Reviewing Albert Koehl’s “Wheeling Through Toronto”

While Toronto has had a magazine dedicated to cycling called Dandyhorse as well as books such as Yvonne Bambrick’s “The Urban Cycling Survival Guide” and Shawn Smith’s “Happy Trails”, there hadn’t been a book that gave an appreciation of Toronto’s cycling history. Albert Koehl’s book “Wheeling Through Toronto” was published last month and explores cycling in Toronto over the past 130 years starting with the bicycle craze of the 1890’s. Having finished reading the book this past weekend, let’s review it to see what parallels can be drawn to cycling in the present day.

April 25 Cycling Research Meetup

On Thursday, April 25, University of Manchester PhD candidate Thomas Van Laake hosted a cycling research meetup at the University of Toronto to showcase not only his findings while studying cycling in Manchester, Toronto, and Mexico City, but also presentations from three other researchers. These were done by Sarah Giacomantonio, Alec Khacatryan, and Madeleine Bonsma-Fisher. Let’s dive into this research and see how the findings are relevant to Toronto’s cycling community.

Researching Active Transportation with Nancy Smith Lea

For almost 30 years, Nancy Smith Lea has been a pioneering road safety advocate focused on academic research and has covered topics such as economic impact studies, complete streets, and suburban bike hubs. Before becoming Director of The Centre for Active Transportation (TCAT) in 2008, she helped found Advocacy for Respect for Cyclists (ARC) and worked on one of Toronto’s now-defunct City Cycling Committee’s sub-committees. I spoke with Nancy about this experience on August 22, 2023.