Toronto’s Urban Repair Squad Strikes Again 12
Guerrilla bike lane – photo by James Schwartz / The Urban Country At approximately 10AM this morning, Toronto’s Guerrilla bicycling advocates – the Urban Repair Squad – re-painted the intersection at Dundas and Sterling, the location where cyclist Jenna Morrison was run over by a truck and killed last month. Bike lanes were painted on ...
‘Rethinking Transportation’ Talk 7
Today I presented my Rethinking Transportation talk to a group of 50 children at an elementary school in Toronto. The kids belonged to an “eco” group that meets once a month – their ages ranging between 9 and 12 years old. I started out by asking the children how many of them had rode their ...
Trashy Bike Lane 55
Photo of garbage bike lane by James Schwartz / The Urban Country On the morning of November 7th, a pregnant woman was killed by the back wheels of a truck in Toronto while riding her bike to pick up her son at school. As a result of Jenna Morrison’s tragic and avoidable death, various cycling ...
Tell Cyclists To Follow The Rules 57
“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
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 ...
Toronto Newspaper Columnist Sees The Light 60
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 ...
Giving Up On Public Transit: Interview With Megan Siegel 71
Toronto bicyclist Megan Siegel – Photo by Doug Estey Two years ago Megan Siegel moved to Toronto from the Maritimes. After commuting on Toronto’s scenic (but dreadful) Queen streetcar for 7 months, Megan was ready to call it quits on Toronto and head back to the east coast. “I lived on Queen Street East and ...
Time to Protect Cars From Reckless Pedestrians? 10
Pedestrians on Queen Street in Toronto – photo by deena mephistopheles Linwood Barclay from the Huffington Post Canada wrote a brilliantly hilarious satire piece about how pedestrians are infringing on drivers’ right to unimpeded access to our streets. From the article: Say what you will about Toronto Mayors Rob and Doug Ford, their latest proposal ...
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 ...
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 ...