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Swapping Car Ownership For Car-Sharing 11

Photo of 1998 Acura 1.6EL by James D. Schwartz / The Urban Country  Most readers on here probably aren’t aware that I own an automobile. I don’t spend a lot of time talking about it, but I’m certainly not ashamed of it. I believe cars serve a useful purpose, but I also think North Americans ...

China’s Mega 100KM Traffic Jam 17

Beijing traffic jam photo courtesy of Proggie (this is not the 100KM traffic jam) For several decades, the Chinese managed to transport millions and millions of people efficiently around their cities – primarily by bicycle. There are reportedly 450 million bicycles in China, and the bicycle has served as a great tool historically. Now, enter ...

Car Culture Bleeds Our Society 12

Photo “Toy Cars” courtesy of Andrew Dai In North America, everywhere you look car manufacturers are trying to entice you to buy their brand. Car ads are absolutely everywhere. It’s part of our culture and you can’t avoid it – our society is brainwashed to have an affection for automobiles. As a kid, I distinctly ...

Forgetting About the Joneses 5

Back in March 2009, a mock Nissan commercial surfaced on YouTube that pits Hyundai against Toyota, starring Andy Richter and James Adomian. I thought a slight change to the ending of the video would be more appropriate. (Hopefully the lawyers over at Nissan are sympathetic to us cyclists). The video highlights something that we have ...

Eco-Living Tip: Automobile Idling Myths 4

The year is 1969. Yasser Arafat is appointed the leader of the PLO, Apollo 11 lands on the moon, the Concorde jet breaks the sound barrier and 500,000 hippies congregate on Max Yasgur’s dairy farm in New York. While all of this was happening, a father somewhere was teaching his son how to drive: “Now ...

Bailout Fever

On Wednesday, the big US auto manufacturers went to Washington to beg for taxpayers’ money to bail them out of possible bankruptcy. There was something symbolic about these auto execs flying in their big luxury private jets from Detroit to Washington. To me, flying to Washington in their gas-guzzling jets symbolizes their failure to innovate ...

Give it up for a week 1

I drove to Hamilton a couple times this weekend for a hockey tournament with my old Hamilton buddy Paul. During my visit in Hamilton I reflected on how much I’ve changed in the 5 years since I moved away from that city. Like many people I grew up with, we were raised as “car people”. ...

Miss My Jeep 1

In September 2005, my environmental conscience finally convinced me to give up my gas guzzling Jeep that I had owned for 5 years. It was a tough decision, but I knew it was a responsible decision both from the environmental perspective and a financial perspective. For the last 2 years the ’98 Acura has been ...

0-60MPH in under 3.5 seconds

Driving to hockey today, I came across my new favourite car. It’s the 2007 Lexus IS250. Okay, so it’s not my favourite car in the whole world. That would probably be the Aston Martin DBS V12 that was featured in the new Bond film Casino Royale that I watched on Friday. But the Lexus is ...

$24.81 to fill up 5

Last night I filled up my car tank and it was only $24.81; I know, I know, I have a very small tank. Even when gas prices were well above $1 per litre, it was still in the low $30’s to fill up my tank. This Acura has been just about the most fuel efficient ...