We Love the City

Tag: biketo

  • Regular People Doing Regular Things on Bikes

    Do you wear regular clothes?

    Yes, I know: That’s a meaningless question. You’d expect a person’s wardrobe to vary based on their job, their leisure activities, and their personal style. 

    But this sort of question seems to be a thing among certain cycling circles these days. There is, understandably, and attempt to normalize urban cycling, to depict it as a regular thing people do to get to work or buy groceries, instead of a fringe activity indulged in by crazed bicycle couriers and die-hard athletes in branded lycra. And I get it: There are a lot of stereotypes about cyclists, and combatting them is an important part of building safe infrastructure and letting cars & bikes get along on the streets.

    But increasingly, this argument seems to take an elitist, judgemental tone; in seeking to make cycling mainstream, it attempts to mainstream all cyclists.

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  • What car commercials can teach us about bicycles

    What car commercials can teach us about bicycles

    How do you get more people to give up their cars and ride bikes?

    Danish cycling advocate Andreas Rohl attended the Ontario Bike Summit last week, and as a representative of a city with quite a lot of bicycle usage, he had a few things to say on the subject. In the National Post, he said:

    “I like to say we have no cyclists in Copenhagen. We have citizens who use bikes to get from A to B.” (more…)

  • Making Safe Cycling Laws Meaningful

    With a provincial election in the fall, Ontario politicians are starting to line up their platforms. Yesterday, NDP leader Andrea Horwath unveiled her party’s environmental policies, and most of the attention seems to have gone to a proposal that would require drivers to give cyclists at least one meter when passing.

    It’s not a new idea – 19 America states have a similar law. But while “passing at a safe distance” is the sort of thing most people can get behind, it’s hard to say how much the law is needed, or how effective it might be.

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  • Making Up Facts: Not just for mayors any more

    Making Shit Up is the new standard for getting things done in Toronto. If you’ve got an issue, there’s no need for things like research or facts. You can just make up claims, and apparently many media outlets will print them, regardless of any actual connections to reality.

    First, we have this letter to the editor clamoring for bicycle licensing:

    My fine for causing an accident like that to Ms Nedobi would be steep, both monetary and point-wise. My insurance would increase and I would have to compensate the victim, yet the cyclists get away with minor conviction, if any.

    This is particularly funny because The Star just ran an article a month ago about how careless driving penalties are lightweight whether you’re in a car or on a bike. Remember: The Highway Traffic Act applies equally to cars and bicycles in most cases.

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  • How Dangerous is Riding a Bike?

    Helmets credited for drop in cycling head injuries. That seems like an obvious story, right? As Greg Webster, director of primary healthcare information for the Canadian Institute for Health Information says, “it intuitively makes sense.”

    But intuitively, it made sense that the sun orbited the Earth, because that’s what you see when you have a limited perspective or are only looking at a certain set of facts. There are two pieces of compelling data in the study:

    • There were 4,325 cycling-related injuries in 2009-10, compared to 4,332 eight years earlier. Meantime, the number of cycling-related head injuries stood at 665 last year, compared to 907 in 2001-2002.
    • Among the most severe cycling injury admissions of the past decade (those requiring admission to a special trauma centre), 78% of those hospitalized with a head injury were not wearing a helmet when their injury occurred

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  • On the Subject of Bikes, Cars, Pedestrians, and The Law

    In my experience, cyclists have three approaches to the rules of the road:

    • Fully obey all laws all the time. These people are very rare.
    • Cautious rule breakers: They may not follow the exact letter of the law, but still remain considerate and aware. This is where things like the Idaho Stop comes in: They may not come to a complete stop at every stop sign, but they’ll approach the intersection with caution, yield to any traffic or pedestrian with the right of way, and then proceed. This group represents the overwhelming majority of cyclists, as well as the majority of drivers, pedestrians, and human beings in general.
    • Don’t give a fuck: These cyclists ignore signs and lights, have no understanding of the rules of the road, and are most likely to be perceived as jackasses by everyone around them.

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