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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 ...

Complete Streets in Amsterdam 12

Complete Streets in Amsterdam
Photo Courtesy of Google Maps Street View (© Copyright) The claim that no North American city could ever be Amsterdam is certainly true when it comes to history and architecture. But there is scant reasoning to conclude that North American cities couldn’t build Complete Streets modelled after Amsterdam. Amsterdam Complete Streets are technically feasible in ...

Giant Responds to GM Ad 22

Giant Responds to GM Ad
Giant’s response to GM ad – photo found on reddit.com – view full size Giant Bicycles has responded to GM’s anti-cycling advertisement by coming up with an ad of their own. It reads: “Reality DOES Suck. Luckily bicycles don’t… In fact it’s the best thing you can do to save hundreds… even thousands of dollars ...

GM Pulls Anti-Cycling Ad 18

GM Pulls Anti-Cycling Ad
GM ad provided by BikePortland.org GM faced intense heat from the bicycling advocacy world after the League of American Bicyclists brought attention to a GM ad aiming to sell cars to students. The ad is called “Reality Sucks” and reads “Stop pedaling… start driving” while showing a dorky guy on a bicycle trying to hide ...

‘i share the road’ campaign launch 5

‘i share the road’ campaign launch
i share the road campaign photo by James Schwartz / The Urban Country On Friday, the ‘i share the road’ campaign officially kicked off when a box of 15,000 ‘i share the road’ stickers arrived at my door. The purpose of the campaign is to use a positive message to promote sharing the road between ...

Wishing Death On Other Cyclists 87

Wishing Death On Other Cyclists
Ottawa woman in flip flops, not wearing helmet – Photo by Chris Traynor / ratemyvelo.com A couple weeks back I came across an angry rant about Critical Mass which featured a photo of scores of cyclists being plowed by an automobile with the caption “When is something like this going to happen in Chicago thanks ...

Thong Underwear Sign of Healthy Bicycle Culture? 22

Thong Underwear Sign of Healthy Bicycle Culture?
Montreal bicyclist – Photo by James Schwartz / RateMyVelo.com While out for a morning jog with my dog yesterday, I noticed a lady with black thong underwear hiked up above her pant line while riding a bike along Toronto’s Queen West. Not more than 3 metres behind her was a man on a bike – ...

Alain Delorme’s Totems Series 5

Alain Delorme’s Totems Series
Series Totems 2010 © Alain Delorme In May 2010 I visited Shanghai, spending a great deal of time observing how migrant Chinese workers use bicycles for utilitarian purposes. I was astonished by the capacity of goods that can be transported by bicycle and intrigued by the gap between these workers and the wealth that surrounds ...

Giving Up On Public Transit: Interview With Megan Siegel 71

Giving Up On Public Transit: Interview With Megan Siegel
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 ...