The Bicycle as a Status Symbol 33
Man & son ride a bicycle past an Audi car in Shanghai – Photo by James D. Schwartz / The Urban Country One of the biggest barriers to increasing bicycle transportation in many western countries is the fact that it is difficult to express one’s wealth and status on a bicycle. People are generally drawn ...
Rediscovering The Bicycle 17 Years Later 13
Rediscovering the freedom of the bicycle. Photo by Robert Lawson for The Urban Country 31-year-old Robert Lawson hadn’t owned a bicycle since he was a 14-year-old teenager growing up in Vancouver, Canada. Three months ago – four years after he first moved to Toronto – Robert, a Senior Policy Advisor for the provincial government, decided ...
Motorists Prime Beneficiaries of Socialism 116
The freedom of driving (or not) – a Toronto traffic jam by wyliepoon Whether they like it or not, most motorists are socialists. The American media tends to generally associate the term socialism with social assistance such as welfare, but socialism comes in different forms. That same media is also littered with driver self-pity over ...
RIP Jack Layton: 1950-2011 4
Photo of bike lane memorial for Jack Layton on College Street by Martin Reis I was deeply saddened this morning to wake up to the news that Jack Layton had succumbed to cancer. Layton gave me hope for Canada, and hope for the world. That politicians can work hard to make things better in our ...
Baby And The Bicycle 15
Photo of baby Sofia by Jamie Morren – All rights reserved Today’s post is about two things that play a prominent role in my life right now: my baby and my bicycle. We took our baby Sofia for her first foray into modeling: an outdoor photo shoot. I decided to bring my bicycle with me ...
How To Win Over Non-Cyclists at a Dinner Party 18
Bicycle Film Festival Panel Discussion at the Gladstone Hotel (Aug 10, 2011) – photo by Erin Simkin / Bicycle Film Festival Toronto Last Wednesday I participated in a panel discussion for the Toronto Bicycle Film Festival. The title of the panel discussion was: “Building Bridges: How to tell good stories and win over non-cyclists at ...
When Driver Kills Cyclist, Media Shrugs… 22
Screenshot from InsideToronto.com article on 84-year-old Jack Roper, the cyclist killed last Friday On July 5th, a cyclist struck and critically injured a pedestrian in Toronto. The pedestrian survived, but this incident set off a flurry of media rage against cyclists. The Toronto Star’s first report on the incident (“Cyclist fractures pedestrian’s skull, gets $400 ...
On Scofflaw Cyclists & Exemplary Motorists 59
“Amsterdam, girl cycling from A to B, multi-tasking, like so many do” by Amsterdamize / RateMyVelo.com You have heard it a million times before: Cyclists don’t deserve any respect on our streets until they obey all of the laws. The implicit message in this fallacy is that drivers have a right to be angry and ...
The Fixer Gets It Right 14
Mother and her three children riding home from school – by Brad Hawkins / Courtesy of RateMyVelo.com Two weeks ago I wrote an open letter to Toronto Star newspaper columnist Jack Lakey who calls himself “The Fixer” because he fixes things that are “broken in your neighbourhood”. I critiqued “The Fixer” for his angry rant ...