Follow @theurbancountry on Twitter Find us on Facebook Subscribe to theurbancountry.com via e-mail Subscribe to theurbancountry.com via RSS
Follow @theurbancountry on Twitter Find us on Facebook Subscribe to theurbancountry.com via e-mail Subscribe to theurbancountry.com via RSS

Technology Instead of Laws to Improve Safety 29

Technology Instead of Laws to Improve Safety
Google self-driving car on display – photo by Mac Morrison The powerful 2008 documentary film Zeitgeist 2: Addendum suggests that our monetary system based on fractional reserves is the fundamental root cause of all of our social ills in our present day society. Part III of the film focuses on the use of technology to ...

Positive Shift in the UK? 23

Positive Shift in the UK?
Photo courtesy of Yoav Lerman on Flickr Statistics coming out of the UK tell a somewhat positive story about bicycling in that country. Things are moving slowly to be sure, but the statistics indicate that the shift is at least in the right direction, as more and more people are realizing the benefits of using ...

Americans Work 3.84 Minutes Each Day To Pay For Their Bicycles 59

Americans Work 3.84 Minutes Each Day To Pay For Their Bicycles
Photo of Heather Normandale by Adam Thompson / RateMyVelo.com After revealing that the average American works about 2 hours a day to pay for the cost of automobile ownership earlier this month, I was asked to participate in a radio interview for the Edmonton’s CJSR 88.5FM on Full English Breakfast with Peter Chapman to talk ...

Making Bicycling Easy: 10 Things I’ve Learned 26

Making Bicycling Easy: 10 Things I've Learned
Father/Son/Velorbis by Gerry Gaffney on RateMyVelo.com I didn’t have the luxury of growing up in a bicycle-friendly culture like they have in the Netherlands. I grew up in North America’s car-centric society, and although I used my bicycle as transportation prior to attaining my driver’s permit, I nonetheless grew up loving cars. As a kid, ...

Americans Work 2 Hours Each Day To Pay For Their Cars 46

Americans Work 2 Hours Each Day To Pay For Their Cars
Cars & cycle path in Montreal, Quebec – April 2011 – James Schwartz / The Urban Country Imagine you could work 500 hours less every year. That works out to be an extra 12.5 weeks of vacation. Alternatively, imagine you got paid for an extra 500 hours of work each year, without having to work ...

Bicycle Infrastructure Is Good For Business 13

Bicycle Infrastructure Is Good For Business
Montreal bike infrastructure – by James D. Schwartz / The Urban Country A common misconception in North America is that businesses will suffer if we remove on-street surface parking and replace it with widened sidewalks or bicycle infrastructure. Car-addicted societies have a tendency to believe that people in cars spend more money than people who ...

Brazil Critical Mass Update–Interview With Ricardo Neis 24

Brazil Critical Mass Update–Interview With Ricardo Neis
Ricardo José Neis runs down dozens of bicyclists – from YouTube video In late February, we covered the terrible Brazil Critical Mass mow-down, where a driver of a Volkswagen Golf indiscriminately plowed through dozens of people on bicycles participating in a Critical Mass ride. By some miracle nobody was killed in this incident, but at ...

Don’t Judge Canada: Velo-City Global 2012 Vancouver 66

Don’t Judge Canada: Velo-City Global 2012 Vancouver
Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson – courtesy of Velo-City Global 2012 Dear World. When you come to Vancouver next March for Velo-City Global 2012, please don’t judge all of Canada by what you see in Vancouver. Not all of Canada requires a shower at their workplace in order to ride a bicycle. Not everyone in the ...

Responsibility & Accountability On Our Streets 33

Responsibility & Accountability On Our Streets
Photo courtesy of Jorge / via RateMyVelo.com We spend a lot of time on here talking about improving bicycle infrastructure. Yes, bicycle infrastructure is important to help make bicycling in car-dominated cities more comfortable for people on bicycles. But one issue that gets lost in the push for better infrastructure is the discussion of responsibility ...

Simple Tips To Make Bicycling in Rain Enjoyable 33

Simple Tips To Make Bicycling in Rain Enjoyable
All photos by James D. Schwartz / The Urban Country Seven years ago, I regularly consulted the weather forecast (almost obsessively), making sure there was no rain on the way. I didn’t like to show up soaking wet at the office, nor did I enjoy skunk streaks up my back. Much has changed since then. ...