Wheeling through Toronto: A History of the Bicycle and Its Riders

by Albert Koehl

Highlighting an important yet often ignored part of Toronto’s transportation story, Wheeling through Toronto chronicles the history of the bicycle and reveals a way forward for a world in climate crisis. 

Throughout its history in Toronto, the bicycle’s place on the roads and in public esteem has fluctuated 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.

400 pages, Hardcover

Published May 14, 2024

Reviews

[Jay · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wheeling Through Toronto immediately caught my eye when I saw it in the U of T bookstore. As a cycling Torontonian looking to add non-fiction to my library, I thought it was the perfect book for me. And in many ways, it was. This book totally and completely achieved what it was attempting – to tell the history of the bicycle’s place in the city of Toronto. Of course, that means discussing all types of traffic – public transportation (buses, streetcars, radials, subways, etc), horses, cars, etc – as well as immigration, population, and political change throughout the city. The book also covers American and European influence on our street design, how world wars and other world events shaped the bicycle’s place on the road, and more. It has a lot; it’s dense without being dull and provides a great mix of facts and anecdotes to support its arguments. The author has over 100 pages of notes and references supporting his claims, which is more than I’ve seen in similar style books; the strongest of haters cannot say that the author skipped the research component.

This is a hard book to recommend. If it interests you, I think you’ll like it. But I can understand that it is not for everyone, and I certainly do not think it is for car-brained people. The author is being honest, but he is not actively trying to convince readers to give up their cars. In fact, if anything, it seems to be written for people like me who cycle and use public transit. If you are on the fence about the cars vs bikes issue, I think there are other things to consume before this book, as this book is all-encompassing and detailed. In some ways, it assumes that you know about and agree with things like cities being too smoggy, cars being noisy, etc.

Albert, thank you for writing this book and for all that you do for cycling in the city!