D.C. Matthew writes at length in NOW Toronto about the various reasons why black people are so underrepresented in the population of cyclists. Some of the reasons are more benign than others.

People are connected to various social networks (the web of social relationships in which we are embedded), and researchers have convincingly - if not ( Read more... )

Torontoist's Stephanie DePetrillo reports, at length and with charts and maps, about the push for a bike lane on Bloor Street.

The long-awaited plan for bike lanes on Bloor is slowly pedaling itself into reality. Last night was the first public drop-in event for Bloor Street bike lanes pilot project, where the plans were visually displayed for ( Read more... )

• The Big Picture has a photo essay about albino children in Panama.
• Crooked Timber considers African-American radicalism.
• The Dragon's Gaze links to one paper imagining the frequency of habitable planets in other universes, and links to another suggesting that to host habitable worlds exoplanet systems will need their worlds to have aligned orbits.
• Joe ( Read more... )

• Joe. My. God. notes Mike Huckabee's statement that he would have pretended to be transgendered to see naked teenage girls.
• Language Hat reports on a Syriac manuscript of Galen.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money reports that the 35-hour work week in France was not as effective as it could have been.
• Marginal Revolution opines on ways to deal with mental ilness.
• ( Read more... )

At Spacing, George Poulos writes about ways other cities have built up strong cycling cultures.

When it comes to building a bike culture, we here in Canada often look upon the “live-work velodromes” of Amsterdam, Copenhagen, and the like with considerable envy. So well ingrained are the quirky intangibles that make up a vibrant bike culture that ( Read more... )

Via blogTO, I've found Riley Sparks' Toronto Star article suggesting Toronto might get a glow-in-the-dark bike path on the waterfront in the very near future.

A Dutch design company hopes to bring its Van Gogh-inspired glowing bicycle path to Toronto in time for the Pan Am Games next year ( Read more... )

Torontoist's David Hains writes about a poll claiming that a majority of Torontonians would approve of licensing cyclists. This is unworkable, as Hains points out. I suspect it might be a reaction to the regular violation of the rules of the road by cyclists--biking on sidewalks, biking in the wrong direction, et cetera--as it is to general ( Read more... )

The Toronto Star's Patty Wimsa reported on the ongoing controversy about building a bike station at Toronto City Hall. This sound decision, like so many, has apparently been politicized by the city's mayor Rob Ford and his brother Doug. (So says the strongly anti-Ford Star, at least.)

The city spent $650,000 on a bike station under Nathan Phillips ( Read more... )

Torontoist's Steve Kupferman earlier shared the news that Cycle Toronto--the Torontonian cyclists' union--wants the City of Toronto to buy out Bixi Toronto, thus resolving that organization's financial problems that I blogged about yesterday. The Globe and Mail's Jessica Chin notes that so far, this isn't flying.

In the wake of news Tuesday that ( Read more... )

Bixi Toronto, the privately-owned city bike rental agency that appeared a couple of years ago here in Toronto and has sibling agencies elsewhere (for instance, Ottawa-Gatineau), is apparently in significant financial trouble.

The problem was summarized by blogTO's Chris Bateman.

Though the city says the scheme has been "very successful," ( Read more... )