At a time when bike lanes are coming under fire, it’s time to double down with cycling advocacy.
Join eMERGE and GCAT as we host Albert Koehl, one of Tooronto’s most successful cycling advocates in bringing more bike lanes to the city.
Albert Koehl
Wheeling Through Toronto
2 Presentations: 1:00 pm and 2:30 pm
Sunday November 24
Hear Albert’s CBC Radio Interview (11 minutes)
Albert’s new book:
Wheeling Through Toronto
A History of the Bicycle and Its Riders
“Throughout its history in Toronto, the bicycle’s place on the roads and in public esteem has fluctuated wildly: flaunted as fashionable, disparaged and derided, rescued from looming obscurity, and promoted as a way to respond to the challenges of the day. What is it about the simple bicycle that it can be so loved by some yet despised and detested by others? Wheeling through Toronto offers a 130-year ride from the 1890s to the present to help answer this question. Albert Koehl, a Toronto lawyer and leading cycling advocate, chronicles the tumultuous history of this mode of transportation from the bicycle craze at the turn of the century, to the rise of the car and the motorway in the 1950s, to the intensifying cry for active transportation in the 1990s and into pandemic times. In an era of catastrophic climate events, Wheeling through Toronto highlights how the bicycle should be celebrated not only as hope for the future, but also for its affordability, for its contribution to clean and healthy mobility, and because it brings happiness and joy to so many. Drawing on archival materials, newspapers, and personal interviews, and full of fascinating vignettes, this book presents the story of how we got here and what Torontonians need to know as we pedal forward.”
Albert Koehl
Albert Koehl has been an environmental and community lawyer, and a former adjunct professor of law, for over thirty years, dedicated to issues of climate change, energy (mis)use, and transportation. He is one of Toronto’s leading road safety and cycling advocates – his work inspired and sustained by a commitment to social justice and the belief that how we get around shouldn’t be based on power or wealth, but on fairness and respect for each other, our community, and our climate.
Albert Koehl
Author, Wheeling Through Toronto
A History of the Bicycle and Its Riders
(University of Toronto Press, May 2024)
