BREAKING 📣 For several days, a peaceful protest took place in the morning, after a young child was killed by a car driver. The child was riding his bike to school, the father with him. The grieving community came together with hundreds of people, cyclist or not, creating a 3km long human bike lane.

Now 10,000+ residents can access a park! For 50+ years, this historic dockland was used to park thousands of cars (for free!). Today? Zuidpark is one of Europe’s most ambitious urban re-greening projects. 🌳🚀 We don't need new land. We need to rethink spaces we’ve already paved over!

We designed our cities and lives around cars, promising efficiency and freedom. Instead, we got traffic, stress, and lost life. The car promised autonomy, but it actually made us dependent, deprived, and ill.

🔊 NEW RESEARCH 🔊 Dutch cities are banning fatbikes as a "safety measure," but our latest study reveals what it really is: moral panic, unfair profiling, and mobility injustice. 🧵👇 tinyurl.com/fatbikestudy

New Yorkers recently staged a powerful "die-in", lying motionless on the pavement protesting the surge in vehicular homicides, where 4 people riding bikes were killed in hit-and-runs. New York is not alone.

"The best bike plan is a car plan." Whoever authored that quote is a genius (it wasn't me). I was recently on a panel with APUR, Paris Agency of Urbanism, and I wrote up my reflections on Amsterdam's mobility transition. Would love to hear your comments and further questions! tinyurl.com/yfpcc6hx

Paris scavenger hunt: find as many of the 180k trees planted! It's not hard - they're everywhere! Rue Châteaudun is a good one. Tons of new trees, flowers, drought-resistance shrubs. Repost your favorite before/after.

Weather and hills aren't what stop people from riding bikes—it’s fear. We can’t expect people to cycle if we ask them to put their lives on the line every time they get on the saddle, especially with their kid next to them. Cartoon by Dave Walker

“Bike lanes? That’s only for the lefties & the greens.” Well, not in Nuremberg, Germany. Center-right Mayor Marcus König is on-board and in the saddle! 🚲 The city’s Radverkehrsstrategie 2030 wants 20% of trips by bike by 2030 and adds 15km of priority bike paths & 10km of Fahrradstraßen every year

The 'car-free approach to racing cars' at Zandvoort highlights a core principle of urban planning: traffic isn't an inevitable law of nature, it's a structural choice!

Urban Cycling Institute@urbancyclinginstitute.org · last mo.

🤯 A car-free car racing event? Sounds impossible! In the Netherlands last weekend, nearly all of the 110,000 fans attending the #Formula1 #GrandPrix arrived by bike or public transit. Cars were practically banned. Ironic to say this: but it's a masterclass in sustainable mega-event planning.

KEY FINDING #3: "Those who desire to disrupt the modal hierarchy have not yet clearly articulated a moral imagination that envisions a positive future for our streets where #everyone is better off."

Did you know the first ever online course about cycling was launched 6 years ago? Time flies when you're having fun - making MOOCs. Are you curious to join 13k others? Take the course. tinyurl.com/43n4zr2r

#womenincycling is an important movement! That’s why we launched the Women in Cycling Leadership Masterclass (Oct 23-24). We'll be in Paris. Are you going? Registration open! tinyurl.com/wic-paris

Countdown: 1 month until Cycling Research Board! Do you have your tickets? www.cyclingresearchboard.com

“Car mobility represents the rule of private property, imperialism, and colonialism that define our societies today.” urbancyclinginstitute.substack.com/p/stealing-c...

Stealing Cars: Property, Automobility, and the Colonial Crisis of Car Culture

Long Ride | Historian John Munro delves into the past in order to understand how the primacy of private property shapes mobility hierarchies in the present

urbancyclinginstitute.substack.com

Health is a convincing argument to promote cycling in cities, but is it enough? I'm excited to give a keynote at the ADFC 2026 Symposium, together with many colleagues! October 14th | Berlin

“Modern democratic societies do not write mobility restrictions into laws, because they don’t need to. The same restrictive effects can be achieved through urban design, mechanisms that often go unnoticed...” urbancyclinginstitute.substack.com/p/mobility-i...

Mobility is Politics

A history of mobility through autocratic restrictions and democratic limitations—and how the bicycle has overcome this

urbancyclinginstitute.substack.com

"Children who travel independently and actively to school have better spatial awareness, a better sense of balance, faster social development and fewer learning disorders on average than children who are driven to school." - Ulla Rasmussen, Executive Director Mobility with a Future (Vienna)

"A #bike is a tool for play, connection, health. When children learn to confidently bike, they don’t just become better cyclists. They develop balance, resilience, confidence and independence. They discover the joy of moving instead of sitting still." Eveline Elsinga, Dutch Girls on Wheels

"Transportation infrastructure doesn’t just change how we move—it changes how we develop as humans. We often ask, 'How do we get more people to ride bikes?' Perhaps the better question is: 'What kind of town/city produces healthier humans?'" — Anna Lindström, Founder, Kielo Cycling, California

"The strongest narrative to convince policymakers isn’t about replacing one mode with another. It’s about giving people the freedom to choose the option that best fits their needs, and at that moment. Transport isn’t the goal, it’s the means." Deborah Neves, Logistics Strategy, Winnepeg

"We talk a lot about the erosion of 'community values' but we rarely make the connection between the increase in our dependency on vehicles and dwindling possibilities for informal social interactions." — Zvi Leve, Strategic Advisor from Montreal

Cycling isn't about replacing cars—it's about giving people more choices. The conversation should be about creating places where people thrive, not about choosing sides. — Patricia Maria Ibáñez Porcel, Founder - Bike and Hike Granada

🔊THE RESULTS ARE IN: 5 narratives to win support for human-scale cycling cities. Russell King and I crowd-sourced the most effective arguments to move past bikelash and toward outcomes our cities need. We got 200+ responses. 5 narratives emerged as most compelling. Which one resonates with you?

🚨 We need your help! Let’s crowd-source the most convincing list of narratives to win support for cycling! 24 hours left before we release the ultimate list. What arguments resonate with skeptics, local businesses, or policymakers? Comment here: tinyurl.com/2k5vsv24

🚨 We need your help! Let’s crowd-source the most convincing list of narratives to help our cities, to shift our mindsets, to win support for cycling! Russell King and I will compile and share the… |...

🚨 We need your help! Let’s crowd-source the most convincing list of narratives to help our cities, to shift our mindsets, to win support for cycling! Russell King and I will compile and share the ul...

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My favorite quote from a Dutch traffic engineer: if you need a sign, it’s a bad design. Photo: @urbancyclinginstitute

The narrative around autonomous vehicles often frames them as inevitable. But choosing them is a political choice, not a technological certainty. When we treat self-driving cars as the default future, we choose to double down on private, car-centric infrastructure and unsustainable futures.

🙀 Did you know that 1 in 5 Europeans experience“forced car ownership"? About half of Europeans are car-dependent. 75% never use public transit. Source: Oeko-Institut

Cycling itself isn’t the end goal, but rather cycling is a tool that bring society health, wellbeing, and more democratic use of public space. urbancyclinginstitute.substack.com/p/cycling-an...

Cycling and Public Health

Cycling’s role in bridging the gap between Health, Transport Policy, and Practice

urbancyclinginstitute.substack.com

🚗 “We need Ozempic for cars.” Autobesity is making our city streets more deadly and congested than ever. @christianwolmar.bsky.social wrote about "car-spreading" in @theguardian.com l1nq.com/0ium3vf photo: @cleancitiescampaign.org