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Biking the Big Apple 17

Photo by James D. Schwartz / The Urban Country New York City has taken great strides in improving its cycling infrastructure, but it still has its work cut out to change its culture as a pedestrian, subway and car city to becoming a more bike friendly city – and a role model for North America. ...

Flowers on a One-Way Street 6

The summer of 1967 sealed the fate for the future of Toronto. The city was on the verge of a revolution that would see the community reclaim the urban landscape to create a Mecca for the bohemians to hang out and relax – free from the toxic exhaust fumes that had smothered the city. It ...

Australian Councillor Who Gets It 5

My friend and documentary filmmaker Mike Rubbo recently made a very inspiring short film that captures a day spent with Australian city councillor Jackie Fristacky. Jackie is a city councillor in Yarra City area of Melbourne where she previously served as Mayor in 2005-2006. What sets Jackie apart from your typical city councillor is that ...

The Bike Path That Almost Was 8

Video by James D. Schwartz / The Urban Country – Music by danosongs.com Yesterday I ventured out to the suburbs of Toronto to video record one of my favourite bike paths on Eglinton Ave West in suburban Etobicoke. The 5km+ unobstructed bi-directional bike lanes is a rarity in a city where most unobstructed bike lanes ...

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 ...

Bicycle Friendly Workplaces 12

Bicycle-friendly workplaces can help overcome a major barrier to commuter cycling. Although I didn’t list “bicycle unfriendly workplaces” as one of the major barriers to cycling in a recent article, it can be extremely discouraging if a place of business doesn’t provide at minimum, a safe place to lock up your bicycle. Businesses have begun ...

2009 Urban Country Mash-up Video 4

2009 Urban Country Mash-up by James Schwartz on Vimeo. A tradition that began in 2005 on The Urban Country is an annual mash-up of video clips that I took with my digital camera throughout the year. The central theme of the video is to promote living a healthy, active, lifestyle and to cherish the outdoors. ...

Toronto Yearns for Bicycle Superhighway 8

Photo and video by James D. Schwartz / The Urban Country On October 30 2009, the first section of the West Toronto Rail Path officially opened. A 2.1KM stretch from Cariboo Ave. in the north to Dundas St. West in the south, the rail path provides cyclists an automobile and traffic light-free route. Although a ...

Summer 2008 Video 1

Yesterday I finished creating my Summer 2008 video. Every year for the past 4 years I’ve been creating a video showing the highlights of my summer. I always try to spend as much time as I can outdoors in the summer and after making the video, I quickly realized how much time I’ve spent on ...

Where the hell is Matt? 5

This is a neat story about Matt, a “31-year-old deadbeat from Connecticut” who quit his job in 2003 and traveled around Asia until he ran out of money. A couple years later, he made a video of a silly dance he does (the only dance he does) and it made him semi-famous when it got ...