Transportation
Dutch bike culture
On the VACC listserv today, Gregg Sayer posted a great article on bike culture in the Netherlands. Small-wheel bikes are clearly the thing of the future out there – he’s got some great pictures of cargo bikes. Check it out, and see some photos of an eight-man cycling beer machine. Gregg Sayer’s blog.
Sustrans talks galore, and the story of the Cheonggyecheon River
Before After It’s been an eventful two weeks. A ton of urban conferences hit Vancouver: the World Urban Form, the Canadian Institute of Planners Congress, and Planners4Tomorrow. Enrique Peñalosa gave an inspiring talk about his time as the mayor of Bogotá, Colombia. In a city where less than 20% own a car, why was so [...]
GO Transit
I’ve been reading Steve Munro‘s blog lately, as he discusses the nitty-gritty details of transit planning in Toronto. He brought up an interesting point regarding the extension of the Spadina subway line to York University: there’s already a GO transit line that goes direct from York University to downtown, and GO is a better way [...]
Cyclist falls off bridge
This past weekend, I rode my bike down through Surrey, North Delta and Annacis Island. It was the first time I’d taken my bike across the Alex Fraser bridge, and it had a few scary moments: a narrow sidewalk, and a low railing, plus three danger spots. The freeway signposts block the path at two [...]
Bad bicycle routes
The BBC is running an entertaining photo series on bad bicycle routes, and they have a link to some other photos too. Apparently, they’re considering amending their highway act to require cyclists to use a bike lane if present. This is an effort by cyclists there to stop that, since so many bike lanes are [...]
Toronto Transit Map
Last August, I put together a transit map for Vancouver using the new Google Maps API. I recently went through and updated all the code, switching it over to XML for the geographic data. Using that backend, I’ve now put together a Toronto transit map. So far, I’ve only got the TTC on there – [...]
Road rage
Spacing Wire is carrying a curious story about a road rage incident in Kensington Market, between a parked motorist and a bike courier. Normally, this would be no big deal, just another day in the big city. But Adam Krawesky captured some evocative photographs, and now the story is making the rounds on the Internet. [...]
Planning for Cycling
For some time, I’ve been curious to learn more about European approaches to designing bicycle routes. I’d heard the statistics: over 30% of all trips are made on bicycle in Amsterdam and Copenhagen, and even more in some Asian cities like Shanghai. But how did they make bike routes that were safe enough for so [...]
New bike
I’ve had used bikes all my life. I did own a nice one, once upon a time – in 2000, I bought a Miele racing bike for $500 used. Unfortunately, it was stolen in 2003 just before I graduated (from behind my back, as I was picking up glass off the bike lane). At that [...]
Secret Toronto subway stations
As a longtime Toronto subway user, I always liked the weird parts of the subway: the urban legends about running the tracks between stations, the “garbage pickup” trains around 2:00am, and the horrible stories about suicides and subsequent therapy for drivers. But I never heard about the secret stations beneath my feet. Apparently, Bay Station [...]
