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Dave Matthews’ Bike Breaks Down, Picked Up By Fan 1

Dave Matthews’ Bike Breaks Down, Picked Up By Fan
Screen grab from CNN video – Courtesy of CNN Musician Dave Matthews was out for a bike ride on Saturday shortly before his concert in Hershey Pennsylvania, when his back tire popped, leaving him stranded on the side of the road without a cell phone. Emily Kraus had been a Dave Matthews fan since she ...

Citi Bike: A Game Changer For New York City 4

Citi Bike: A Game Changer For New York City
Citi Bike station – Photo by James D. Schwartz / The Urban Country In what seemed to happen almost overnight, New York City changed its transportation system as we know it, adding another mode of transportation for citizens and visitors alike to traverse that great city. New York’s bike share system – known as Citi ...

Toronto Flood: Just Another Ordinary Day On A Bicycle 8

Toronto Flood: Just Another Ordinary Day On A Bicycle
Toronto storm photo courtesy of Ann Darby (deftonia11)  On Monday evening, Toronto was hit by a massive storm that resulted in a record 126mm of rainfall. The city experienced massive flooding as a result, causing cars to become submerged, and train passengers forced to swim to safety. The city’s underground subway system was shut down ...

The Slothful Cyclist 4

The Slothful Cyclist
  Our “Urban Bicycling Is For Lazy People” recently garnered the attention of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). Below is the 3-minute “Slothful Cyclist” radio segment that I recorded in the CBC studios in Toronto for “The 180 with Jim Brown” show on CBC Radio One. * For the record, I have never worn spandex. ...

Quote Of The Week: Bicyclists Are People 8

Quote Of The Week: Bicyclists Are People
Toronto City Councillor Gord Perks, who was previously thought to be an ally of Toronto bicyclists, isolated most of them by publicly calling them “idiots”: Our quote of the week comes from our friend Duncan Hurd, who responded to Councillor Perk’s comment: We strongly urge Councillor Perks to read our post on bicycle helmets and ...

“Cars Kill So Many People It Staggers The Imagination” 5

“Cars Kill So Many People It Staggers The Imagination”
Car crash carnage – Photo courtesy of Atomic Hot Links  Yesterday we discussed how bicyclists are encouraged to break the law because of bad road design. Coincidentally, on the same day the Toronto Star wrote an article entitled “Lawbreaking cyclists putting everyone in danger”. The author cites a middle age woman who was riding the ...

Bad Design Leads To Bad (Scofflaw) Behaviour 9

Bad Design Leads To Bad (Scofflaw) Behaviour
Red bicycle light in Amsterdam – Photo courtesy of Stefan Kuschnigg  In Copenhagen, traffic signals along “green wave” routes are timed to provide a constant flow of green lights to bicycles traveling at 20km/hour. Bicyclists who ride at this speed will never hit a red light all the way to the city centre. In the ...

Scofflaw Drivers Get Free Pass In Media 4

Scofflaw Drivers Get Free Pass In Media
Police Radar – Trois-Rivieres – Photo Courtesy of Axel Drainville  In a recent media flurry, “scofflaw cyclists” were repudiated by several outlets after prominent Canadian environmental activist David Suzuki railed against bicyclists who break the rules. What these media articles fail to mention is that virtually all drivers break the law every single day. Photo ...

Quote Of The Week: Empty Bike Lane 1

Quote Of The Week: Empty Bike Lane
Drivers sitting in gridlocked traffic stare at the “empty” bike lane, because I have already long passed them. Great quote by @pathlesspedaled.  (As long as the bike lane isn’t *too* empty of course.) James D. Schwartz is the Editor of The Urban Country and is based in Toronto, Canada. You can contact James at james.schwartz@theurbancountry.com ...

Grandmother Writes Apology Letter After Driving Like “Idiot” 2

Grandmother Writes Apology Letter After Driving Like “Idiot”
BMW – Photo courtesy of Barry After carelessly driving like a “maniac, dangerous idiot”, a 52-year-old grandmother wrote an anonymous letter of apology to a man whom she cut off on the highway, narrowly avoiding what could have been a deadly collision. From the letter posted on the Toronto Star: “I would like to put in ...