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Toronto’s Fragmented Bicycle Network 14

Toronto’s Fragmented Bicycle Network
Toronto’s fragmented bicycle network (PDF download) by The Urban Country Toronto is not unlike the vast majority of cities in North America, UK, and Australia when it comes to bicycle infrastructure. Progressive politicians often aim high, but are often met with resistance by motorists and businesses when building bike infrastructure. Populist politicians pretend they are ...

BIXI Toronto And The Public Bike System Company 24

BIXI Toronto And The Public Bike System Company
Photo by James D. Schwartz / The Urban Country BIXI bike-sharing is scheduled to kick off on May 3rd in Toronto with 1,000 bicycles at 80 stations in the downtown core. BIXI is operated by the Public Bike System Company which is based in Montreal, Quebec. Public Bike System Company is a privately held company ...

Rush Hour in Toronto At –11 Celsius 19

Rush Hour in Toronto At –11 Celsius
Toronto commuters – March 29th, 2011 – by James Schwartz / The Urban Country I snapped the above photo on my phone during my morning commute to a client office yesterday morning. It wasn’t the shot I was looking for, but I love it no less. The shot I was looking for showed 18 bicyclists ...

Bicycle Culture Sells Condos 8

Bicycle Culture Sells Condos
All photos by James D. Schwartz / The Urban Country Despite everything that has happened with the economy and real estate market  with our neighbours in the United States, Toronto has continued developing new condominiums across the city without pause. Everywhere you look, you can find construction cranes in Toronto – it’s actually a bit ...

Bicycle Infrastructure Pessimism in North America 8

Bicycle Infrastructure Pessimism in North America
Separated bike lane in China (2010). Photo by James D. Schwartz / The Urban Country Only in countries without an established bicycle culture would you have bicycling advocates who would lobby *against* bicycle infrastructure because they feel our culture is so dismissive of bicycles as a legitimate means of transportation that it’s impossible for the ...

Snow Traffic-Calming Measures 6

Snow Traffic-Calming Measures
Photos by James D. Schwartz / The Urban Country Sometimes the best traffic engineering ideas are the ones that appear naturally. While visiting a client yesterday, I encountered this pile of snow that was blocking the entire right lane of this street (as you can see in the photo above). The only traffic calming measure ...

Anonymous Thank You Letter For Bicyclists 5

Anonymous Thank You Letter For Bicyclists
Photo courtesy of Tom Polarbear / TorontoCranks Earlier this week, random people on bicycles in Toronto received a thank you letter from an anonymous lady. On the outside of the letter was written “Thank YOU ($ gift inside)”. The lucky bicyclists opened the envelope only to find a $5 bill along with a typed letter ...

Shopping Cart Bicycle Trailers 12

Shopping Cart Bicycle Trailers
Photos by James D. Schwartz / The Urban Country I frequently pass by these homemade shopping cart bicycle trailers here in Toronto. What a great way to recycle old shopping carts, while increasing the load capacity on your bicycle at a very low cost. These particular bike trailers were spotted at Bathurst and Richmond – ...

Bicycle Infrastructure Ignorance 62

Bicycle Infrastructure Ignorance
Photo of Vancouver’s Hornby St Bike Lanes courtesy of Paul Krueger An article in the Toronto Star newspaper yesterday brought to light a plan to bring a modest segregated bicycle network in Toronto’s downtown core. This news would have been significant even with Toronto’s previous mayor, the “bike-friendly” David Miller. What makes this news drastically ...

2010: Year In Review 6

2010: Year In Review
Photo “Heels and Wind Chill –16” courtesy of Mikael Colville-Andersen  To close out 2010, I carried on the annual tradition of compiling a video from the various footage I took on my camera throughout the year. To stay on topic for The Urban Country, this year’s video is less personal/sentimental and more related to bicycling ...