The Urban Country Bicycle Blog

Toronto Taxi Drivers Resort To Victim Blaming

2012-05-22T08:22:00.001-04:00

Toronto taxi line – photo by Gabriel Perez

Last week a Toronto taxi driver was charged with second degree murder after 28-year-old Ralph Bissonette was killed on a longboard (a surfboard-style skateboard) in what appears to be a result of road rage.

As reported by the Toronto Star:

“What occurred is still under investigation, but surveillance video seized by police shows words being exchanged as cab and longboard wheeled along King St., neither going very fast.

The footage captured Bissonnette travelling in the curb lane, close to the passing lane, making hand gestures at the cabbie, "but not flipping the bird," a police source said, referring to the middle finger.

Witnesses told police the taxi suddenly veered into Bissonnette's lane and mounted the curb. At least one witness reported seeing the taxi strike Bissonnette then drive over his lower body, police said.

"Somebody lost his cool," a police source said.

This morning the Toronto Sun newspaper is stirring the pot in an article entitled “Cabbies gripe about T.O.’s streets”.

In the article the Toronto Sun claims “drivers are sick of pedestrians, cyclists and boarders of all descriptions ignoring even the most basic road rules and putting lives in danger.”

Unfortunately the article doesn’t attribute the quote to any driver in particular, so it’s hard to say if this is a conclusion the newspaper is coming to itself or if drivers actually do believe that their lives are in danger because of pedestrians, cyclists and boarders.

The article also doesn’t mention that cyclists, pedestrians and boarders feel that their lives are in danger because virtually all drivers ignore even the most basic rules of the road (like posted speed limits for example).

No matter who made the claim, it’s preposterous to conclude that pedestrians, cyclists and skateboarders are putting drivers’ lives in danger.

Let’s remember that it was a longboarder who was killed (murdered, allegedly), not the taxi driver. It was the taxi driver who allegedly drove into Bisonnette and drove over his body before he died.

Unless Bisonnette was carrying a loaded weapon on his longboard, it would be extremely difficult to come to the conclusion that he was putting the taxi driver’s life in danger by being on the road.

The Toronto Sun article goes on to quote a taxi driver who further blames the skateboarder for his own death:

“Skateboarders should stay off the streets,” insisted Jerome Salim, a taxi driver in Toronto for seven years.

“It’s just not safe to zig-zag on your skateboard down streets filled with cars, buses, and even bicycles,” added Salim.

Indeed, it’s not safe to use a longboard on the streets if there are madmen taxi drivers who are trying to kill you for the simple reason that they don’t think you belong on the streets.

It is very disturbing that people would be willing to justify or defend a murder even if the victim wasn’t supposed to be on the street in the first place. This would be akin to a cyclist shooting a driver in the head for driving without a proper license plate.

Yet people are willing to defend road rage murders when a car is used as the weapon. Perhaps people feel empathy for the taxi driver because they too have been full of rage while sitting behind the wheel.

I suppose it’s much easier to blame the dead man for his own death instead of trying to understand what went wrong and how we can get to the root cause of the animosity on our streets.

James D. Schwartz is a Transportation Pragmatist and the Editor of The Urban Country. You can contact James at james.schwartz@theurbancountry.com or follow him on Twitter.

Related Articles:

Responsibility & Accountability On Our Streets (April 2011)
On Scofflaw Cyclists & Exemplary Motorists (July 2011)
No Cars. No Traffic Signals. No Deaths. (June 2011)
Toronto Cyclists Are Selfish And Rude? (June 2011)
Our Backwards Approach To Road Safety (July 2011)

Urban Car-Free Camping

2012-05-21T21:11:00.001-04:00

Photo by James Schwartz / The Urban Country

Growing up in Canada, camping in the outdoors has always been a significant part of my life. Camping can bring us closer to nature and allow us to appreciate the simple conveniences of modern life.

Before now, I had always relied on a car to go camping. Whether pulling the car up to the campsite, or parking the car and heading to the campsite by canoe or kayak, I have always been reliant on a car.

This weekend a friend and I decided to do a short one-night, car-free camping trip in the city with our two dogs.

I packed my newly purchased Dutch cargo bike with our camping gear and my dog and we set forth on our journey at 7PM Sunday evening.

Photo by James Schwartz / The Urban Country

The bike ride was just a short 3km jaunt, and we arrived at the dock where my kayak is stored year round. I unloaded the camping gear from my bike and loaded up the kayak with the camping gear and the dog and locked up the bike for the night.

Photo by James Schwartz / The Urban Country

After a relaxing 30 minute paddle we arrived at our destination where we scouted for good spots to set up our camp.

We found a spot that has arguably the best view of the city, and it also came equipped with a picnic table and a fire pit.

It was from this spot that we enjoyed a beautiful sunset over downtown Toronto Sunday evening.

Photo by James Schwartz / The Urban Country

At night we sat by the fire, ate food and chatted before setting up our tents for the night and resigning to the sleep gods.

We woke up at about 6:00AM, packed our tents and spent the morning hiking with the dogs after eating breakfast at the local cafe.

Photo by James Schwartz / The Urban Country

At 11:30AM we headed home and I arrived home at 12:15PM just in time to spend the remainder of the day with the family.

Given the generally remote locations, camping normally requires a significant time investment to get to the destination by car.

Not only does urban camping not require a car, it also requires very little preparation, and you can get to and from the campsite very quickly which makes it easy to do short one-night camping trips.

One thing to keep in mind with urban camping is that it may be difficult to find approved overnight camping locations, so there is a risk that you may be caught by authorities if you sleep somewhere where overnight camping is prohibited.

No matter, we are profoundly looking forward to our next urban camping trip, whatever destination we choose next time around.

James D. Schwartz is a Transportation Pragmatist and the Editor of The Urban Country. You can contact James at james.schwartz@theurbancountry.com or follow him on Twitter.

Related Articles:

Human Power Around The World (April 2012)
Algonquin 2011: The Serenity of Human Power (Aug 2011)
Experiencing Algonquin Park (Aug 2010)
Toronto to Montreal Kayak Adventure (July 2009)
Urban Motor Home (May 2009)

Children & Bicycles in China

2012-05-18T14:19:00.001-04:00

Bicycling in China – Photo by James Schwartz / The Urban Country

In a country with 1.4 billion people all coveting for a shiny new automobile, it is refreshing to see children enjoying the simple pleasure of a bicycle.

While living in China, I had the unique opportunity to spend time bicycling with some children who I had met. Few things bring me more joy than seeing the wide smile on a child while enjoying every moment as they explore their neighbourhood by bike.

We can learn a lot from children. Children are hardly excited to ride inside an automobile – my daughter Sofia usually starts crying when we put her in a car (I have trained her well).

But when these children get on a bicycle, their faces light up while the cool ocean breeze brushes their face while they ride a bicycle in the open air.

Unfortunately, as in Canada, children in China are already being primed by society to love cars (as I had been raised in the 1980’s), and before long society will pressure them to display their “success” by driving a car (the more expensive the car, the more "successful" they are).

I bicycled through my neighbourhood with the 7-year-old son of an American ex-pat who lived a couple doors down from me, an 11-year-old daughter of a family friend of my in-laws, my daughter Sofia, and the 5-year-old son of a family friend.

I can only hope that when these children grow up they will remember the fun that they had while pedaling on two wheels.

While reflecting on these rides recently, a few words came to mind:

Fun

Freedom

Scenery

Nature

Speed

Community

Convenience

Liberation

Exhilaration

Joy

Happiness

And here are a few photos:

Bicycling in China – Photo by James Schwartz / The Urban Country

James D. Schwartz is a Transportation Pragmatist and the Editor of The Urban Country. You can contact James at james.schwartz@theurbancountry.com or follow him on Twitter.

Related Articles:

Sunday Afternoon Ride in China (Feb 2012)
The Car Once Symbolized Freedom (Apr 2012)
We Are Addicted To Automobiles (May 2011)
Car Culture Bleeds Our Society (Aug 2010)
The Chinese Car Obsession (Nov 2011)

Traffic Congestion & Optimal Efficiency

2012-05-08T00:09:00.001-04:00

Beijing traffic – photo by James Schwartz / The Urban Country

Beijing’s traffic congestion nightmare is perhaps best attributed to the much hailed Deng Xiaoping, the architect of China’s “socialist market economy” – which opened China up to foreign investment and brought significant wealth to the people of China over the past 30 years.

Xiaoping posthumously helped turn Beijing – a city of millions of bicycles – into a city clogged by cars.

Despite Beijing’s extensive ring highway system and its fourteen lane highways cutting through the city, it is still difficult to drive a car in Beijing without encountering traffic congestion.

Playing the lottery in Beijing

To address the rapid increase in car ownership, Beijing has a lottery system that only allows 20,000 new license plates to be registered each month. "Wanna-be" car owners have a 1 in 32 chance of "winning" the opportunity to register their car to provide them the privilege of sitting in Beijing’s traffic congestion.

Last Monday while in Beijing we hopped into a taxi at our airport hotel to meet a family friend for dinner. En route to the restaurant at about 8PM we encountered heavy traffic congestion. The taxi driver told us that the congestion was a result of the 2012 Beijing auto show.

How ironic it is for Beijing’s world famous auto show to cause traffic congestion on Beijing’s highways. The very people who pine for the luxury automobiles on display at the auto show are causing the traffic congestion that prevents those same luxury cars from even coming close to their full potential.

No matter how much you spend on a luxury car, you will still be sitting in the same traffic jam as everybody else.

Beijing’s “Emergency Vehicle” Lane

Speaking of which, unlike in North America, drivers in China rarely pull over to let emergency vehicles past. This is perhaps nowhere more apparent than on the clogged highways of Beijing.

The paved shoulder of the highway is clearly marked as being reserved for "emergency vehicles". Yet non-emergency vehicles seem to quickly fill this "emergency" lane, leaving no space for real emergency vehicles to proceed.

On our 40 minute drive to dinner, we saw two ambulances with flashing emergency lights and sirens, who were stuck in traffic hardly moving. Nobody made any effort to move over to let the ambulance pass.

The problem has been slowed, not stopped

Despite everything the Beijing government is doing to reduce traffic congestion, there are still 240,000 new cars being added to Beijing’s streets each year. The problem has indeed been slowed, but not stopped.

The best way to truly address traffic congestion is to simply add monetary value to the public good that is in scarce supply – in this case the roads. Congestion fees are a win-win solution because they raise money to improve public transportation and they can eliminate traffic congestion when priced properly.

Optimal efficiency of traffic flow

Roads can still be free to use at off-peak hours when the supply of the roads exceeds the demand, but pricing during peak hours should be done in such a way that creates optimal traffic flow efficiency – a goal that I believe is desirable by people on both sides of the political spectrum.

Here in Toronto, the topic of road tolls comes up frequently, but is quickly dismissed by the public and the media. The problem is that the conversation isn’t being framed properly. Instead of calling it “road taxes” or “road tolls”, let’s talk about improving traffic flow and eliminating traffic jams by creating optimal efficiency on our roads.

We use economic solutions for virtually all other resources that are in scarce supply. When a certain fruit is out of season and supplies are low, the price goes up in order to reduce demand so that the supply matches the demand.

When seats for a popular sporting event are in high demand, the ticket prices are raised and they don’t sell more tickets than the venue can support.

Our roads are like a sporting venue with a finite number of seats, but no limit to the number of tickets that can be sold. If we used our road approach for a sporting event the result would be overcrowding and people would be fighting over the seats (road rage?). It wouldn’t be comfortable for anyone.

Our streets should be priced in such a way that reduces the demand in order to keep automobiles flowing at optimal speeds.

Variable congestion fees will also create new incentives for people to further maximize their efficiency. Driving alone in a large SUV that is built to seat 8 people is not the most efficient way to get around. Congestion fees will create incentives for people to carpool and to take transit, while also creating funding to allow cities to create more efficient and better connected public transit systems.

The technology to achieve the goal of traffic flow efficiency through variable congestion fees is already here, but our society doesn’t seem ready to even explore the possibilities.

Perhaps when we start to experience our own 9-day, 100km long traffic jams here in North America, we will start to open our eyes.

James D. Schwartz is a Transportation Pragmatist and the Editor of The Urban Country. You can contact James at james.schwartz@theurbancountry.com or follow him on Twitter.

Related Articles:

The Car Once Symbolized Freedom (Apr 2012)
We Are Addicted To Automobiles (May 2011)
Car Culture Bleeds Our Society (Aug 2010)
Refusing To Be Herded Like Cattle (Aug 2010)
China’s Mega 100KM Traffic Jam (Aug 2010)

The Unconventional Urban Citizen Bicyclist

2012-04-30T01:23:00.001-04:00

Dirk Eys – a resident of Amsterdam and converted bike commuter – Photo by Dirk Eys for The Urban Country

There is something about bicycling in Amsterdam. Visitors who would never consider bicycling around their home cities often feel compelled to explore Amsterdam by bike simply because they see other people just like themselves pedalling around the city, at ease, in regular clothes.

Just like the restaurant with the long line-up out front, or the woman who waits at the traffic light until she sees another citizen crossing before she proceeds against the traffic signal, humans are social beings and we often crave acceptance from others before choosing to do something in the public eye.

People generally don’t want to be viewed as outcasts, and bicycling in Amsterdam is an inclusive activity that people feel comfortable enough to participate in.

Meet Dirk Eys. Dirk is a Canadian ex patriot who has lived in Amsterdam for the past four years working as a stock trader for a Dutch firm. Back home in Canada, Dirk had never considered using a bicycle to get around – nor had most of his friends back in Canada.

Dirk Eys – a resident of Amsterdam and converted bike commuter – Photo by Dirk Eys for The Urban Country

When asked why, Dirk responded:

“I had never considered it. I thought the roads in Toronto were unsafe.”

Dirk viewed urban cycling back in Canada as "crazy" and found it difficult to imagine himself using a bicycle to get around the city.

Three months after moving to Amsterdam, Dirk discovered the joy and convenience of bicycle transportation and he hasn't looked back since – despite the half-joking ridicule he has endured from his friends back home about becoming a “hippie cyclist”.

I met Dirk while I was visiting Amsterdam last month. Dirk is friends and colleagues with two friends of mine from Toronto whom also live in Amsterdam.

On one sunny Saturday afternoon, a group of five of us, including Dirk, rode our bicycles a bar together to have a few drinks. Seeing a group of five people riding their bicycles to and from a pub is a rare sight in Canada outside of bicycle advocacy group drinks and younger hipsters.

But in Amsterdam it is quite common for people of all walks of life, and not considered strange in the least. People will ride to a bar, a restaurant, a store, or to a friend’s house, or wherever they need to go. They dress for their destination and hop on their bikes and go.

They don’t need to carry around a helmet when they reach there destination, because nobody wears helmets there, and the bicycles are designed to prevent your clothes from getting dirty or causing you to sweat.

I was intrigued by Dirk’s conversion to using a bicycle for his daily transportation. When Dirk first arrived in Amsterdam, he had thought cycling was unsafe in Amsterdam as well – perhaps bringing the perception he acquired in Canada along with him:

“For my first three months in Amsterdam - before I had started riding a bicycle – from what I had witnessed with bikes and cars in Amsterdam I had also thought bicycling in Amsterdam was also unsafe.”

We have talked extensively on this blog in the past about how the risk of bicycling are overestimated in North America, while the risks of driving are underestimated. Most people fear riding a bicycle in North America, but won’t think twice about driving a car at high speeds on the highway.

To illustrate how our risk perception does not match reality, a recent article in the Toronto Star on roller coasters highlighted that you are 100 times more likely to be killed in your car on the way to the amusement park than to perish on a roller coaster.

Yet few people will rarely think about the risks of driving to the amusement park, but it is quite common for us to consider the risks of the roller coasters we ride on at the amusement park.

Security expert Bruce Schneier has talked extensively on the topic of how our feeling and reality have diverged. Schneier argues that technology and media make it harder for our feelings to match reality, and companies and governments play on society’s feeling which creates irrational fears (paranoia). More on this topic in a future article.

When asked what he thought of people who used bicycles for transportation in North America prior to moving to Amsterdam, Dirk told me:

“Truly I just thought they were crazy riding on the roads. I always heard stories from friends that they were getting hit by cars, they had fallen from there bike, had accidents, etc.

I now see that it makes perfect sense. It vastly improves the quality of life.”

And what do Dirk’s friends back in Canada think when he tells them he uses a bicycle to get around?

“At first they joked that I had turned into a hippie, but now they think it's great because if they know that I'm riding a bike, it must be something fantastic, because i was never the type to use a bike as a means of transportation.”

In addition to the freedom and convenience of using a bicycle to get around Amsterdam, Dirk can’t deny that he enjoys the fact that it costs hardly anything, is environmentally friendly, and helps him lose his “beer gut”.

I asked Dirk if he thinks cities in Canada could become more like Amsterdam with respect to bicycle transportation.

“I don't think in the near future, because biking is a culture that is intertwined the Dutch lifestyle. North America would have to be fully committed to change the whole transportation infrastructure and this is not an easy task.”

You’re telling us Dirk. We are certainly trying hard on this blog to change people’s perceptions and sell the benefits of better, connected, bicycle infrastructure, but it is certainly no easy task.

I then asked Dirk what he thinks can be done to make it easier to get around by bike back in Canada:

“Simple, designated bike lanes would help make it more convenient and safe to get around by bicycle. Motorist testing should also be designed to include safety training and education about sharing the road with cyclists.”

It’s hard to argue with that. The bike infrastructure in Amsterdam helps make bicycling more comfortable than having to compete with cars for space as we do in North America.

When Dirk one day returns to Canada, he told me he plans to continue using his bicycle as his primary mode of transportation and has no plans to buy a car. Thank you Amsterdam for helping to keep one more car off Canada’s streets.

Now if only more Canadians would go to Amsterdam to be “converted” like Dirk was, we might be able to achieve the critical mass that we will need to expedite building proper bike infrastructure to make cycling safe, convenient and enjoyable.

James D. Schwartz is a Transportation Pragmatist and the Editor of The Urban Country. You can contact James at james.schwartz@theurbancountry.com or follow him on Twitter.

Related Articles:

10 Observations About Bicycling in Amsterdam (March 2012)
When School’s Out in Amsterdam (March 2012)
Rural Bike Infrastructure in the Netherlands (March 2012)
My Dutch Family History (Feb 2011)
Amsterdamizing The World (Jan 2011)

Motorist Convenience Trumps Safety

2012-04-25T03:48:00.001-04:00

“Driving the Volvo” – Photo by Thomas Anderson

Toronto’s chief medical officer made headlines in the Toronto media for recommending that the city reduce its speed limits to 30km/h on residential streets, and 40km/h on other city streets to “support the increased use and safety of walking and cycling”.

The Doctor’s recommendations were mocked by the media, and seemingly dismissed by the general public.

Dr. David McKeown, the chief medical officer who made the recommendations also suggested that the city adopt “leading pedestrian signal intervals" and markings for cyclists (including bicycle boxes).

The recommendations are a result of a comprehensive study that Toronto Public Health undertook which examined the health benefits and risks of walking and cycling in the city.

From a staff report released by Dr. McKeown’s office on April 16th:

This study provides clear evidence that physical activity from active transportation generates important health benefits such as reduced mortality from chronic diseases, and reduced risk of heart attacks, strokes, obesity, diabetes and several types of cancer, particularly colon and breast cancer. In Toronto, 2006 levels of walking and cycling to work were estimated to prevent about 120 deaths each year.

Savings in direct health care costs arising from current levels of Toronto residents staying active by walking or cycling and averting chronic illness are estimated to result in reduced health care spending of $110 to $160 million. In Toronto, costs associated with pedestrian vehicle collisions cost over $53 million and cyclist-vehicle collisions are over $9 million. By improving safety for pedestrian and cyclists in Toronto the direct costs associated with vehicle collisions with pedestrians and cyclists could be reduced by over $62 million.

In terms of indirect costs, if estimates of lost productivity or the economic value of a life are included, the total economic benefits of active transportation in Toronto range from $130 million to $478 million.

Despite the obvious benefits of protecting vulnerable human beings, the recommendations don’t seem to be widely accepted by the general public in Toronto.

A poll on the left-leaning Toronto Star website shows that 68% of readers would not be willing to reduce speed limits to 30 km/h on residential streets and 40km/h on other city streets.

An article in the right-leaning Toronto Sun newspaper warned that Toronto would become “Canada’s worst speed trap” if speed limits in this city were reduced (because drivers would of course disobey the new speed limit just as they do the current speed limits).

This indicates a larger problem in our car culture society. Drivers feel that they should be allowed to get to their destination as quickly as physically possible, without any concern for the life of others and without concern for the law or the posted speed limits.

In the Chinese city I have been living in for the past few months, I have yet to see a police officer enforcing a single traffic law. Yet everybody here drives drastically slower than in North America or Europe – despite a higher level of enforcement in those continents.

This shows that enforcement is only a small part of the solution (and not always an effective solution). There is a cultural issue at hand here where drivers in Toronto feel entitled put other people at risk in order to get to their destination as quickly as possible.

This sense of entitlement stems from the precedent that has been set historically - the "freedom" that driving originally provided. But as cities in Canada deal with population growth, the car commuting dynamics are changing and people can’t get to their destinations as quickly as before.

It is also perpetuated by the media. The Toronto Sun column cited above reeks of this sense of entitlement. From the article:

“It doesn’t, however, seem to make sense to take it all out on the car commuters since they are certainly paying their fair share in terms of taxes, licensing, fuel costs and fines for infractions.

The problem for the “War on the Car” people is the statistics don’t back up their claims that the car is the major problem here.”

If the Toronto Sun columnist had actually read the report, he would have read that:

“Motor vehicle collisions are a leading cause of death for young people, accounting for 70% of all accidental deaths in the 15 to 24 age group. In Toronto, motor vehicle collisions resulted in over 18,000 injuries and over 40 fatalities in 2010.

Or the writer would have educated himself on the benefits of reduced speed in collisions:

“Pedestrians have an estimated 85% chance of dying when hit by a car travelling at 50 km/hr but fatality rates decrease to less than 5% when the car travels at 30 km/hr (Figure 2).”

The columnist could have also looked at examples in other cities outside of the automobile bubble that he seems to live inside:

"A review of 19 traffic-calming initiatives in four European countries found that injuries caused by collisions for all road users fell by 41-83%, while fatalities dropped by 14-85%. After 30 km/h zones were introduced in London, these zones experienced a 42% reduction in fatalities. In 1988 the Town of Baden, Austria restricted speeds to 30 km/hr for about 75 percent of its road network. This and other measures reduced the rate of casualties by 60 percent. New York City is now piloting reduced neighbourhood speed zones, with speed limits of about 30 km/hr."

Or perhaps the columnist should get out of his car and take a ferry over to Toronto Island – a place where there is no motor vehicle pollution, no traffic signals, no speed limits, and most notably: no road deaths.

If he still doesn’t think cars and dangerous driving speeds are a problem in our city, then perhaps he should personally visit the families of all of the 40 pedestrians who were killed by cars in Toronto in 2010 to ask them if they think that reducing the speed limits would be a good idea.

James D. Schwartz is a Transportation Pragmatist and the Editor of The Urban Country. You can contact James at james.schwartz@theurbancountry.com or follow him on Twitter.

Related Articles:

No Cars. No Traffic Signals. No Deaths. (June 2011)
Enough Excuses: Cars Cause Death (Dec 2010)
Responsibility & Accountability On Our Streets (Apr 2011)
The Car Once Symbolized Freedom… (April 2012)
Confessions of a Bad Driver (Nov 2011)

The Car Once Symbolized Freedom…

2012-04-19T05:59:00.001-04:00

One of the rare occasions in which the author of this blog sits in a traffic jam (Dec 2011) – Photo by James Schwartz / The Urban Country

Motor cars were once a symbol of freedom – a way to achieve personal independence. They took us places where we couldn’t otherwise travel - they brought us to our destinations faster, and we didn’t need to abide by a schedule or rely on anybody else to become mobile.

Things have changed. We took it too far. The freedom of mobility that made cars so desirable is exactly what now makes cars so undesirable. Too many of us wanted that freedom. Too many of us bought inexpensive real estate in places that depended on motor vehicles even to buy a carton of milk.

And since so many of us became hooked on cars, so too did our elected politicians, who exploited the political opportunities, driving our government to become the primary sponsor and endorser of car culture. Extensive government subsidies (I call it Motorist Socialism) have made driving affordable for the masses, and taking away those subsidies is like trying to take heroin away from a heroin addict.

Shortly after taking office, Toronto’s newest mayor immediately eliminated the personal vehicle registration tax, removing $60 million from the city’s revenue stream. He then came back with proposed cuts to libraries, swimming pools, and raised public transit fees in order to ensure car owners wouldn’t have to pay the measly $60 per year (even though public transit users have to pay $1,512 per year for the privilege to use the city’s public transit system).

North America’s love for the car and large government subsidization resulted in the masses flocking to cars. So much so that driving is now considered to be a birthright in America - even minimum-wage earners often feel entitled to car ownership. It is not uncommon to hear stories about people who are out of work and living on government assistance who are devastated that they might have to give up their car.

But making driving so affordable is also what makes it so inconvenient. Our roads are often overly congested because there are just too many cars, and the thought of having freedom and independence has become but a dream that is cultivated by car commercials that feature unrealistic empty streets, fast cars, and nature.

That’s why living in cities and using public transit and/or bicycles has become the new path to achieving the freedom that past generations desired by flocking to motor vehicles. Freedom from traffic congestion, car loans and from being vulnerable to fluctuating oil prices.

Toronto Star columnist Christopher Hume covered this topic in a recent article where he quotes the former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher:

“Any man who rides a bus to work after the age of 30 can count himself a failure”.

In many places of the world, that quote is still widely believed to be true. That a car is a symbol of success and if you don’t have a car you are a failure.

I just returned from Hong Kong, exploring the former British colony for six days. Although Hong Kong does not accommodate bicycle transportation well, getting around Hong Kong without a car could hardly be easier. Hong Kong’s public transit system is one of the top systems in the world, so it’s no wonder 90% of Hong Kong residents use public transit – with passengers ranging from multi-millionaires to the low-income working class.

In the Star article, Christopher Hume talks about the changing demographics when it comes to how we think about cars:

“No wonder getting that car is no longer the first thing on the mind of every kid who’s about to turn 16. For those lucky enough to live in a city, especially one with decent transit, the prospect of life without wheels offers the same promise of liberation that car ownership did decades ago.

Once the great symbol of individual freedom and personal mobility, the car has become a ball and chain. Slow, expensive and surrounded by endless others, automobiles have taken us as far as they can. At this point, there are so many vehicles on the roads, they exist in a state of perpetual congestion”

Read the full Toronto Star article here.

Car ownership has indeed become a ball and chain. Perhaps some day the American dream of freedom and mobility will involve a bicycle or a world-class transit system.

Until this happens, this website will continue to exist.

James D. Schwartz is a Transportation Pragmatist and the Editor of The Urban Country. You can contact James at james.schwartz@theurbancountry.com or follow him on Twitter.

*Editor’s Note: The original version of this article included the statement “even minimum-wage workers can often afford their own cars”. This was more accurately re-worded to read “even minimum-wage earners often feel entitled to car ownership”.

Related Articles:

Canada’s Magnificent Scenic Wonders (Feb 2012)
We’ve Been Carjacked (Dec 2011)
We Are Addicted To Automobiles (May 2011)
No Cars. No Traffic Signals. No Deaths. (June 2011)
Car Culture Bleeds Our Society (Aug 2010)
Refusing To Be Herded Like Cattle (Aug 2010)

Human Power Around The World

2012-04-11T06:57:00.001-04:00

A Venetian gondola being paddled through the waterways of Venice – Photo by James Schwartz / The Urban Country

All around the world, humans rely on machines that require non-renewable resources to power them. In this article, we look at parts of the world where human power reigns.

In three weeks I will be returning to Canada after a journey that has taken me across two continents where I have embraced different cultures, languages, and reflected on the culture and society that has defined me as a person.

As a Caucasian Canadian citizen, I have had many privileges bestowed upon me during my travels that would not be extended to people who were not fortunate enough to be born in the same part of the world as I.

On a train entering Switzerland the customs agents seemingly targeted passengers with dark skin, demanding to see their passports, while the rest of us were given a free pass and not required to even show our passports. Here in China I am treated as a special “guest of honour” both within groups of people whom I know and by random strangers.

With my Canadian passport I can travel in most countries in the world with little or no paperwork and with few questions asked by customs agents.

It is important, I feel, to not take these privileges for granted and when possible use my privileges to benefit society. In my case, I hope to share my experiences with readers on this blog to help make our cities better places by showing how other people do things in their corners of the earth.

As readers of this blog know, I am profoundly fascinated by human power and I thoroughly enjoy observing how people around the world embrace non-motorized machines to help them efficiently perform their daily tasks, such as getting around their city, or fulfilling their job duties.

In Venice I met a remarkably kind man named Claudio, a school teacher with a daughter whom he paddles to school each morning in his classic non-motorized Venetian boat. Claudio also does his groceries in his boat, and uses it as his primary mode of transportation.

The absence of cars in Venice was a delightful departure from most other cities in Europe we visited that were car-clogged, noisy and marginally polluted. Claudio’s decision to use a human powered boat rather than a motor boat is wonderfully refreshing.

When Claudio talked about his daily commute to the school where he teaches, his eyes lit up. He absolutely loves his commute, and why wouldn’t he? It’s efficient, healthy, and fun! How many drivers in a big city in America or Canada can genuinely say they enjoy sitting in traffic jams on their way to work each day?

Claudio’s boat in Venice, Italy – Photo by James Schwartz / The Urban Country

In a recent article, I pointed out how parents in Amsterdam embrace human power by using bicycles to pick up their kids at school. Unlike schools in my native Canada, parents in Amsterdam seem to enjoy their time waiting for their children – as they socialize with other parents and teachers – and their ride home with their children is also enjoyable and efficient.

Over in Asia, I took a trip to a small village in China’s Hubei province this past weekend. The village is a few hours from Hubei’s capital, Wuhan – a city of 10 million people. There were numerous examples of residents in this village embracing human power.

Unlike Claudio in Venice, and those parents in Amsterdam choose to embrace human power, the Chinese villagers are largely embracing human power not by choice, but out of necessity.

Most people who live in the village don’t have the economic means to afford large motorized vehicles, but given China’s stage in development they would no doubt jump on the opportunity to embrace motorized vehicles if they had the economic resources.

But I am fairly certain that if I spent my life in poverty struggling just to feed my family and put a roof over our heads, I would jump at the opportunity to embrace motorized vehicles too.

While hiking through a farmer’s field we met a villager on a paddle boat who was patrolling a lake for illegal fishing. He took us on his boat for a ride and when I asked him if I could paddle, he complied.

A Chinese man patrolling a lake for illegal fishing – Photo by James Schwartz / The Urban Country

The Urban Country’s James Schwartz patrolling the lake for illegal fishing – Photo by James Schwartz / The Urban Country

A Chinese man patrolling a lake for illegal fishing – Photo by James Schwartz / The Urban Country

Near the lake were numerous farmer’s fields. One noticeable difference between western farms and farms in the countryside of China is the lack of large machinery in China. Many of the farms in the village I visited were using water buffalo to plough their fields.

Although a water buffalo is not nearly as efficient as a large combustion-engine-machine, it does make for a pleasant, quiet atmosphere. The lack of motorized vehicles made the lakes and farmer’s fields more serene than what you might see in Canada with loud motor boats speeding through our lakes, and large farm machinery on our farms.

A Chinese farmer ploughing a field with a water buffalo – Photo by James Schwartz / The Urban Country

Of course, we can’t overlook the effectiveness of bicycles in the countryside. Bicycles seem to be widely used in the village we visited to transport families and workers. However, the primary mode of transportation for most people in the village is motorcycles.

Following is a photo of a bicycle that I spotted on a fruit farm that a worker rode to her work site.

A Chinese farmer’s bicycle – Photo by James Schwartz / The Urban Country

Human power is being leveraged in both developed and developing countries. There is still hope for the human race that we will further embrace human power and appreciate the simple pleasures that it bring to our lives, while reducing our dependency on harmful machines and depleting resources.

James D. Schwartz is a Transportation Pragmatist and the Editor of The Urban Country. You can contact James at james.schwartz@theurbancountry.com or follow him on Twitter.

Related Articles:

Algonquin 2011: The Serenity of Human Power (Aug 2011)
When School’s Out in Amsterdam (March 2012)
Rural Bike Infrastructure in the Netherlands (March 2012)
Awkward Moments In China’s Car Culture Frenzy (Feb 2012)
Sunday Afternoon Traffic in China (Jan 2012)

10 Observations About Bicycling in Amsterdam

2012-03-29T02:55:00.001-04:00

Bicycles in Amsterdam – photo by James Schwartz / The Urban Country

While visiting Amsterdam on my recent trip to Europe, I made some observations about cycling around the Dutch capital. Here are my top ten observations:

10. The locals have little patience for tourists walking on the cycle path

Bicycles in Amsterdam – photo by James Schwartz / The Urban Country

The locals of Amsterdam would like their sacred cycle paths to be treated like roads, not like sidewalks. Rightfully so, they fought hard to get those cycle paths, so they aren’t about to let pedestrians take them over.

Thus, if you are a wandering tourist and you don’t look before stepping on the cycle path, you will most likely get a dirty look, a bell, or a comment from a passing cyclist.

9. Nobody wears helmets or neon vests

Bicycles in Amsterdam – photo by James Schwartz / The Urban Country

This is an obvious one, but worth re-iterating. Cycling in Amsterdam feels safe enough that people don’t feel compelled to wear helmets or neon vests.

The only exception to this is the odd cyclist out on a training ride. These cyclists do exist, but I only spotted about two or three of these compared to the thousands of children and adults riding in regular clothes and helmet-free.

If helmets and “cycle clothing” were a pre-requisite to cycling in Amsterdam, there certainly wouldn’t be as many cyclists in Amsterdam. Amsterdam cyclists dress for the destination, not the journey.

8. Marc from Amsterdamize is a good tour guide

Marc from Amsterdamize – photo by James Schwartz / The Urban Country

Our friend Marc from Amsterdamize took my wife and I out on a Sunday morning for what I called the “Amsterdam hangover bike tour”.

Indeed, the tour was enjoyable, and it included a skinny bridge, a windmill and delicious Dutch apple pie…

7. Cycle path etiquette is important

Woman with dog in basket signalling before turning in Amsterdam – photo by James Schwartz / The Urban Country

Hand signals are part of the riding etiquette that most cyclists seem to follow in Amsterdam. There is also an expectation from other cyclists that you will keep clear of the cycle path if you are waiting at an intersection, allowing other cyclists to proceed unimpeded.

The common sense etiquette that appears in Amsterdam helps ensure riding in Amsterdam is smooth and conflict-free.

6. Age Is Not An Important Consideration

Woman in Amsterdam – photo by James Schwartz / The Urban Country

In Amsterdam, age doesn’t seem to be an important criterion for determining whether to use a bicycle or not. There are young children, elderly folks, and everyone in between who ride bicycles in Amsterdam.

5. Cyclists Get Direct Routes

Amsterdam direct passageway for cyclists’ convenience – photo by James Schwartz / The Urban Country

In Amsterdam, cyclists and pedestrians are often granted direct routes that are inaccessible to cars. There are countless examples of these direct routes all over the city which help ensure that cycling is the most convenient mode of transportation in Amsterdam.

4. Not all streets allow passage for cars

Car-free street in Amsterdam – photo by James Schwartz / The Urban Country

Streets that don’t allow cars are often important arterial roads for bicycles and public transit, and are often popular tourist destinations too. People naturally gravitate to car-free areas. The air smells better, it is quieter and safer.

Having said that, not all streets need to be car-free. Cars are important too, but Amsterdam seems to have a nice balance of streets that allow cars and streets that don’t.

3. No Dutch bike is built for just one person

A couple employing the side saddle position in Amsterdam – photo by James Schwartz / The Urban Country

In Amsterdam it is a common sight to see two or more people on a single bicycle. Adult passengers often do the “side saddle hop”, while young children most often use child seats or ride on cargo bikes.

Watch this instructional video from Amsterdamize on how to do the side saddle hop.

2. Talking on the phone or walking your dog while cycling is O.K.

Woman walking her dog in Amsterdam – photo by James Schwartz / The Urban Country

Man talking on his phone in Amsterdam – photo by James Schwartz / The Urban Country

In Amsterdam, talking on your phone while cycling is not frowned upon.

Unlike talking on your phone inside a car, doing it while cycling does not put people’s lives in danger. Especially when you ride cautiously like most cyclists who talk on their phones do in Amsterdam.

1. Scooters on cycle paths are bloody annoying

Scooter on the bike path – photo by James Schwartz / The Urban Country

Those smelly, loud, two-stroke scooters are all over Europe – especially in Italy where they seem to “own the streets”.

But nowhere are these machines more annoying than when they fly along the cycle path in Amsterdam at 40km/h dodging cyclists by mere centimetres.

Stay tuned for more articles in the coming days detailing my Amsterdam experience.

James D. Schwartz is a Transportation Pragmatist and the Editor of The Urban Country. You can contact James at james.schwartz@theurbancountry.com or follow him on Twitter.

Related Articles:

When School’s Out in Amsterdam (March 2012)
Rural Bike Infrastructure in the Netherlands (March 2012)
Brussels: Narrow Lanes & Neon Vests (March 2012)
My Dutch Family History (Feb 2011)
Amsterdamizing The World (Jan 2011)

When School’s Out in Amsterdam

2012-03-23T08:21:00.001-04:00

Amsterdam school pick-ups – Photo by James Schwartz / The Urban Country

While strolling around Amsterdam on Friday afternoon shortly after arriving in the Dutch capital, I happened upon a school just as the kids were being let out for the weekend. The scene was nothing short of fascinating for a Canadian who is accustomed to seeing cars lined up for several blocks when school is out.

In the school yard, parents had parked their bicycles and were socializing with other parents and teachers as they waited for their children. Nobody seemed to be in a rush to “beat the traffic”; the scene was serene and accurately symbolized the laid back European culture.

Some parents had bakfietsen (cargo bikes), child seats, or their children would ride their own bikes if they were old enough.

I couldn’t find a single parent picking up their children by car. If they were there, their car must not have been parked near the school yard.

As these families pedaled away from the school, the social interactions continued, with parents talking to other parents along the cycle path, and the children telling their parents about their day.

The stress that is commonplace in North America on the car ride home was nonexistent for these Dutch families.

Below are some photos I took of the school yard and some of the parents and children on their journey home.

Amsterdam school pick-ups – Photo by James Schwartz / The Urban Country

Stay tuned for more articles in the coming days detailing my Amsterdam experience.

James D. Schwartz is a Transportation Pragmatist and the Editor of The Urban Country. You can contact James at james.schwartz@theurbancountry.com or follow him on Twitter.

Related Articles:

Rural Bike Infrastructure in the Netherlands (March 2012)
Brussels: Narrow Lanes & Neon Vests (March 2012)
My Dutch Family History (Feb 2011)
Amsterdamizing The World (Jan 2011)
Ghettoize Me, Please (Jan 2011)

Rural Bike Infrastructure in the Netherlands

2012-03-19T02:46:00.000-04:00

Bicycle traffic signal in Amsterdam – Photo by James Schwartz / The Urban Country

It is 1:00PM and the train is stopped at a station in a northern Belgian town. The train will be leaving one minute later than its scheduled departure time so that the passengers can have a minute of silence to pay their respects and condolences to the 22 children who died just a few days prior in a terrible bus tragedy.

As the train rolls across the Belgian countryside, I suddenly notice a drastic change in scenery. Out of nowhere, I begin to see red-asphalt bike lanes appearing everywhere, and people in regular clothes riding their bikes.

No helmets, no lycra, no sporty gear.

Instead of lonely country roads standing on their own, I now see bike paths alongside them, and people on bikes are actually using those paths. Then there is the vast farm-land with cows in the pastures with bike lanes passing nearby. Cows and bike paths, an interesting combination.

The Netherlands provides its citizens a continuous network of connected bicycle paths throughout the entire country – in rural and urban settings, and everything in between. A person could ride around the entire country, from city to city, from urban to rural to urban, using bicycle paths the entire way.

As the scenery turns from rural to urban, I see train stations packed full of bicycles. Some of these bicycle parking lots stretch longer than 100 metres, while others stack bicycles up several levels high.

Netherlands bicycle parking – Photo by James Schwartz / The Urban Country

Along the way I also notice underpasses built specifically for bicycles that run beneath the train tracks. This is one small measure that helps ensure bicycles are the most convenient mode of transportation in the Netherlands:

Netherlands bicycle underpass – Photo by James Schwartz / The Urban Country

Where tunnels don’t exist, bicyclists are provided with their own dedicated surface level crossings:

Netherlands bicycle train crossing – Photo by James Schwartz / The Urban Country

As the train arrives at Amsterdam Central station and I subsequently leave the train station, I see bicycles everywhere. There are elderly men, young women, children, and everything in between – riding throughout the city.

Cargo bikes with small children merrily traveling with their parents, children under 10 years old riding on their own bikes alongside their mum and dad. Dozens of families picking up their kids at school on their bicycles and socializing with their friends and children on their journey home.

Amsterdam certainly is the cream of the crop for bicycle transportation.

Now if only I could convince people in my home country that a trip across the city can indeed be enjoyable and absent from traffic congestion. Good bicycle infrastructure is the first step to making our cities more enjoyable cities to live and visit.

Stay tuned for more articles in the coming days detailing my Amsterdam experience.

James D. Schwartz is a Transportation Pragmatist and the Editor of The Urban Country. You can contact James at james.schwartz@theurbancountry.com or follow him on Twitter.

Related Articles:

Brussels: Narrow Lanes & Neon Vests (March 2012)
My Dutch Family History (Feb 2011)
Dutch Cycle Chic – Toronto Style (Dec 2010)
Amsterdamizing The World (Jan 2011)
Ghettoize Me, Please (Jan 2011)

Brussels: Narrow Lanes & Neon Vests

2012-03-16T03:27:00.001-04:00

Grand Place – Brussels, Belgium – Photo by James Schwartz / The Urban Country

The distinct two-tone siren from a Belgium ambulance echoes fourteen floors below the perch where we have set up camp on day one of our two-week trip to Europe.

It is 6:30AM and we have just arrived after a 19-hour journey from China – which included a 10-hour flight from Beijing to Brussels which only felt like a few hours due to my normally elusive deep sleep during flight.

The first four cyclists I spot out of my downtown Brussels hotel room window are wearing bright neon reflective vests and helmets - not a sign of an established and accepted bicycle culture.

Reflective vests and helmets on Brussels cyclists – Photo by James Schwartz / The Urban Country

As the day wears on, I notice some basic bicycle infrastructure on some streets, and I spot several people in regular clothes riding bikes.

But I didn’t see groups of cyclists bunching up at traffic signals waiting for a green light – cyclists were mostly one-off occurrences. My home town of Toronto, it seems, even has scores more cyclists than Brussels seems to have.

The bicycle infrastructure that I observed here seems inadequate. The bike lanes were very narrow – even by North American standards. Cars, public transit and pedestrians seem to be the most-catered-to modes of transportation here.

The inadequate infrastructure seems to explain why so many Brussels cyclists feel compelled to wear neon vests and helmets.

Narrow painted bike lanes in Brussels, Belgium – Photo by James Schwartz / The Urban Country

Besides the narrow bike lanes, there seemed to be some positive provisions that catered to bicycles. I spotted several signs exempting bicycles from being subject to one-way streets.

Brussels also has a bike-sharing program called “Villo!”, with 2,500 bikes at 180 stations around the city.

One-way street for cars, two way for bicycles – Photo by James Schwartz / The Urban Country

Do not enter, except bicycles – Photo by James Schwartz / The Urban Country

Brussels Villo! bike share system – Photo by James Schwartz / The Urban Country

Although Brussels might be lagging in bicycle culture, walking around the city proved enjoyable, and there are an abundance of beautiful public spaces with amazing scenery to enjoy here in the city.

No more than one hour after arriving in Brussels, a waiter who served us breakfast on a patio in the scenic Grand Place started to reminisce on the 22 years he lived in Toronto. “I really miss living in TO”, he said with a sad frown on his face – with Brussels City Hall circa 1455 in the background enamouring me as he spoke.

Perspective is everything.

As I watch the road warriors pedal past me throughout the day, I think to myself that I will indeed need to wait until tomorrow when I arrive in Amsterdam to get a true taste of an established bicycle culture that the Dutch are famous for.

I am now loading my pack and in two hours I will be on a train headed for Amsterdam.

James D. Schwartz is a Transportation Pragmatist and the Editor of The Urban Country. You can contact James at james.schwartz@theurbancountry.com or follow him on Twitter.

Here are a few additional photos from our day in Brussels:

Bike statue in Brussels, Belgium – Photo by James Schwartz / The Urban Country

Plug-in electric vehicle in Brussels, Belgium – Photo by James Schwartz / The Urban Country

The Manneken Pis in Brussels, Belgium – Photo by James Schwartz / The Urban Country

The Atomium in Brussels, Belgium – Photo by James Schwartz / The Urban Country

Bicyclist in Brussels, Belgium – Photo by James Schwartz / The Urban Country

Bicyclist in Brussels, Belgium – Photo by James Schwartz / The Urban Country

Related Articles:

My Dutch Family History (Feb 2011)
Dutch Cycle Chic – Toronto Style (Dec 2010)
Amsterdamizing The World (Jan 2011)
Ghettoize Me, Please (Jan 2011)
Dutch Cycling Promotion. Good For The Body, Legs & The Eyes (March 2012)

Dutch Cycling Promotion. Good For The Body, Legs & The Eyes.

2012-03-12T02:06:00.001-04:00

Video of “Promoting Cycling in the Netherlands” in 1985 – by Markenlei on YouTube

Mark over at Bicycle Dutch has posted some Dutch promotional cycling videos circa 1985. The videos exploit stereotypes, with an English, American and Italian tourist each talking about bicycles in the Netherlands.

Mark points out that “Even in 1985 the Dutch needed foreigners to point out how good it is to cycle in the Netherlands”.

I particularly enjoyed the amusing Italian’s perspective. He closes with this line:

One type, it’s a bike for two. Another type, a shopping bike on wheels, he he. See, biking is good for the body, good for the legs, good for the eyes. My eyes…

For the full article, check out Mark’s blog Bicycle Dutch.

Speaking of the Netherlands, in just four days I will be arriving in Amsterdam to spend the weekend exploring the city by bicycle (as well as quite possibly drinking some green beer with Marc from Amsterdamize).

James D. Schwartz is a Transportation Pragmatist and the Editor of The Urban Country. You can contact James at james.schwartz@theurbancountry.com or follow him on Twitter.

Related Articles:

My Dutch Family History (Feb 2011)
Anatomy of a Dutch Bicycle (Jan 2011)
Dutch Cycle Chic – Toronto Style (Dec 2010)
Amsterdamizing The World (Jan 2011)
Ghettoize Me, Please (Jan 2011)

Bicycle Transportation Should Be Taken Seriously

2012-03-09T03:25:00.001-05:00

“Beautyful Amsterdam” – Photo by Michael Stallmeister via RateMyVelo.com

Bicycles are a serious mode of transportation. It is about time we treat them as such instead of treating bicycling as a hobby, a sport, or a mode of transport for the working poor and students.

Bicycles are an often overlooked mode of transport that with some minimal government investments can easily support the same capacity as major public transportation systems at a fraction of the cost.

In my home city Toronto - a city of 2.5 million people – $1.4 billion is spent each year just to operate the public transit system. $1.4 billion dollars – with costs increasing year-over-year. This is to provide 25% of the population with a viable means of transportation.

In addition to the $1.4 billion spent each year to operate Toronto’s public transit, the city spends billions of additional capital funds to build new transit lines, upgrade buses, streetcars and subway cars. $8 billion of provincial money was earmarked for Toronto to build several light rail transit lines in the suburban areas of the city.

Public transit in Toronto is a serious mode of transportation - we spend billions of dollars on it every year. And rightfully so – public transit is a vital service for maintaining the liveability of cities and helps keep the city moving while too many cars brings cities to a halt.

On the other hand, bicycling is not a serious mode of transportation in Toronto at the moment. In 2001 a master bike plan was developed, but little progress has been made - and in fact a reversal has begun by the current administration, which has removed several bike lanes throughout the city.

With a simple vision and some street design alterations, bicycling could support the current capacity of public transit in Toronto (25% mode share), without having to spend billions of dollars to build and maintain.

We can look to three different continents for examples of the scalability of bicycles as a viable mode of transport. First we will start in Beijing – a city of 19 million people with a climate almost identical to Toronto, Canada.

Beijing: Long before there were 15 subway lines and 5 million cars…

Prior to the influx of cars in Beijing, Beijingers were able to get around their city just fine – even before the government built the current 15 subway lines throughout the city. This was in a large part thanks to Beijingers primarily using bicycles as a vital mode of transportation in the city.

Prior to there being 5 million cars in Beijing it was estimated that there were 9 million bicycles in Beijing – the title of a song I have always enjoyed by Katie Melua.

The Beijing government has now restricted new car registrations to 10,000 per month (220,000 per year), down from an average of 15,500 per week in 2010 (806,000 per year) to try to address traffic congestion.

The problems that have surfaced in Beijing as a result of the 5 million cars were not issues previously and in many ways the quality of life in the city has declined – as can be attested by an American ex-pat neighbour of mine who lived in Beijing for 10 years and watched everything unfold (stay tuned for an upcoming interview with him).

Copenhagen: 30,000 bicycles a day on a single street

In Copenhagen, a city with an urban population of about 1.2 million, the bicycle mode share is about 37%. Copenhagen also has a similar climate to Toronto, and bicycle counts on certain Copenhagen streets log more than 30,000 bicyclists each day according to our friends at Copenhagenize.

Groningen: 57% of all trips by bicycle

A small city in the northern Netherlands called Groningen (population 190,000), with a moderate climate - boasts the fact that 57% of all trips are by bicycle.

Portland: A mile of highway, or…

In Portland, Oregon, a city of just under 600,000 inhabitants boasts a bike mode share of 8%. Portland has a warmer climate than Toronto, Beijing, Copenhagen and the Netherlands, but it does experience 914.7mm of rain each year (compared to 571 in Beijing and 709 in Toronto).

8% is a healthy mode split for bicycles compared to other cities in North America (Toronto is about 1.7%). And Portland’s entire bike network was installed at the same cost as just *one mile of freeway*.

Bicycle Transportation is cost effective

The cost of bicycle infrastructure compared to roads and public transportation is a drop in a bucket. But the capacity that can be achieved is comparable to cars and public transportation.

Unfortunately the negligible costs of bicycle infrastructure often works against progress. Politicians win votes by making big promises that cost loads of money. Even Toronto’s penny-pinching conservative mayor wants Toronto to bury all of its public transit to keep it out of the way of his car. The problem is that he doesn’t have a way to pay for it.

Bicycles can help achieve a similar goal and help relieve some of the pressure on public transportation and our roads without driving our governments into more debt.

It is time to treat bicycles as a serious mode of transportation and take advantage of this unique opportunity we have to improve the liveability of our cities.

James D. Schwartz is a Transportation Pragmatist and the Editor of The Urban Country. You can contact James at james.schwartz@theurbancountry.com or follow him on Twitter.

Related Articles:

Complete Streets in Amsterdam (Oct 2011)
Democracy Is Good, But… (Jan 2012)
Bicycle Infrastructure Is Good For Business (May 2011)
Bicycle Infrastructure Ignorance (Jan 2011)
Montreal Bicycle Ridership Up 35-40% (Dec 2010)

A Renewed Faith in Newspapers

2012-03-02T03:32:00.001-05:00

"Places To Go, People To Meet, Things To Do" by Amsterdamize (via ratemyvelo.com)

Over the years as a citizen bicycling advocate I have lost my faith in the media. I had found that news outlets have a bias toward car culture that has contributed to the animosity on our streets and the stifling of progress in improving our cities.

I have pointed out that the media overuses the term “accident” and underuses the term “collision” to describe car crashes. Prior to the term “accident” being adopted to describe car crashes, an accident was described as “an event that happens unexpectedly” or “an undesirable or unfortunate happening”. It implies that there wasn’t much the driver could do – the crash was unfortunate and unexpected. This view cultivates a lack of responsibility and accountability on our streets and contributes to making the situation worse.

I believe the words “collision” or “crash” more aptly describes a car crash. Most car crashes are not unexpected and they are usually avoidable. If you are driving far too fast on slippery snowy roads, crashing your car is not unexpected. If you run a red light you can expect that there might be consequences. Yet the media still uses the term “accident” to describe these often avoidable and predictable collisions where drivers are often negligent or careless.

I have also pointed out that the media overreacts when a cyclist kills a pedestrian (which happens once every 5 or so years in Toronto), and underreacts when a driver kills a pedestrian or a cyclist (which happens many dozen times each year). It isn’t news if it happens regularly, so the dozens of pedestrians who are killed each year in Toronto are considered acceptable as collateral damage to our car culture.

The media also has a tendency to overreact at cyclists who break the rules, while being silent about the fact that the vast majority of drivers regularly exceed the speed limit. The reaction and outrage in the media should be proportional to the amount of potential damage that can be caused.

Thus the media should be far more outraged when an SUV exceeds the speed limit on a city street than when a cyclist safely crosses a red light at an empty intersection – putting nobody in danger (an act which has long been legal in the Netherlands, and is now being tested in Paris).

Having said all of the above, my faith in newspapers is starting to become renewed. I will highlight a few examples of things that have been happening with Canada’s largest newspaper, the Toronto Star.

Most importantly, but not directly related to bicycling - the Toronto Star has been uncovering a series of scandals at a government institution called ORNGE, Ontario’s not-for-profit air ambulance service. This has made me realize how important it is to support newspapers financially in order to dedicate the resources required to uncover and investigate these types of abuses within the government (I am now a proud paying subscriber to the newspaper through my Kobo e-reader).

Secondly, the Toronto Star has been adopting the words “collision” and “crash” recently over the term “accident”. I can’t say if this has become policy in the newsroom, but I have taken notice to it.

Thirdly, the Toronto Star has started to slowly balance out its car coverage in its “Wheels” section by creating a more balanced perspective on bicycling. Here are a few articles that I was involved with to promote a more balanced view of cycling – thanks to the efforts of Toronto Star journalist Jack Lakey – known as “The Fixer”:

Give cyclists space, and a little respect (July 2011)
Cycling a better way to get around than it looks (Oct 26, 2011)
Cycling campaign appeals to drivers’ better instincts (Nov 11, 2011)

The Toronto Star also created a bicycling blog called “Cycling Hub” which covered bicycling topics in Toronto (granted this blog hasn’t been updated since September).

And here are a couple letters to the Editor related to bicycling that were published recently, which helped spark this article topic:

Let cyclists use sidewalks (Feb 22, 2012)
Add bikes to transit debate (Feb 29, 2012)

I particularly enjoyed that last letter to the editor from Torontonian Douglas Moore, so I will share it here:

Re: Speaking truth to power, Letters Feb. 25

Letter writer Harry Rollo says “all major cities rely on subways to alleviate surface traffic congestion.” He cites London, Paris, New York. Point taken.

But we have to recognize that increased surface traffic congestion is not some naturally occuring phenomenon, and there are a variety of ways to deal with this unintended phenomenon.

To state the obvious, again: our public space has come to be dominated by rolling and roaring machines that were once a novel addition to the street scene. Pause at a downtown street corner during morning rush hour, watch the river of metal and exhaust flow by, and see that the majority of cars carry a single occupant. Such a big hard machine to move one little soft human around. The natural human footprint of two shoe-soles increased to some 40 square feet?

The transit debates going on in Toronto right now are precisely about updating the urban enviroment in keeping with the full range of human needs — from simple health and wellbeing, to universal mobility and safety, to natural beauty.

We are in the midst of an historic rethinking and reshaping of what life can be in a city. We can make this city less of a machine and more of a home.

So let’s continue to move forward with widely accessible, cost-efficient public transit. Let’s get serious about the bicycle as a central and pleasureable part of contemporary urban transit — real bike lanes, rather than “bike paint,” must be established part of the plan.

Let’s include truly generous, dignifying outdoor pedestrian walkways in the vibrant commercial and entertainment areas of the city. And for every highrise condo that goes up, the inhabitants need an area of thoughtfully designed greenspace.

Let’s stop living in a stunted, polluted past.

Douglas Moore, Toronto

Here is a link to this letter on the Toronto Star website.

The small changes that are beginning to happen at Toronto’s largest newspaper are a positive sign of greater things to come.

I hope you are all starting to see changes in your local newspapers as bicycles start to become a more widely accepted tool for transporting ourselves around our cities, and help to re-shape our cities into more desirable places to be.

James D. Schwartz is a Transportation Pragmatist and the Editor of The Urban Country. You can contact James at james.schwartz@theurbancountry.com or follow him on Twitter.

Related Articles:

Ignoring the Real Problem On Our Streets (Nov 2009)
Why Not Aim For Zero Deaths? (Dec 2010)
Enough Excuses: Cars Cause Death (Dec 2010)
Our Backwards Approach To Road Safety (July 2011)
No Cars. No Traffic Signals. No Deaths. (June 2011)
Responsibility & Accountability On Our Streets (April 2011)

Wealthy Drivers More Likely To Break Traffic Rules

2012-02-29T01:44:00.001-05:00

BMW X6 – Photo by Triple RS

University of California Berkeley researchers recently performed a series of studies that found a strong correlation between wealthy people and cheating. Among other things, it found that people driving expensive cars were four times as likely to enter an intersection when they didn’t have the right of way.

From the LA Times:

“People driving expensive cars were more likely than other motorists to cut off drivers and pedestrians at a four-way-stop intersection in the San Francisco Bay Area, UC Berkeley researchers observed. Those findings led to a series of experiments that revealed that people of higher socioeconomic status were also more likely to cheat to win a prize, take candy from children and say they would pocket extra change handed to them in error rather than give it back.”

To explain this phenomenon, the researchers concluded that rich people are less dependent on social bonds for survival, so they have less concern about rules. Or perhaps rich people’s disregard for rules was one of the reasons why they became rich in the first place.

Baby On Board: A Desperate Plea

2012-02-28T02:22:00.001-05:00

Photo by Steve and Sara Emry

Driving in North America has reached such a low level of selfishness and entitlement that many parents with young children in their car have succumbed to a desperate plea for safety for their children by erecting a “BABY ON BOARD” sign in their car.

I view these signs as a kinder way of saying “Don’t be such a selfish, entitled jerk and have some respect for the human beings whose lives you are putting in danger by driving your car like a maniac”.

These signs are probably effective because they are a constant reminder of how vulnerable children are in cars. They also add a bit of humanity behind the steel and glass boxes that are so inhumane on the outside.

Sometimes we are wont to forget that inside every car is the child of a mother and a father. An uncle, or an aunt, or a sister or friend or a daughter or a son. And in this case a baby is on board – the most precious and vulnerable of all humans.

I first came to the realization that babies can have a calming effect on traffic a couple years ago when I bought a chariot for my bicycle. At that time I had not yet been a father, so I used the chariot for groceries, transporting miscellaneous goods, or for taking my dog on long trips.

Trek bike & chariot (2009) – James Schwartz / The Urban Country

I took notice immediately to the effect that the chariot was having on drivers around me. Drivers would provide me significantly more space when they passed, and would curiously slow down before safely and comfortably passing me.

They had of course mistakenly thought that there was a baby in my chariot - but the result was nevertheless a far more pleasant and safe experience.

This caused me to feel both sad and delighted. Delighted that drivers can still be aware, cautious and respectful of more more vulnerable road users. Sad that it took a baby (or the perception of a baby) to bring out this heightened awareness and courteousness.

I am now approaching the two-month point of my trip here in China. I am out on the streets every single day on my bicycle. Sometimes I am sharing the streets with cars, other times I am riding on physically separated bike infrastructure.

I still have not had a single occurrence where a car has passed me uncomfortably close. Not one single occurrence.

I do love my home city Toronto, but hardly a day would go by without cars passing me uncomfortably close – particularly during the evening rush hour when getting home to dinner is more important than another human’s safety and comfort for the office “nine-to-five” car commuters.

Bicycling in Toronto is still safer than a lot of other activities (likely including driving a car on a highway), and while roughly 3 people are killed each year in Toronto on bicycles, 440 people die prematurely from vehicle pollution in Toronto. Many more hundreds also die and acquire diseases from sedentary lifestyles – of which our car dependence is a significant contributor.

Putting it into perspective, in my 9.5 years of living in Toronto, I have never been knocked off my bike (yes, I made sure to knock on wood).

But the lack of perception of safety and feeling of comfort is one of the most important barriers we need to overcome to encourage more people to use a bike in the city.

Sometimes getting squeezed by a driver is all it takes to convince a new cyclist to call it quits and reducing themselves to sardines squeezed inside public transit, or worse yet, adding one more car to the streets and increasing traffic congestion and pollution.

At least riding on public transit feels safer than being exposed on our streets.

But we need to change this by building better infrastructure and changing the negative perception about cycling to make it more comfortable for all humans who ride bicycles– whether they have a “baby on board” or not.

Here is a 2011 video I made of a pleasant bike commute in Toronto (in high speed):

James D. Schwartz is a Transportation Pragmatist and the Editor of The Urban Country. You can contact James at james.schwartz@theurbancountry.com or follow him on Twitter.

Related Articles:

Responsibility & Accountability On Our Streets (Apr 2011)
Our Backwards Approach to Road Safety (July 2011)
Wobbly Bicyclists Calm Traffic (July 2011)
No Cars. No Traffic Signals. No Deaths. (June 2011)
Toronto Cyclists Are Selfish And Rude? (June 2011)

Legislation For Bicycle Transportation

2012-02-22T11:34:00.000-05:00

Amsterdam “Golden Dress” – Photo courtesy of Michael Stallmeister / ratemyvelo.com

If our goal is to make our cities more liveable and bicycle friendly, there are several strategies that we can use to achieve this goal. I spend most of my efforts on this blog by trying to change people’s perceptions about bicycle transport in the hopes that people will try it out and enjoy it enough to convince one of their friends to do the same, and they will tell one of their friends, and so on.

A bicycle is just a pragmatic tool to efficiently get from point A to point B. It makes the journey fun, and is often faster than other modes of transportation – especially in densely populated cities.

Through the ‘i share the road’ campaign, I use another strategy where I aim to improve the relationship between drivers and cyclists. If drivers are more accepting of cyclists and willing to share the roads, it will be more comfortable to ride, and more people will – which in the end will also benefit drivers (and achieve the goal of making our cities more liveable).

People who ride bikes don’t want to ride in a sea of angry drivers who resent them, and drivers don’t want to be stalled in a sea of traffic congestion. Thus when bicycling is uncomfortable, everybody loses.

A third strategy is to lobby the government to do their part to improve conditions for bicycling in our cities. There is much that can be done at the local level: get involved with your local representative, give a deputation at city hall, protest, lobby and much much more.

On the other hand, the provincial/state/federal government has significant power to enact legislation that can mandate provisions to improve our cities across the entire province/state or nation.

I recently co-signed a letter to the Premier of Ontario, Dalton McGuinty to urge him to enact legislation that would improve bicycle transportation for Ontarians.

Please sign and promote this petition to bring attention to the letter and the creation of legislation to make our cities more liveable.

Letter to Dalton McGuinty on Legislation for Bicycle Transportation

Please sign the petition to support this legislation.

If bicycle infrastructure becomes part of regular road planning (as we currently do for sidewalks), bicycling will become more comfortable which in the end will benefit drivers and make our cities easier to navigate and better places to live.

James D. Schwartz is a Transportation Pragmatist and the Editor of The Urban Country. James is based in Toronto, Canada and is currently residing in Hainan, China. You can contact James at james.schwartz@theurbancountry.com or follow him on Twitter.

Related Articles:

Bicycle Infrastructure Ignorance (Jan 2011)
Complete Streets in Amsterdam (Oct 2011)
Ghettoize Me, Please (Jan 2011)
Democracy Is Good, But... (Jan 2012)
The World Has Changed. So Can You. (April 2011)

Paris Cyclists Allowed To Run Red Lights

2012-02-19T14:32:00.001-05:00

“Guess what? I’m French! – Photo by Rohand / ratemyvelo.com

Paris city councillors recently voted to give the green light to cyclists to legally proceed through red lights in the French capital. The pilot program will be tested at 15 intersections in east end of Paris and if successful will roll out to 1,700 intersections across the city.

Cyclists must of course yield to pedestrians and oncoming traffic before proceeding through these designated intersections and would be held liable if they caused a collision.

The Telegraph reports that the measure has already been tested in Bordeaux, Strasbourg and Nantes, where “these experiments have led to no rise in the number of accidents”.

"It makes cycle traffic more fluid and avoids bunching up cyclists when the traffic lights go green for motorists," said municipal authorities quoted in the Telegraph article.

Anyone who rides a bicycle in a large city with inadequate bicycle infrastructure will know that blindly obeying laws that were primarily written for motor vehicles often puts cyclists in more danger. When cyclists are bunched up a red light, they are often dangerously squeezed by drivers racing to get a jump start after the light turns green.

Traffic signals that allow pedestrians and cyclists to proceed before cars have been shown to help reduce conflict. Likewise, having a cyclist wait at an empty intersection makes little sense since cyclists pose very little danger to others and are inherently more aware of their surroundings - for they are not confined in a cage of glass and metal with endless internal distractions and a limited view.

The fact that our traffic signals exist solely to contain the death and destruction that motor vehicles cause is often forgotten.

Here in China this is not the case. Car culture arrived so recently in China that everybody here knows that traffic signals were nonexistent prior to the onslaught of motor vehicles that came with the recent car boom.

Thus, cyclists and scooters are not required to obey traffic signals, whereas waiting for a green light here is mandatory for car drivers.

I have always said that I believe being courteous is far more important for cyclists than blindly obeying laws that were created without bicyclists in mind.

Perhaps allowing cyclists to legally pass through red traffic lights will help reduce the animosity that drivers feel when they see a cyclist breaking the law.

Here in China, drivers have no animosity towards cyclists even though cyclists don’t need to wait alongside drivers for a green light.

As a result, road rage is virtually nonexistent here and riding a bicycle is far more pleasant and safe – even on the few roads that lack physically separated bike lanes.

Thanks for the tip @macbeestje / @TreeHugger

Related Articles:

No Cars. No Traffic Signals. No Deaths. (June 2011)
Responsibility & Accountability On Our Streets (April 2011)
On Scofflaw Cyclists & Exemplary Motorists (July 2011)
Tell Cyclists To Follow The Rules (Nov 2011)
Bicyclists Must Obey Laws If They Want to Share the Roads (Feb 2011)

Emotional Affection For Automobiles

2012-02-17T15:18:00.001-05:00

Top Gear Season 13 Ending – Aston Martin V12 Vantage HD (via YouTube)

In a recent comment on a Grist article, I was accused of being “jealous” of a proud owner of a Ford Mustang with a 5.0 liter V8 engine with over 400-HP Ford Mustang (labeled as a “penile extension” by another commenter).

I responded:

“the fact that you believe owning a Ford Mustang could induce jealousy in anyone, let alone me, is in fact quite amusing”.

Which led to the recollection of a fascinating film production in the closing season of a television show I have never heard of called “Top Gear”.

The film features a crisp luminescent sun glistening through swift blowing clouds, with impeccable green grass covering miles and miles of untouched natural land, with mountain peaks poised in the background.

The poppy flowers, the birds chirping, the sparkling water wallowing around the rock; this video was produced to imbue fervor, sadness and an unyielding sense of being at one with nature, making the viewer feel a natural attachment with the V12, 500HP Aston Martin highlighted in the film.

The film serves to surface an emotional attachment to the automobile by exploiting our inherent human attachment to nature and converging that natural human affliction with a man-made motor vehicle that, frankly, is quite the opposite of nature itself.

Narrated by the driver of the Aston Martin in a soothing British accent:

Well, it’s an Aston Martin Vantage with a V12 engine. So what do you think it’s going to be like?

It is fantastic. It’s wonderful, wonderful, wonderful.

What it makes me feel like, is sad. I just can’t help thinking that thanks to all sorts of things, the environment, the economy, problems in the Middle East, the relentless war on speed – cars like this will soon be consigned to the history books.

I just have this horrible, dreadful feeling that what I am driving here… is an ending.

Goodnight

This film can bring out emotions in someone who has no attachment to motor vehicles. That is the point. That is how people become so emotionally attached to the hunks of steel that sit in their garage in our car dependent society.

Perhaps I am jealous after all. Jealous that our car culture can pull together 62 people (I counted, twice) to create this 4 minute and 50 second film to inspire you and formulate these emotions in you. This was a calculated and measured manipulation of your mind that indeed does make me jealous.

If only we put this amount of resources into stimulating emotions for things that are actually good for ourselves and the natural environment that was so shamelessly exploited in this film…

James D. Schwartz is a Transportation Pragmatist and the Editor of The Urban Country. You can contact James at james.schwartz@theurbancountry.com or follow him on Twitter.

Related Articles:

We’ve Been Carjacked (Dec 2011)
The World Has Changed. So Can You. (April 2011)
Motorists Prime Beneficiaries of Socialism (Aug 2011)
We Are Addicted To Automobiles (May 2011)
Americans Work 2 Hours Each Day To Pa For Their Cars (May 2011)

Awkward Moments In China’s Car Culture Frenzy

2012-02-12T04:29:00.001-05:00

Cyclist in Shanghai – Photo by James Schwartz / The Urban Country (2010)

As a Canadian ex-pat currently residing in China, there are moments where my culture and values clash with Chinese culture. A recent situation at a dinner with my wife’s family and friends surfaced the importance placed on car ownership in Chinese culture. I will get to this.

Last week I had a friend drop by for 5 days after after he became stranded in Hong Kong when his work trip to the United States was cancelled. During those five days we spent at least 2-3 hours each day exploring the city by bicycle.

The Chinese tend to be very forward and blunt compared to people in North America, so there were several situations where locals blatantly laughed at us for riding bicycles.

In one such situation, a group of guys in their early twenties laughed when we were leaving a bar on our bicycles, and made a comment in Chinese which roughly translates to:

“haha, those foreigners have to rely on their bicycles to get to the bar”.

In another situation we ended up talking to two men who also laughed at us when they first saw us. When confronted about why they laughed at us when we pedaled past, they commented:

“Riding a bicycle in Beijing.. I could see that. That’s what people do in Beijing. But here in Haikou? Nobody rides a bicycle in Haikou”.

As someone who has visited China twice before, these situations are not unexpected, and don’t bother me insofar as it pertains to being embarrassed about riding a bicycle.

However, the part that bothers me is the fact that people’s first instinct here when they see someone on a bicycle is to presume that they are too poor to afford any other mode of transportation.

If the perception that “people who use bicycles are poor” prevails in China, bicycling will become extinct as a mode of transportation as China’s wealth increases.

There are two things that can save bicycles as a viable mode of transportation in China. The first, ironically, is car culture itself. Increased traffic congestion - in a country with more than 160 cities with populations exceeding 1 million people – will give people a reason to start using bicycles again (or electric scooters as is the case here in Haikou).

The second thing that can save bicycles is changing the perception that bicycles are just a mode of transportation for the poor. This is much harder to do, as I have found.

While eating dinner with my wife’s family, a prominent well-to-do friend of the family asked my wife how many cars we have back in Canada. The question was not, “Do you have a car in Canada?” or “What kind of car do you have in Canada?”.

The assumption was that we obviously owned a car. Thus, the question was, “how many cars do you own?”.

I felt not embarrassed for myself, but status and success (measured by wealth) is important in the Chinese culture, so if someone doesn’t own a car, they must not be very successful.

My wife’s father graciously and supportively explained our reasoning for getting rid of our car. I couldn’t ask for a more supportive father in law and I am grateful that he helped defend us. My inadequate Chinese language skills unfortunately prevented me from explaining my perspective.

Somehow I think the explanation was futile. The damage had been done. We had clearly disappointed the family friend and there was an awkward silent moment where it was obvious that he was disappointed.

Don’t get me wrong, the man who asked this question is an extremely kind and genuine man, and I don’t fault him whatsoever for asking this question. We are all just products of our culture and it’s easier to go along with the culture than to question it or rebel against the culture (as I have done within Canada’s car culture).

Had I been able to respond, I would have explained that we live close to work, we can walk to hundreds of restaurants in downtown Toronto, and we have access to five brand new cars on our doorstep that we can rent by the hour anytime we want to using Toronto’s Autoshare car sharing program. If we need to leave the city for a weekend, we have a number of rental car options.

I also would have explained that I can get to my destination by bike faster than driving a car 8 times out of 10 in downtown Toronto, and that I enjoy being outside and getting some exercise after sitting on a computer for 10-12 hours a day rather than being stuck in a car.

I might also have mentioned that by ridding ourselves of our car, we are saving $8,000 every year (~48,000RMB) that we can put towards our daughter’s education fund.

I would have also showed him video footage from the Netherlands to explain to him how liveable and pleasant so many European cities are because they went against car culture rather than embracing it.

One day China will evolve - especially after the car culture brings Chinese cities to a grinding halt - and the Chinese will have a better appreciation for a more humble, pragmatic, simple existence that holds less importance to status and material possessions.

In the meantime, I will continue to pedal around this Chinese city with a smile on my face, and perhaps I will convince just one Chinese person that bicycling is a great way to get around for both poor people and wealth people - and everyone in between.

James D. Schwartz is a Transportation Pragmatist and the Editor of The Urban Country. You can contact James at james.schwartz@theurbancountry.com or follow him on Twitter.

Related Articles:

The Chinese Car Obsession (Nov 2011)
Only the poor ride bicycles in Shanghai (Sept 2010)
The Bicycle as a Status Symbol (Sept 2011)
Sunday Afternoon Traffic in China (Jan 2012)

Canada’s Magnificent Scenic Wonders

2012-02-09T00:48:00.000-05:00

Photo by James Schwartz / The Urban Country

A few months ago I came across this Canadian Tire Corporation poster from a 1936 store catalogue and I snapped a photo of it on my phone. The poster had been all but forgotten when it resurfaced again while I was sorting through the photos on my phone.

The ad reads:

“SEE CANADA FIRST”

YOUR Motor Car is the key to the magnificent scenic wonders of this vast land of ours. It is your most economical and enjoyable form of transportation.

Let us help you keep it fit and new – economically and safely. This catalogue fully demonstrates our ability to do so.

Although I doubt that a motor car was the most “economical” form of transportation in 1936, there is little doubt in my mind that it was the most “enjoyable” form of transportation at that time. Motor cars were relatively new, fast, and there were few other cars on the roads compared to present-day Canada.

These factors would have made motor cars a very enjoyable mode of transportation.

Little did they know in 1936 that people would love driving so much that they would structure their entire lives around their cars, isolating themselves from their communities and eliminating any prerequisite of social interaction with their neighbours.

They probably had no idea that people would end up spending a significant portion of their income just to pay for those “economical” motor cars, or that the government would be required to socialize the car industry just to make motor cars somewhat affordable to the masses.

Or that people would spend hours every day sitting in their car – often moving at walking speed - in traffic jams up to 100KM long.

Or that our “love” for automobiles would cause an oil spill that would release 53,000 barrels of oil per day into the Gulf of Mexico for three months straight – or kill hundreds of thousands of people in wars to control overseas sources of oil.

In 1936 they certainly wouldn’t have known that motor car collisions would eventually end up killing 1.2 million people every year worldwide, or that an additional 2 million people would die each year from the air pollution primarily caused by motor cars.

It was probably unimaginable to someone in 1936 that our cities would be torn up and almost every last inch of space would be allocated to motor cars - making walking or bicycling in the city uncomfortable and tense.

Or that their motor cars would cause all of their favourite local shops to close down in favour of large suburban parking lots and mega super-stores.

And what about road rage in 1936? What reason would someone have to get angry while enjoying their new motor cars with very few other people sharing the roads?

The term “road rage” itself didn’t surface until 5 decades thereafter, originating from a Los Angeles news broadcast that discussed a series of shootings that occurred on Los Angeles freeways from 1987 to 1988.

Even amidst all of these negative aspects of our car culture, people still love their cars. Car company advertising plays a significant role in making cars appear to be safe and enjoyable – using closed, empty street scenes in the city, or empty winding roads in the country (scenes which most people will rarely experience but for their imagination as they kill time while stuck in traffic congestion).

No, I don’t need a motor car to discover the “magnificent scenic wonders” of Canada.

Here are a few photos of Canada’s magnificent scenery that I have discovered by bike and kayak:

Photo by James Schwartz / The Urban Country

James D. Schwartz is a Transportation Pragmatist and the Editor of The Urban Country. You can contact James at james.schwartz@theurbancountry.com or follow him on Twitter.

Related Articles:

We’ve Been Carjacked (Dec 2011)
We Are Addicted To Automobiles (May 2011)
No Cars. No Traffic Signals. No Deaths. (June 2011)
Car Culture Bleeds Our Society (Aug 2010)
Refusing To Be Herded Like Cattle (Aug 2010)

Sunday Afternoon Ride

2012-02-05T19:23:00.001-05:00

Photo by James Schwartz / The Urban Country

It was hot and sunny - peaking at 27 degrees Celsius on Sunday afternoon here in the middle of the South China Sea – so we decided to take 7-month-old Sofia out for a bicycle ride. It was her first bike ride, and she clearly loved every moment of it.

As soon as I started pedaling she was kicking her feet with excitement at the thrill of the human-powered locomotion.

We did a few loops around the park, pedaled along the ocean-front bike path, and stopped for a while at the beach to watch the sun set.

Being one of the few foreigners in this city, I received more stares on this occasion than normal, but I have become so immune to the staring that I hardly pay attention to it anymore.

The dedicated bike infrastructure here makes it easy to get around without having to ride anywhere near automobiles. I would have been reluctant to take Sofia out at this age back in North America where riding next to fast-moving automobiles is inevitable.

Hope you are all doing well. Let me know what all of you were up to over the weekend…

Photo by James Schwartz / The Urban Country

James D. Schwartz is a Transportation Pragmatist and the Editor of The Urban Country. You can contact James at james.schwartz@theurbancountry.com or follow him on Twitter.

Related Articles:

Sunday Afternoon Traffic in China (Jan 2012)
Democracy Is Good, But… (Jan 2012)
Pedaling Haikou City, China (May 2010)
Only the poor ride bicycles in Shanghai (Sept 2010)

Our Streets Are Like A Giant Lollipop

2012-01-30T01:03:00.000-05:00

Photo from Sotres, Asturias, ES courtesy of pablerax

In North America there is a common perception that drivers “own the roads” and deserve as much surface area as can be paved. This perception exists despite the heavy subsidization that drivers receive through motorist socialism, which ironically, is prevalent in the United States where socialism is frowned upon when it benefits the poor, but embraced when it benefits drivers.

This sense of entitlement is at the root of the animosity that can be felt on North American streets and is seemingly exacerbated when someone on a bicyclist dare tread in motorist “territory”.

The tension is so strong – particularly during rush hour – that you can often feel it while riding. The tension is sometimes explicit, for example when an angry driver honks at you for being in his way, but often it is merely implicit and internalized, but can still be felt.

That tension that I can feel while riding a bicycle in Toronto is noticeably absent here in China. Drivers here don’t feel that cyclists are infringing upon their sacred space. In fact, the space is not sacred or “owned” by anyone, but “shared” by everyone.

Just like ordering a meal at a Chinese restaurant, the Chinese virtue of sharing extends from the dinner table onto the streets. There is no sense of entitlement or anger, or resentment towards other road users. People just use the streets to get to their destination – whether by car, by bus, by bicycle or by scooter.

The incessant honking that can be heard in China is not out of rage like the honking in North America, but more to warn other road users to watch out. It’s actually often refreshing to be honked at in China, because drivers are letting you know that they are near. The angry honking in North America pours fuel on the road rage fire.

Furthermore, most streets here provide a safe, physically separated portion of the road to two-wheeled users. And on the narrow streets that aren’t wide enough for physically-separated bike lanes, cars are secondary to foot and two-wheeled traffic.

Back in North America - where we dream of having proper infrastructure for two-wheeled road users – a controversial movement called Critical Mass was spawned to provide cyclists with their own dedicated road space for a couple hours once every month.

The driver sense of entitlement and Critical Mass were the core topics in an interesting podcast that re-surfaced for me recently by my friend Ben Mueller-Heaslip. In the podcast, Ben shares a story about encountering an angry driver while riding through a residential neighbourhood with a small group of people following a Critical Mass event last summer. Here is a portion of the podcast:

“Sure enough, some over-entitled asshole came up behind a couple of girls riding side by side at the back of our little group and started blaring his horn and yelling. It was way too much for him – being inconvenienced for three seconds while the girls moved over to let him pass. But no matter how much of a hurry these fuckers are in, they ALWAYS make time to pull up beside you and fart their rage through their teeth for a little bit.

These type of people, whose sense of entitlement towers over their sense of human decency – tend to be really fucking tough - when they’re yelling at tiny little girls. And that sort of nonsense, it happens all the time. I doubt there’s anyone who’s ridden a bike in this city at all who hasn’t encountered someone that flies into a childish tantrum – for the simple reason that they have to move their car over a couple feet, or wait a couple of seconds.

It’s like the city streets are a giant lollipop their mommy gave them for going two whole weeks without pooping in the bathtub. They earned it, it’s theirs! They own it! And by being there, it’s like you’re licking their big lolly. It’s just not fair!

That’s why I like Critical Mass so much. It takes these values buried in that selfish, childish, petty mentality, and points out their absurdities – by taking them in a different direction. I mean it is a collective act of mass selfishness – taking over some part of the streets and imposing different values on them for a couple hours.

So for a couple hours the picture is inverted – because for the rest of the hours of the month, we do the exact opposite. We work our way into the clockwork mechanisms of the city, as smoothly as rainwater runs through the cracks and potholes of our shoddily maintained roads.

And once a month, all those seams run together into a little flash flood. Ford Nation gets its socks wet. And Sue-Anne Levy (an anti-cyclist Toronto newspaper columnist) bellows in rage.”

There are plenty of things I miss about Toronto, having been away now for almost a month. But the sense of entitlement and road rage so characteristic in our well-established car culture is certainly not one of them.

Listen to Ben’s entire podcast on iTunes (episode #29). If you like Ben’s podcasts, you will be happy to know that I am working with Ben to bring podcasts to The Urban Country.

James D. Schwartz is a Transportation Pragmatist and the Editor of The Urban Country. You can contact James at james.schwartz@theurbancountry.com or follow him on Twitter.

Related Articles:

Bike Helmets Not Warranted (Sept 2010)
Wear a Helmet And Get a Cycling Utopia (June 2010)
We’ve Been Carjacked (Dec 2011)
We Are Addicted To Automobiles (May 2011)

Want to Get Rich? Open a Gas Station in China

2012-01-23T05:07:00.001-05:00

Cars lined up at a Haikou, China gas station - Photo by James Schwartz / The Urban Country (Jan 2012)

Want to get rich? Open up a gas station, a car wash, or an auto repair garage in China.

Car culture is sweeping through China as car ownership becomes affordable to countless new Chinese families. Car wash stations and auto repair shops are sprouting up all over the city I am living in – with demand still outpacing supply. Long line-ups are a regular occurrence at gas stations here.

The consensus among locals I speak to is that everyone wants to have a car. Owning a car validates that someone has reached a certain point of “success” in their life and once you reach that point where you can afford a car you never go back to riding scooters again.

The status works on a rising scale. The poorest of poor use pedal bicycles, which are becoming very uncommon here as people’s increasing wealth allows them to move up the chain to riding electric scooters.

Once someone reaches the next plateau of wealth, they ditch the electric scooters and graduate to car ownership. The wealthier you get, the more expensive your car is.

As the wealth here increases - and thus the number of automobiles increases - the Chinese will discover the ills and inconveniences of car ownership. They will reminisce about the days when they could actually get to their destination in a reasonable time on a bicycle or a scooter instead of sitting bumper-to-bumper not getting anywhere.

When they are sitting in a line-up for an hour just to fill their car with fuel they will miss plugging their scooter into the wall to re-charge it or hopping on their bicycle.

Yet they will find ways to rationalize sitting in traffic jams for two hours. They will tell you how comfortable their car is, how much they love listening to music in their car. They will find any reason to justify it - just like we have done since car culture swept through North America some forty plus years ago.

Below are a few photos I took of car-related business around the city while pedaling around on Saturday.

One of many car washing stations around the city – many of which didn’t exist a few years ago:

One-block-long line-up of cars waiting to get gas:

Some people got out of their car to get some fresh air while waiting for fuel:

Another car wash station:

Porsche SUV and other cars being washed:

Even the natural-gas-powered taxi cabs weren’t exempt from line-ups. This natural gas station had taxi cabs waiting in line to fuel up:

Cars slowly making their way through this gas bar:

Haikou, China – All photos by James Schwartz / The Urban Country (Jan 2012)

Chinese families thankfully don’t drive anywhere near the distances that Canadians or Americans drive, so cars don’t need to be filled up too often.

People largely live urban lifestyles here - I have yet to see a detached single family house in all my travels through China - so long commutes to work from the suburbs are uncommon here.

But this influx of car culture could change all that. Will the Chinese culture of urban lifestyles outweigh the pressures of sprawl? Time will tell.

James D. Schwartz is a Transportation Pragmatist and the Editor of The Urban Country. You can contact James at james.schwartz@theurbancountry.com or follow him on Twitter.

Related Articles:

Sunday Afternoon Traffic in China (Jan 2012)
Democracy Is Good, But… (Jan 2012)
The Chinese Car Obsession (Nov 2011)
The Bicycle as a Status Symbol in China (Sept 2011)
Only the poor ride bicycles in Shanghai (Sept 2010)