Albert Koehl is an environmental lawyer and a founder and coordinator of Toronto Community Bikeways Coalition. Spacing’s cycling columnist Sabat Ismail did a Q&A with him about his new book, Wheeling Through Toronto, published in May 2024 by the University of Toronto Press.
Sabat Ismail: Could you please introduce your book?
Albert Koehl: The name of my book is Wheeling Through Toronto: A History of the Bicycle and Its Riders. The book looks at the history of cycling in Toronto, but one of my main objectives was to explore how we got here.
In other words, you look around, you see Highway 401, you see our wide arterials and so on, and the question is, ‘how did we get here?’ What are the steps that we took from where we were, pre-car, to where we are today? That’s a question that I tried to answer in the book, not just from a sort of hindsight perspective, but also to chart the way we move forward with addressing issues of climate change, equity, affordability, and health.
SI: When did you start writing your book? And what was the process like?
AK: I spent about five years in total researching and writing the book. A part of the reason it took that long was because there’s really nothing written in Canada about utilitarian cycling—apart from the period of the bicycle craze.
There’s a book called The Ride to Modernity, which ends in 1900. But all of the other books are essentially books about sport cycling—though there are not many of those either. There’s also one book about the bike manufacturer CCM.
The reason it took so long is that most of it was just primary research, looking at newspapers, looking at police reports and engineering reports. The book has about a hundred pages of footnotes, partially because I didn’t want all that research to go to waste. So, if someone else says, “I’m interested in this particular topic, I’m going to look at it further, what evidence is out there already that I can build upon.”
SI: Can you describe the initial rise, decline, and revival of cycling in Toronto that you explore in the book?
AK: The bicycle certainly had its ups and downs. The first major up was the bicycle craze, where everyone was riding. During a bike count conducted on downtown King Street in 1896, the Mail & Empire newspaper counted 3,500 cyclists going east or west on King, near Yonge, during a 9.5 hour period, from 9:00 am to 6:30 pm on a weekday.
So, the bicycle was a fad initially until the 1900, there was a very stark cut off. But it remained very popular for utilitarian purposes, like commuting, and it was very popular for deliveries. Though once roads became dangerous and overwhelmed with cars into the 1920s, there was a clear message to people, to get off the road if you’re on a bike.
There was a bit of a resurgence in the Great Depression and World War II. There were up to 50,000 bikes on city streets in World War II because of the rationing of metal. The 50s and 60s were really the darkest times for the bicycle. There’s very little mention of them. It was all about building expressways, widening roads, and buying cars. So very little attention to cycling. So, there was a bit of a reckoning in the early 1970s.
The 70s revival was partially bolstered by the advent of the 10-speed, which made it cool again to ride a bicycle, and coupled with concerns about smog, health, the energy/oil crisis, and the increased environmental consciousness contributed to a bicycle revival in the 70s.
The problem, of course, is the same problem we have today. Suddenly, the bicycle was popular again, but where were people going to ride? So, we had this same chicken and egg problem. To build bike lanes, you need more cyclists, but to get more cyclists, you need more bike lanes. Or at least safe spaces to ride.
SI: You explore the ways that initially cyclists had significant political capital and connection with government, and then now there’s that shift back to the bicycle being a little bit more in political favour, at least at the city council level. Can you talk about that political that political history over time?
AK: Yeah, I find it such a fascinating story. Those political ups and downs, and it partly depended on who had influence in society. Initially, it was the cycling clubs, like the Toronto Bicycle Club, then a part of the Canadian Wheelman’s Association (CWA), and those were mostly dominated by upper-class men. They had quite a bit of influence, political influence, and they were able to push back against bicycle licensing, or bicycle taxes, etc.
The Canadian Wheelmen’s Association (CWA) was the dominant cycling group in Canada from its founding in 1882. The group was primarily a sporting organization that governed bicycle racing, but often weighed in on issues in the 1890s that touched on utilitarian cycling. The group still exists today as the Canadian Cycling Association, or Cycling Canada Cyclisme.
By the 1920s, when the license was imposed, cyclists held less political sway, and bikes were increasingly being used by people with less financial means. You had more people of moderate means or children who didn’t have the same political influence dominating cycling. Other than a small pause during WWII, there was still that absence of political influence until the bicycle revival, where adults began coming back to cycling.
SI: You thoroughly detail the influence of the motorcar in Toronto’s cycling history and contextualize its dominance. Can you elaborate on what made you take that approach and what led to the car’s dominance?
AK: It was adopted because it was sold very successfully, as something that elevated someone in terms of their prestige and social status. It wasn’t because it was a superior technology, because if you look back at the time, whether the 1890s or early 1900s, we had far-reaching rail lines and electric streetcar systems.
We don’t have cars because they are a superior technology, and people back then didn’t think it was a superior technology. Later on, people believed cars were going to solve road congestion problems confronting cities, but we know that ultimately, they didn’t, and it didn’t take that long realize. Though what’s working against you is you still have that huge influence of the car.
I’m trying to counter this in some of the work I’m doing with Coalition to Reduce Auto Size Hazards (CRASH), one of the groups I’m involved with, which addresses the proliferation of pickups and large SUVs. One of the things we are trying to push for is warnings on advertisements. Potentially adding a warning on ads that a pickup is three and a half times more likely to kill a pedestrian or cyclist when they’re involved in a collision.
Given the amount of advertising for cars, it’s pretty impressive that anyone walks, cycles, or takes transit, and yet in Toronto it’s now the dominant form: walk, cycle, transit is over 50%. In surveys, they found 59% of people identify walk, cycle, transit as their primary mode. They might still have a car, but that’s their primary mode. Toronto is unique in that way, in an Ontario context. Because other cities are not anywhere close to that. But that gives us the real opportunity to be a model for other cities across the province.
SI: I know that you use different sources for data to get at cycling rates. In the book you approach that in creative ways, looking at bike licenses and bike sales, because some of that data wasn’t previously available. Was that lack of data a challenge when writing your book?
AK: Absolutely, there’s a famous saying that we count what’s important. So, for most of the bicycle’s history, we didn’t count them. Today, you’re only going to get a small fraction of people that are willing to ride in such dangerous conditions. So, the relevant question is, how many, when you have cycling infrastructure in place, how many cyclists do you have then?
I think the saddest part of writing the book is how often, for many years, cyclists were noticed when they died. That’s when the public paid attention, when they were killed. Whether it’s in the Globe or the Star, you search the word ‘bicycle’, and it often comes up only in the context of deaths. If someone was killed, then they made the news.
If they weren’t killed, and they were just riding a bike, we didn’t notice them. But I think there’s also a bit of a hopeful side to it. The book allowed me to tell those stories from the perspective of the cyclist, while the transportation story was usually only told from the perspective of the motorist.
Beginning in the 1920s, there was a conscious effort to try to reframe collisions with motor vehicles as the fault of the pedestrian or cyclist. Into the 1950s, when highways were built, the idea of an exclusive, restricted roadway for cars was new, prior to that roads were considered public, and the public—not just drivers— were able to use them.
SI: Why do you think pursuing the licensing of cyclists continues to come up in Toronto?
AK: I’d say, licensing is an interesting issue because the push for licensing started in the 1890s. There were calls for bike licensing then, but then what could be considered a cycle lobby was pretty strong, and they pushed back. The bicycle license was then adopted when cyclists were really at their low point in the late 1920s.
The dominant group of cyclists at the time were children and people of a lower economic status, they had less influence. That’s when they imposed the license, when cyclists really were at their least influential politically. 1956 was the last year we had the bicycle license, yet ever since then, people have continued to raise the license as a recommendation. I often think, it’s as a punishment.
Ultimately, the license was cancelled, but by the police and administrators because they considered it too much hassle and too costly. During the duration of the bike licence, children who failed to obtain one faced serious consequences, not only the potential of being classified as “juvenile delinquents” under the law of the day, but also the prospect of penalties that far exceeded the $5 fine that applied to adults
SI: In the book, you explore the different roles and debates over the decades in Toronto surrounding whether to orient cycling infrastructure for utilitarian verses recreational cycling. Where do you think that current cycling advocacy should concentrate its efforts?
AK: It depends on what it is that you’re after. My focus is utilitarian cycling, as I see it. It’s not, to me, so much the car versus bikes versus other modes. It’s really what’s best suited to the city as transportation. So, I look at recreation cycling, but only as a sort of context in early cycling history.
The initial history of cycling was that first it was mostly for leisure and recreation, and for the upper class. Then there was the transition from the high wheel to the safety bicycle. Eventually transitioning from not being exclusively accessible to the upper-class. As it became accessible for people with more varied class backgrounds, transitioning from recreational to everyday cycling.
SI: Why do you think that there is still like a lingering idea that regardless of context, the car is the most practical way of getting around.
AK: That’s a fundamental question, I think it’s partly because we’ve convinced people that it’s the only way, and that’s partly the value of the book. I show it isn’t the only way. Even in Toronto, we once had a system where you walked, cycled, or took transit, and it worked. That was the most practical way to get around.
There are reasons why a car-based model doesn’t work, yet a couple of factors play into supporting that model. When you look at it practically, we’ve created such a hostile environment to everyone who’s not in a car. Once you’ve invested all that money in a car – and it’s hard not to be influenced by all of that advertising – you become an advocate for that system.
Nonetheless, it’s impressive that the bicycle has endured despite all of that advertising, that it is such a simple, straightforward, affordable vehicle that it has survived despite all of those negative influences, that people still keep cycling, sometimes even at their own peril.
SI: Can you share some of your thoughts on Premier Ford’s impact on the current cycling landscape in Toronto; I know the book stops around 2023. Can you also share your thoughts on Bill 212?
AK: One thing I would say is, no politicians have been better served by the bicycle than the Fords. Rob Ford initially, and now Doug Ford. Not because they love bicycles, it’s because they’ve used anti-cycling sentiment to their advantage, as a political tool.
Doug Ford scapegoats cyclists, and it’s a good wedge issue because the opposition is very much based on misinformation. The way he presents this is really to an audience that’s outside of Toronto, and they still have this notion of cycling as just something marginal – something you do on the weekend. You go to the park; you ride your bike. So, he leverages that misinformation and the legitimate frustration about congestion. Instead of trying to educate people, he says they [cyclists] are really getting in your way.
It works very well to scapegoat cyclists, partly because people don’t quite understand, I think, if they’re outside of Toronto or similar contexts. Instead of being a true leader and trying to educate people he’s being an unscrupulous leader, misinforming people, leveraging frustration, and misinformation.
The big problem right now is there’s a pause on cycling infrastructure. Bill 212 is putting cycling projects in limbo, we’ve seen that already in Mississauga, with the pause of their Bloor Street bike lane installation.
SI: On a related note, in the book you mention your involvement in advocacy for the long struggle for bike lane installation on Bloor-Danforth with Bells on Bloor. What are your thoughts on its potential removal based on moves from the Ford government?
AK: I think when you do advocacy you celebrate your victories and successes, but at the same time you always anticipate that there will be some setbacks. So, I don’t see this as a really changing course, I see it as a setback.
I’d say two steps forward, one step back. So, I think someone like Doug Ford, just like his brother before him, can slow things down, but he’s not changing the trajectory.
If you look at leading cities in the world, they’ve accepted that you’re not going to be able to move enough people in cars. That it’s just not practical, it’s not efficient, it’s not possible, and that you can do that if you focus on transit, walking, and cycling. That’s what the leading cities are adopting. So, he’s able to slow things down, but he won’t be able to change the trajectory.
SI: Near the end of the book, I found it compelling how you talk about the recent shift in cycling advocacy towards building coalitions with people and community groups with similar visions. Can you talk a bit about this shift and what you foresee this coalition-building looking like in the future?
AK: I think all good advocacy tries to build alliances, partnerships, build community. So, I think any successful movement does that. I think there’s a bit of a danger right now that social media puts us in silos, and we’re really convinced that we’re in the right.
It’s really important for us not to see ourselves in sort of that small silo of people that are wheeling through the city. It has to be a broader coalition of groups, and I think those community alliances are really important, but we don’t reach out enough.
When the Bloor bike lanes were first installed, one of the big reasons was because all of the local residents’ associations were on board. That was a big deal. Politicians would emphasize that they’ve got all the residents’ associations on board. They didn’t say we have all the cycling groups on board.
These coalitions are a strong selling point for something like that. I don’t think it’s a fight between motorists and cyclists and transit users. To me it’s always a fight as between what works in terms of transportation. The reason I fight for better cycling conditions is because I believe that the bicycle is fundamentally better suited to urban life; it’s affordable, clean, efficient, and it gets you to where you’re going.
I don’t believe cyclists are better than motorists. Rather, I just believe the bicycle is a better tool, with broader ends for the community. The bicycle is what’s best suited to cities and is also about community working together. If we are going to win, it’s not just about cycling, it’s about good transportation, it’s about health, it’s about the environment.
We have to build broad alliances that work together. Especially now, coming towards the [provincial] election, it can’t just be about cyclists, or the fight for cycling. It has to be people from all walks of life. That’s the only way we can actually move towards a common good.
This interview has been adjusted for clarity and length.
