s and before — will be included in the auction of items once housed at the Pedaling History Bicycle Museum in Orchard Park, New York.