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Confessions Of A Bad Driver 27

Confessions Of A Bad Driver
Road Rage photo by Irish Typepad I grew up in a car-dependent town, in a car-crazed family, within a car-addicted culture. It’s no wonder that I first learned to drive at 12-years-old and had already owned 2 cars before I turned 16 years old (the legal age to drive). As such, I often drove faster ...

The Chinese Car Obsession 18

The Chinese Car Obsession
Beijing motor traffic and wide segregated bicycle infrastructure – Photo by Saad Akhtar It is now official: The Urban Country is headed to China for four months this winter, beginning in January. We will be primarily staying on the southern island of Hainan in the South China Sea for the four months in Hainan’s capital ...

Tell Cyclists To Follow The Rules 57

Tell Cyclists To Follow The Rules
“Cargo Bike” – Photo by Mario Jahn / RateMyVelo.com It was bound to happen. A newspaper column politely asking drivers to share the road and accept cyclists as fellow travellers rather than adversaries, published in a newspaper with a readership of ~1 million people, was bound to stir up some controversy. As expected, I woke ...

The Driver Privilege Checklist 51

The Driver Privilege Checklist
RIP Jenna Morrison – Photo by Aaron Lynett / National Post On Monday morning, a wife, mother and yoga instructor who was 5-months pregnant was run over by a truck and killed in Toronto in a completely avoidable incident. This senseless death has been on the minds of thousands of people in Toronto because it ...

Long 6-Month Winter Comfortably Above 0C 24

Long 6-Month Winter Comfortably Above 0C
Photo of Vancouver Hornby separated bike lanes by Paul Krueger In an opinion piece posted on straight.com (Vancouver’s Online Source) an ignorant political candidate named Ken Charko has proposed to make Vancouver’s bike lanes seasonal and turning them into metered parking for the “winter”. Defining “winter”, Charko proposes closing the bike lanes down from October ...

Announcing Our Bicycle Art Contest Winner

Announcing Our Bicycle Art Contest Winner
Screenshot of Mike Rubbo’s Situp-Bike-Art.com website In September we announced a bicycle art contest where one lucky winner who submitted a bicycle photo would win a painting of that photo by Mike Rubbo. The painting would be shipped to the winner, and would also be added to Mr. Rubbo’s bicycle art collection at www.situp-bike-art.com. Mike ...

The Parable Of The Bicycling Advocate… 8

The Parable Of The Bicycling Advocate…
Photo of Dr. Behooving courtesy of Dr. Behooving himself / RateMyVelo.com My fellow advocate buddy Dr. Steven Fleming scribed a parable earlier this year that nicely illustrates a topic that we discuss on here often: how do we solve transportation and environmental issues using pragmatic solutions without turning people off. Dr. Steve is an Architectural ...

Toronto Newspaper Columnist Sees The Light 60

Toronto Newspaper Columnist Sees The Light
Photo of James Schwartz cycling through a typical non-accommodating Toronto construction zone – Jack Lakey / Toronto Star In July I posted a response to what I felt was an ill-written newspaper column which antagonized cyclists for their apparent blatant disregard for traffic laws. I felt the article only served to create more animosity on ...

Traffic Calming A Waste Of Money? 34

Traffic Calming A Waste Of Money?
Toronto Traffic Calming Photo by Matthew Blackett / Spacing The Canada Safety Council, a self proclaimed “independent, knowledge-based, charitable organization dedicated to the cause of safety” published an article chastising traffic calming measures, calling them “a sheer waste of taxpayers’ money”. Somehow I doubt the person who wrote the article rides a bicycle on our ...

Baltimore Orioles Pitcher Commutes By Bike 9

Baltimore Orioles Pitcher Commutes By Bike
Photo of Orioles bicycle parking sign by James Schwartz / The Urban Country Part of my visit to Baltimore this week included dinner and a tour of Oriole Park at Camden Yards – the home of the professional baseball team the Baltimore Orioles. While touring the baseball stadium, I was pleasantly surprised to see a ...