Bike Networks Now!

A series of conversations in search of an answer: Why is bike transportation still not possible for most people in American cities and how can we make it a reality?

Hosted by Avi Stopper

Avi Stopper 9/4/26 Avi Stopper 9/4/26

Dave Snyder: Where the Bike Movement Gets it Wrong

Dave Snyder is a battle-tested bike advocate and social entrepreneur. He revived and led the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition for 11 years. He founded Transportation for a Livable City and the SF Transit Riders Union. He led the California Bike Coalition for a decade. And then he was the Senior Director for Infrastructure at PeopleForBikes. Despite decades as the consummate insider — indeed, informed by those decades of experience — he has some surprising views that challenge bike advocacy orthodoxy. You can find him on Substack, where he writes The Movement Newsletter.

Transcript

Avi Stopper (00:09)

Why is that? And how can we fix it so anyone can ride to the places they want to go today? These aren't just freewheeling conversations — we're in search of an answer. And that answer, a modern approach to innovation, is the topic of a book we're writing on how cities can make bike transportation possible today.

My guest is Dave Snyder, a battle-tested bike advocate and social entrepreneur, though I don't know if he'd call himself that. He revived and led the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition for 11 years. He founded Transportation for a Livable City and the San Francisco Transit Riders Union. He was also the executive director of the California Bicycle Coalition — CalBike — for a decade. And then he was the senior director for infrastructure, leading local innovation, at PeopleForBikes.

As you might have guessed, Dave has an uncanny ability to show up at the center of the most critical work on active transportation in this country. He also writes the excellent Substack called The Movement Newsletter — I really like the double entendre there. We'll link to it in the show notes.

I want to start here. You wrote on your Substack: "I expressed disappointment that more people in my hometown aren't taking advantage of the great infrastructure we've built to make cycling safe. Thirty years ago, imagining this degree of infrastructure, I expected more riders. Part of the reason is that even with a bike network that is 95% complete, the unsafe 5% has an outsized impact on ridership." What's going on there? What's your diagnosis?

Dave Snyder (02:31)

I think that since I wrote that, there's another factor that we don't talk about enough in our movement. But I'll address that issue first, because it's true.

If you are new to bicycling, or new to bicycles for transportation, and you try to take a trip and you don't know the best way to go — maybe you don't know that there's a slightly less direct route that is absolutely gorgeous and safe and you would enjoy yourself. Or maybe the best route does have a little bit of a dangerous spot. If you take that trip and have a scary moment, you're not going to take that trip again, even if it was 98% safe and enjoyable. You're just not.

So that's a big issue, and it's not just that the network isn't complete. It's also that people don't know where the network is. I know the work that you do, Avi, with Bike Streets, helping to define crowdsourced bike networks and promote them, is really important. People need to know how to get from point A to point B safely. They don't realize it can be done. They use the same routes they use in their car, or they follow Google, and they end up having an experience that's a little scary. So that has to be fixed.

But the other part that's clear to me is that in the United States, most people — if they can afford a car, if the cost of car ownership and maintenance and parking isn't prohibitive, which in most cities is the case for most people — and they're faced with the decision of taking a car for a couple of miles easily, parking it for free at their destination, or taking a bike for that same trip, out of habit and comfort, they're going to take the car. Even if we've done

Dave Snyder (04:54)

everything we can to make it safe and easy to ride a bicycle.

Avi Stopper (04:58)

That's a very candid hot take on this problem. There's the obvious network gap challenge, but you're getting at something a lot deeper.

I think it's often encapsulated in the statistic we like to kick around about "interested but concerned," which is a stated preference survey in which people are asked where they fit on this spectrum of bike ridership. What we like to kick around is that when surveyed, sixty-plus percent of people say they want to ride their bikes more but they're scared. What you're getting at, though, is something much deeper. Is there a way we can outcompete the dominant paradigm?

Dave Snyder (05:50)

The only way to defeat the dominant paradigm presents us with a conundrum.

In order for our cities to be the joyous, safe, wonderful, convivial, community-oriented places we want them to be — that promote health and happiness, all the things we know will come about if most of those interested-but-concerned folks ride a bike — if we want that, we have to make it harder to drive a car. We have to start charging a lot for parking. We have to start taking away space from automobiles so that it's always congested. We have to make it harder to drive.

The reason that's a conundrum is because we also know that in order to win support for the safety improvements we need, to be anti-car is to trigger opposition against the improvements we're making — opposition that's probably not worth triggering. So: how do we be effectively anti-car, which we must be if we want to succeed, without alienating the folks whose support we need for our safety improvements?

Avi Stopper (07:18)

Do you see a political angle there? Is this politically workable in any way?

Dave Snyder (07:24)

With the infrastructure and density of most cities as they currently are, I kind of don't, I'm sorry to say. But in areas that are already very densely populated — like Manhattan, like the downtowns of half a dozen cities in the country — in those areas where it's already hard to drive, we can have success.

So the political answer, to answer your question, is that we need to build lots more housing without parking, to increase the density and increase the number of people who simply don't have cars. Because they would rather live in a great spot where they can walk to what they need and get one of those brand-new apartments they're building downtown, even though it doesn't have parking, because that's where they want to live.

That is the political answer: to increase the constituency of folks who just don't have cars, and to increase the traffic congestion in those areas so that people who do have cars realize, I don't want to drive a mile and stop at six traffic lights and spend fifteen, twenty minutes to go a measly mile in my car, when I can take this little bike path that goes around the traffic signals and has lights timed at fifteen miles per hour and get there faster. That's the political answer — but it's going to require increased density in our downtowns.

Avi Stopper (09:12)

One of the classic bike advocacy angles, whether stated overtly or not, is an induced demand argument — which is to say, if we build it, people will come. You create the spaces, people will start to use them. Do you feel like that argument, the induced demand argument for bike systems and bike networks, has been proven wrong?

Dave Snyder (09:36)

No. I think it's been proven true, but not to the extent that we had hoped, I think.

Avi Stopper (09:41)

Let me ask you this, going back to that gaps question. For most people, there are these challenging scenarios. No matter how good a certain facility is, it seems to often run up against some problematic transition. Maybe you're in a protected bike lane and then you find yourself in some sketchy mixing zone, and people are turning right and going around you, and there's all sorts of dynamic activity.

Based on anything you've seen, do you think we have really even anywhere tested this complete network concept? Is there a place where we have a complete network that really doesn't have any of those terrible gaps — and has that indeed underperformed in terms of ridership?

Dave Snyder (10:29)

Avi, that's a great question. I wish I had an answer for it.

San Francisco, where I live, is pretty good. I'm able to go to a lot of places on protected bike lanes or pretty quiet streets. And we don't have quite the ridership that I expected. But it's also true that I've chosen to live in places that are on the network, and I know how to get around those few gaps.

So for example, I know that when I leave my apartment building, I ride slowly and respectfully on the sidewalk for three-quarters of a block to get to the network. Otherwise it would be an unsafe route. So I know where the gaps are and how to get around them, so that I don't experience any of those scary moments.

And when I travel with people who are new to bicycling in the city, they are flabbergasted at how safe and easy it is. "Oh my god, yeah, that was so fun. I feel like such a badass riding across town on these bike lanes. I didn't know I could do that. That's so cool."

So to answer your question: we do have complete networks that serve lots of trips. People don't know about them. And so I don't think we have tested the theory as thoroughly as we could.

Avi Stopper (12:24)

That idea — that these things exist in some places with some modicum of completeness, and yet people don't know about them — is pretty intriguing to me, obviously, because we're making bike maps to make networks and systems more navigable and to fill gaps like that.

I'm curious, though, to back up to this point about housing density. From an advocacy standpoint, should we all just become housing advocates? Obviously there's a lot of overlap in terms of urbanism and a desire for densification. There's a nexus between that and bike advocacy. Do you think we need to step back on some of the bike network advocacy, broadly speaking, and orient work more around creating the types of conditions you have in San Francisco — a fairly dense city, as far as American cities go — that therefore necessitate alternative forms, just because the driving reality is so bad?

Dave Snyder (13:28)

Short answer is yes.

California has done a pretty good job with zoning around transit hubs, prohibiting cities from requiring parking in apartment buildings within a certain distance of defined major transit hubs, so that a developer can build a lot more units more affordably without having to dig deep underground for parking or do whatever else they have to do to provide it.

It's not as effective as maximum parking limits. One of the things San Francisco has done to its credit is, in what they call transit priority zones — that term is slightly off — but throughout much of the city, the maximum by-right allowable parking is one parking space per four housing units in a building. You can get certain conditional use permits to triple that. But by right, you're only allowed to build one parking space per every four housing units. That means three-quarters of the residents won't have a place to park their car, and the housing will be more affordable.

There's a strong nexus. And just in terms of the reason why we do what we do: we don't do it just because we like bicycling. We do it for all of the reasons why we like bicycling, which include affordability and equity and community. Housing does all that too, right? Having a lot more housing accomplishes all those same things. So the nexus is strong.

Avi Stopper (15:21)

In terms of some of the things the bike movement is doing well — you're still actively engaged, you're in the game, you're working on a big project in Los Angeles, and it sounds like you're working on some stuff in Marin County as well. As you reflect back on the history of your own career, and where you want to see things going in the immediate and longer-term future, what are some of the things you think we really have done well, that we are indeed getting right, and that we need to double down on?

Dave Snyder (15:56)

I think there are good examples of organizations that have done genuine grassroots organizing that has earned the respect of residents and activists — especially people of color and working-class folks, whose perspective is: I just want to be able to put cheap gas in my car so I can get to work, and I don't want these stupid bicyclists to make that harder.

There are some organizations that have done a really good job of being authentically community organizers. I think Chicago has that. Bike East Bay, in the East Bay area of San Francisco, has that. So to the extent that organizations are doing that genuine community organizing, that's what we ought to double down on.

Avi Stopper (17:05)

What are some of the examples from those types of organizations that have warmed your heart — that have made you feel like this is good, we are doing the good work, this is moving things forward? Things that can produce a proof of concept we could think about using in other places.

Dave Snyder (17:28)

Yeah, I'll give you a great example: Telegraph Avenue in Oakland.

Telegraph Avenue is a major arterial that goes all the way from downtown into Berkeley — an extremely important bike route that had protected bike lanes for part of it. And for an important segment, through a historically Black neighborhood, it had temporary bike lanes: sort of a pilot project, cheap posts to create protected bike lanes. And the merchants, the majority of whom were Black-owned businesses, opposed it.

Avi Stopper (18:15)

Opposed making that—

Dave Snyder (18:17)

Opposed making it permanent, right.

And the head of the Department of Transportation in Oakland, who was a white guy who wanted to do right, didn't want to be yet another white bureaucrat professional shoving something down the throat of a Black community that didn't want it. So he recommended to the city council that they not implement the project permanently, and that they return a grant they'd gotten to make the bike lanes permanent.

And Bike East Bay — only because they already had a good reputation in that community — was able to canvass the business owners, canvass residents, and get enough support in the neighborhood to convince the city council to reject the DOT director's recommendation, accept the grant, and make the protected bike lanes permanent. And now, unsurprisingly, they're loved and they work really well.

Avi Stopper (19:38)

So the organizing element seems to be a through line.

I'm always very wary of drawing analogies to cities in Europe that have been successful with this. But a lot of the classic lore about organizing in the Netherlands in the 1970s, after a series of violent traffic deaths — particularly among children trying to get around — really galvanized a lot of that movement. Or at least that's the mythology around it.

Drawing further inspiration from that, and rewinding to what we were discussing before: when you think about some of those networks in Europe, the competition in some cities, Amsterdam in particular, the traffic is very, very heavy. But in some of the other cities that have been more successful — and to be fair, I haven't been to a lot of these cities, and I'm going there soon, so I'll report back on whether my perception is accurate — bikes do seem in many of those cases to have outcompeted cars.

What's your read on why that's the case? How did they pull a rabbit out of the hat with that when we can't? And is there something we can learn from their example? The car is comfortable in many respects, the car is convenient, it's got air conditioning when it's super hot out — and yet people still seem to be riding their bikes there. Do you have a sense of what they've done that we have not, that has convinced people this is something they should do?

Dave Snyder (21:16)

I'm curious what your theory is on that.

Avi Stopper (21:19)

Ha — you've turned my question into a question.

I don't really know. Here are a couple of observations. To your point from before: when I take someone, or a group of people, on a bike ride around Denver — and I'm talking particularly about people who don't ride with great frequency, who don't think that they can — it's really astonishing to see their response. Wow, I didn't realize I can do that. Wow, that was actually quite delightful. Wow, I'd like to do this more. I'm not sure if they do after the fact, to be fair, but I take some hope from that, because it seems like they really do recognize it's a delightful way to move around.

I also take a lot of hope from certain people I know who within the last five years have themselves become regular, avid, daily riders. Their default mode of getting around is now a bike. So I think the joy and the pleasure are there — people really do experience the endorphins, the dopamine of being out on a bike and moving freely through their community.

Of course, the theory I'm working on is that for most people it's not possible, for the aforementioned reason: in the best-case scenarios we have partially complete networks with lots of gnarly gaps that need to be improved upon. And my guess is that maybe in Europe they've figured out how to create complete networks that are comfortable from point to point. I don't know. What do you make of it?

Dave Snyder (23:06)

The reason I asked you is because I don't have an answer that's different from what I've already said — about the importance of absolute completeness, and density that attracts people to live in a place without bothering to own a car.

Avi Stopper (23:26)

We've talked a lot about people and outcomes thus far, oriented around actually activating folks so they're out riding. I want to ask you about what I observe to be a really substantial incentive design problem with how we think about creating infrastructure. And that is that we are usually looking at the number of bike miles that we build, rather than the number of people we get to actually use those bike miles.

If you think about it from the perspective of network connectivity and gaps: if I'm someone building infrastructure, and I have been given — as was the case in Denver, as you know — this mandate to build 125 miles of bike lanes, I'm not doing this necessarily because I have some desire to game the system. But if the goal is designed to be 125 miles rather than 10,000 new daily riders in our city, it is a lot easier to think about creating networks that have gaps than if I'm motivated to get people riding. If I create five bidirectional miles, I get to count that as 10 miles toward my goal, even though there are gaps perhaps on either side, or it's not networked in, or there aren't crosstown connections.

Whereas by contrast, if we design some of these incentives and the plans more around ridership — we want to get half the kids in Denver to ride their bikes to school every day, or 10%, let's start with a reasonable goal — it forces us to really reckon with these gaps. Because we can't have them. If the gaps exist, then those kids can't make those trips to school. I'm curious to hear your take on incentive design.

Dave Snyder (25:38)

Yeah. If the goal of a city is a certain number of bike infrastructure miles, they're going to miss. That is a really dumb goal, to put it bluntly. I like the idea of the goal being a certain percentage of people biking, or a certain number of people biking. That is, after all, what we're going for.

When it comes to infrastructure, though, you can have a goal that relates to the on-street infrastructure — which would be, instead of the number of miles, a certain degree of connectivity in neighborhoods that reach a certain number of people. So you could identify that, okay, these areas, excluding some of the fringes that are maybe too far for most bike trips or not very dense — in these areas, which are home to 85% of the residents of our city, we're going to have a bike network that is completely connected, that touches within a block and a half of every house and job.

And this touches on a tool that doesn't exist to my knowledge, that should exist: a connectivity analysis that is easy enough to do that you can use it as a planning tool. I would love to be able to take a laptop to an official and explain: you have fifteen million dollars to spend, and you're going to spend twelve on this path over here and three on this other section, and here's what that does, here's how many additional people that serves. But what if you spent that fifteen million on these five other projects?

Avi Stopper (27:46)

We'll have to do a screen share one of these days, because I think we've built that tool within Bike Streets in a way that allows you to model the network connectivity and benefit of building a new facility vis-à-vis the population it serves wherever it's located, and the distribution of destinations to which folks are going.

I love your countercultural willingness to self-analyze and challenge some of the orthodoxy in the advocacy movement. You wrote a really interesting piece in which you basically said that bikelash means we are succeeding. There's this quote that's often misattributed to Gandhi, I think, which is something along the lines of: first they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they attack you, and then you win. And you argued, not so long ago in a Substack post, that bikelash is a sign that we're winning. Do you still stand by that argument, since it sounds like you're constantly reevaluating some of these ideas?

Dave Snyder (28:56)

Man. Well, that was before Secretary Duffy comes out and cancels bike lane projects all over the country because he wants people to stay addicted to cars. So yeah, I mean, it's a sign we're winning — but God, it's gotten really hard, and I might retract the "we're winning" part, at least at the national level.

Avi Stopper (29:23)

It's a little bit grim right now, to say the least. But describe at least the logic behind that in the, shall we call it, before times.

Dave Snyder (29:32)

One of the things that bothers me about our industry, so to speak — bike planning, transportation planning — is the unanimous support you get from a city council when you release a bike plan. Cities release a bike plan; the consultant's job is to be nice so that they can keep getting contracts. And so they are quick to insert in a bike plan: this proposal needs more study.

I'll take the example of San Rafael, California, where they are about to finalize a bike plan. The single most important gap in the network is an east-west route that has to take Second, Third, or Fourth Street. Any street they choose is going to have an impact. It's going to take out parking on a neighborhood commercial street, or it's going to take out a traffic lane on a busy freeway access street. Those are your choices, right?

And to me, the job of a bike plan is to do the outreach, identify the pros and cons, and make a choice as part of your plan. But this plan instead proposes bike lanes all over the place and then identifies that particular segment as something that requires further study.

I would much rather see the bike plan pass on a vote of six to five, with a proposal that is actually going to be built and at the expense of a great amount of bikelash, than a bike plan that has unanimous approval because all the hard decisions were punted. So bikelash means that we're forcing them to make hard decisions. And that's a success.

Avi Stopper (32:02)

Thanks for listening to Bike Networks Now. If you'd like to stay connected between episodes, check out the free Bike Streets newsletter. Every other week you'll get a carefully curated collection of stories, ideas, and resources about building safer, more connected places to bike. It's thoughtful, practical, and designed for people who care about making better, more bike-friendly communities. You can subscribe at bikestreets.com/newsletter.

Avi Stopper (32:38)

It's interesting to hear you dump on the bike master planning process. Is that a process that needs to be totally overhauled — completely discarded? Because it seems like that founding document is so unactionable as to be, in most cases, useless. And paralyzing, perhaps, even worse. What's your take on what we should do with that process?

Dave Snyder (33:10)

I want to see a bike plan that, upon approval, means the projects are approved. I want all of the process — and it might take longer — but I want all of the process that goes into developing a bike plan to lead to decisions, so that when the bike plan is approved, you don't have to keep doing more outreach. It's done.

The reason I think that's important is because in most places there is majority support for a complete network, even at the expense of car traffic, even at the expense of parking. Because in reality, the impact as a whole is not that great, and people understand it. There is support.

But if you look at a project by itself, singularly, the support withers. The same person who would support a complete bicycle network with a very minor citywide impact will oppose vociferously the piece of that network that happens to impact them.

Avi Stopper (34:31)

This is a sticky question. As I understand it, a bike master plan might cost a big city two, three, four million dollars, depending on the scope, the scale, and what exactly it includes. If that document were completed and went to city council, and the city council stamps their approval on it, and then the DOT goes out the next day and starts building because this is the blueprint, for lack of a better description — that's my take on what you're describing.

Talk about incentives, potentially perverse incentives, for consulting firms — that that's actually not a desirable document to create. Because if that document were simply to create the actual implementation plan, the dozens and dozens of projects that in the current paradigm fall out of that document... In other words, the master plan says we need to do a bike lane over here, and then that becomes a consulting project that goes out to bid. Do you think there's an incentive problem there — that part of the dependency of these consulting firms orbits around the fact that there's just always a gravy train of work?

Dave Snyder (35:47)

I do. Thank you for mentioning that. I'll give you a perfect example, and it's the issue I'm working on in Los Angeles.

The LA River has a bike path that goes all the way from the San Fernando Valley to Long Beach. It is an incredibly important and well-loved piece of infrastructure in Los Angeles — except that it is missing eight and a half miles right in the middle, right through downtown LA. Because there, unlike along the rest of the river, there are train tracks and utility infrastructure and lots of bridges, private property right up against the edge of the river. To put the path against the edge, where it is everywhere else, is challenging.

There has been a proposal for a long time to just put the path in the channel. It means that when it floods, ten to twenty days a year at most, you won't be able to use it. LA Metro, in charge of that project, did the environmental impact report — spent upwards of $50 million going to engineering firms and planning consultants to analyze how we could put a bike path along the river.

I should back up to say that voters approved this bike path in a sales tax measure and set aside $365 million ten years ago to build this path, on the idea that it would be in the channel. There's not a lot of money to be made doing engineering on a bike path in the channel. There's a lot of work in figuring out how to build 25 bridges that go around all of the infrastructure on the edge of the river.

And so the EIR dismissed the affordable, feasible in-channel option and instead proposed $1.1 billion of infrastructure above the river. Which is not going to happen. It is not

Dave Snyder (38:07)

going to happen.

Avi Stopper (38:08)

And it will be studied and studied and studied.

Dave Snyder (38:12)

Yeah. All unnecessary. All unnecessary.

Avi Stopper (38:14)

Interesting. There's a complex relationship there in terms of what cities have the internal capacity to do and what they ultimately have to farm out to other providers.

Back to the point about conflict — a moment ago you made this really interesting argument that there's support for networks but not support for individual facilities. I think I also observe that not just in the run-up to the construction of those facilities, but in the actual results they produce, because so often those facilities are disconnected. And what you just hear ad nauseam is: see, people don't even use it. What's your take on that argument — that people don't use it because it doesn't connect to things?

Dave Snyder (39:05)

I think that to some degree that's a misperception. You can look at a bike path and see nobody in it one moment and say nobody's using that bike path. You can look at that same bike path a few minutes later and see ten people in it — and not notice that those ten people, if they were in cars, would be completely congesting the roadway that you're on. So the visual impact isn't what will lead people to think these facilities are very well used.

So I think it's a perception problem in part. And also, to your point, yeah, we need a complete network. And that's where community organizing comes in.

Avi Stopper (40:01)

All right, so I have a couple more questions. I wanted to ask you about community organizing, because somewhere I read that you describe yourself as an expert movement builder. What does a movement look like to you? These things are so amorphous. When you think about a movement that is effective, what are the leading indicators?

Dave Snyder (40:23)

I think an effective movement has two prongs.

One is what people commonly think of as a movement: a broad-based, amorphous, but strongly felt opinion and action on an issue. With the bike issue, it is just this broad-based feeling that yeah, it needs to be safer, people want to bike and they're not biking. That comes across with or without an organization.

But the second prong is that organization — some structure, some discipline, some political strategy that builds upon this broad-based passion to win specific political goals and specific political decisions that meet the demands of the movement. One without the other is not going to be nearly as effective as having both.

Avi Stopper (41:40)

I've got to ask you about our Bike Streets work in Denver, and our attempt to get the city to build, in one relatively fell swoop, a connected network that would improve incrementally over time. There are weak points in the network, clearly, but it would truly provide connectivity.

What's your view, using the framework you just described — where you've got a general sense, the vibe in the populace, that there is a desire for a complete network, the way people talk about their interest in using this even if that's not quite manifested yet in their actual behavior? And then our work is to provide a concrete path forward to the city to actually accomplish that. And it involves some pretty significant compromises. As you know, our work says we generally prefer the idea of connectivity, even if that means the big gnarly fights over arterials are something we save for another day.

Dave Snyder (42:56)

I'm glad you asked that question, because I wanted to add something to my earlier comment which addresses it.

And that is that the organizational part of that movement, to be doing its job, has to have a light hand on public demand. In order for that massive public demand — that amorphous, broad-based passion — to grow and to be powerful, an organization that tries to harness it... and "harness" is a bad word to use in this context. Let me say: the organization that tries to leverage that passion to make specific political goals has to allow a diverse ecosystem of opinions, and let some people in the movement disagree with the organization.

Let some people in the movement show up to the hearing when you're arguing for a certain facility that someone else thinks is a bad idea. Don't squash that. Allow it to blossom. And as an organizational leader, keep your focus on your political goals. But don't try to control everything, because that will dampen the movement.

It's a challenge for an organization to do that, because you want to be disciplined. You don't want dissent expressed publicly. But that kind of dissent, when it stokes passion for the movement, eventually will help your political goals in the long run. So a strong movement has an organization that fosters the passion and then lets it express itself.

Avi Stopper (44:57)

Lets it express itself however it needs to.

I've got to ask you this before we wrap up. What do we do about electric motorcycles on bike trails?

Dave Snyder (45:09)

Oh man.

Avi Stopper (45:11)

I've come to the oracle. Please — what do we do about this?

Dave Snyder (45:18)

Get them off.

The ones that are legit Class 1 e-bikes that nobody really pedals — they're really 20-mile-per-hour electric motorcycles in my mind, but legally they're bikes. I don't think we can do anything about them. I sincerely don't. We're not going to change the speed to something more appropriate, as they have in Europe, which is 15.5 miles per hour. We're just going to have to live with that, and then be really, really strict on the illegal ones that go faster than twenty.

Avi Stopper (46:04)

What does that enforcement look like? It's such a sticky question. You're going to have cops chasing kids around — kids not wearing helmets going forty on these things. It feels intractable to me.

Dave Snyder (46:21)

Yeah, I don't know. Maybe — I don't think that a device that can go faster than twenty miles per hour on a throttle should be sold without a license plate holder. If you sell a bike that can go faster than twenty, it has to have a place to affix a motorcycle license plate, right? And right now they're not. Right now, though they're legally required to have license plates, they don't come equipped to put one on. That's one way to stop it.

I don't want to see cops chasing people down. Maybe they can confiscate those devices that are parked on the street, with the assumption that, well, if it's parked on the street it must have been ridden on the street, and it's not allowed to be ridden on the street because it doesn't have a license plate. I don't know.

But this points to an infrastructure thing that you'd appreciate, Avi, because I know Bike Streets uses quiet residential streets without infrastructure necessarily. With the rise of e-bikes — including legitimate e-bikes, ones that go no faster than twenty on a throttle, and ones that can go even faster pedaling — those speeds are too fast for a lot of our bike paths. And even for some protected bike lanes, those speeds are too fast. But they're not too fast for a quiet residential street.

That means if we can make the intersections safe and convenient for people on those quiet residential streets, so that you don't have to stop every block, then we could have bike networks that allow people to go really fast across town. It really opens up the mobility options for people.

That's the future of LA, by the way. LA has miles and miles and miles of residential streets that can be traffic-calmed and redesigned to prioritize low-speed vehicles like bikes and e-bikes.

Dave Snyder (48:42)

And really end up serving Angelenos with safe, comfortable routes at relatively fast speeds to their growing transit system, which is underappreciated in the country.

Avi Stopper (48:58)

I should let you know that we just started an LA County low-stress bike map with some advocacy groups there. So hopefully there will be a Bike Streets map for LA before too long.

Dave, thank you for your leadership and for spending some time with me. I really appreciate the conversation.

Dave Snyder (49:16)

Appreciate it, Avi. I appreciate it a lot. And I wish you the best with Bike Streets' work. Let's make a meeting to show me your planning tool — I want to see that.

Avi Stopper (49:26)

Let's do it.

Thanks for listening. If you have questions, comments, or suggestions for guests you'd like to hear from, drop us a line at info@bikestreets.com. Bike Networks Now is hosted by me, Avi Stopper, and edited, mixed, and produced by David Childs. The show is a production of Bike Streets. Anyone should be able to ride a bike to any destination in their city today. You can learn more about our work at bikestreets.com.

Avi Stopper 8/28/26 Avi Stopper 8/28/26

Tony Cherolis & Leslie Schulte: Tactical Urbanism in Indianapolis

Why isn’t tactical urbanism more common? On the grandest scale, it was good enough for New York City in the redesign of Times Square. Why aren’t we using this to figure out how to make streets better all the time? Indianapolis hasn’t quite done that, but they are one of the few cities with has a formal Tactical Urbanism program.

Transcript

Avi Stopper (00:09)

Avi Stopper (01:06)

In previous episodes, we've gone local by focusing on a specific city. This time around, we're zooming in on a specific program within a specific city.

If you've listened to this show for a while, you know that we've developed something of a drinking game: I say tactical urbanism and everyone drinks. A glass of iced tea, that is. But seriously, I keep coming back to this question: why isn't tactical urbanism used more often? On the grandest scale, it was good enough for New York City in the redesign of Times Square. And on a much smaller scale, it's been used in some places to demonstrate things that are nondescript, like a new stop sign at a neighborhood intersection. Why aren't we using this to figure out how to make streets better all of the time?

Indianapolis hasn't quite done that, but they are one of the few cities I'm aware of that has a formal tactical urbanism program. To learn more about it, I'm joined by Tony Cherolis, the executive director of Central Indiana Cycling, a local advocacy group, and Leslie Schulte, an Indy resident and professional engineer who has, as an avocation, led at least one major tactical urbanism project in Indy with spectacular results in both safety and policy changes.

I should note that Leslie also has a PhD in chemical engineering and did her postdoc work — okay, let's see if I can even read this — quote, "developing a novel method to produce nanoparticles using a membrane contactor to precisely deliver reagents and intimately control reaction kinetics." So: snap, the perfect background to be leading tactical urbanism. Welcome to you both. How did I do with that intro?

Tony Cherolis (03:00)

Sounded great to me. That was quite the tongue twister.

Leslie Schulte (03:01)

Delightful.

Avi Stopper (03:04)

We will not be talking nanoparticles — just macro particles, the opposite end of the spectrum.

Okay, so Tony, I want to start with you. In your mind, what is tactical urbanism? And why is this program not, in your opinion — at least to quote previous conversations you and I have had — why is this not tactical urbanism?

Tony Cherolis (03:26)

What we're doing now in Indy is not tactical urbanism in the way that I define it, or in the ways I've previously been involved with it, in other cities and in Indy. That's where you get some cones, you create a bump-out in your neighborhood, and nobody filled out any forms.

Avi Stopper (03:48)

And no one has to fill out any forms.

Tony Cherolis (03:50)

Yeah. It's actually tactical. It's a pop-up, and the community is just doing the thing and seeing how it works.

So in Indy, with this current program — the Community-Powered Infrastructure program, which has room for both small projects and large projects, all the way up to new sidewalks or a street redesign, where a community organization or nonprofit is splitting the cost with the city — these projects include all the forms you would typically have to do for a street construction project. There's an application process, there are permits, there's a contract with the city. We're paying traffic officers at the site. Basically it's a city project that's run by volunteers.

So a lot less tactical in that pure sense of the term. It still is a lot faster than a typical city DPW design change or street improvement project.

Avi Stopper (05:02)

It's guerrilla tactical urbanism as compared to bureaucratic tactical urbanism, maybe. Is that the right characterization?

Tony Cherolis (05:10)

Yeah. It definitely does move faster than the normal internal processes of the city. And all the pieces we're using are portable and temporary. So we're not pouring concrete. In our experience, at least thus far, we've not been able to bolt anything in — or remove anything that's been bolted in, even if it makes a lot of sense.

Avi Stopper (05:35)

I want to start off by actually quoting Indy's promotional literature for this particular program, just so we're all on the same page about how they bill it. They say: tactical urbanism is a program that allows communities to test infrastructure changes in their neighborhood through low-cost temporary projects. The community will work with the city to develop a hypothesis and collect data, both pre- and post-project implementation, to see whether these proposed changes would be effective solutions to the issues they are facing. They continue: communities also have access to a lending library of materials to help bring project costs down even further. Some of these materials include water barriers, A-frame barriers, traffic cones, traffic flags, and paint rollers.

Tony, what would you say are the benefits of these types of interventions — this type of program — at least in the creation of ideas around safer streets that could plausibly lead to longer-term implementations? And in particular, there are safe-streets tactical demonstrations, and then there are bikeway-specific demonstrations. What would you say are the benefits?

Tony Cherolis (06:51)

It feels like a lot of our projects are mixed. They're not just bikeway pop-ups, they're general traffic calming. So it's neat — we're doing multiple safety improvements in the same project space.

The benefits of this program are that there is that lending library. I don't think Leslie had a lending library for her first project, which made it a lot more complicated. But the lending library is very helpful. We don't have to purchase and store big bulky cones and water barriers and parking blocks and such.

Then there's the outreach ahead of the project — the canvassing and door knocking that volunteers do in the area, the signs we put up around the project so folks can look up the project and understand why there's this traffic calming project, or what are these crazy orange barriers in the middle of the road. They're able to answer those questions and get engaged.

And then the folks who do volunteer — I think the 16th Street and Monon project we had, there were a hundred volunteers involved. Those are all super fans of the project, and they're pushing on the city to make the project real and permanent after the temporary is removed. So I think those volunteers and those contacts and the super fans that get developed around each project are super useful in moving that project from a demonstration to an actual quick build, like a semi-permanent installation or a permanent redesign.

Avi Stopper (08:35)

Leslie, I'm not sure whether you'd describe yourself as a super fan or a leader in this, but you have worked on these projects — indeed, you have led them. From your perspective, how does the program work?

Leslie Schulte (08:47)

So I identify as a hyperlocal micro celebrity. And I think I can claim the hyperlocal and micro celebrity mantle pretty well.

Avi Stopper (09:00)

Micro celebrity. Could it be a nano celebrity?

Leslie Schulte (09:04)

A nano celebrity might be more accurate in terms of who knows me.

Avi Stopper (09:09)

What is the program like? What is it like to run one of these projects?

Leslie Schulte (09:14)

Well, the program is very different today than it was when I went through it. And I am so pleased that the city of Indianapolis took some of the advice I gave them.

The project that I led was the largest to date in 2023. So here we are three years later. The application process is now two steps. They show you actual images that I created for developing traffic plans, which did not exist in 2023. They said, you need to tell us what your traffic maintenance plan is. No one outside of the civil engineering world knows what a traffic maintenance plan is. So using that kind of language created a steep learning curve, really — for the city, and for anyone looking to do the application and complete one of these projects.

We were not the first project in Indianapolis to use this program, and that was incredibly helpful. The first project was actually a protected bike lane.

Avi Stopper (10:32)

Leslie, if I may, just real quick — let's rewind to the original state of this location. First off, I think it was on 10th Street, correct?

Leslie Schulte

Yes.

Avi Stopper

And what was 10th Street like before? And what were the things you needed to do to get the city to think, okay, this is indeed a good idea for us to run this project? Let's just start with: what did 10th Street look like before this project?

Leslie Schulte (11:02)

Okay. So the motivation for this project actually happened five years earlier, in 2017, when a woman was able to drive down the center turn lane at rush hour at speeds exceeding 100 miles per hour.

The important thing to note here is that it was rush hour, and that this woman was driving an early 2000s Oldsmobile Alero. This is not a souped-up Dodge Challenger at 2:30 in the morning when the bars close. This is folks coming home, folks picking up their kids, folks going to dinner — maximum number of people on the roads. And the design of this road is such that at any point, anyone in any vehicle can go whatever speed they want.

Tony Cherolis (11:57)

Yeah. 10th Street, if I had to describe it, looks like an early 2000s road diet, where there's an uninterrupted wide center turn lane and a travel lane in each direction on either side of that. And then I think that section has paint-marked bike lanes, right? It was like a death road converted to an early 2000s road diet.

The center turn lane, as everybody's sort of learned, is just where people go make terrible decisions — high-speed passing, two cars racing each other with one of them in the center lane. We've got a lot of those late '90s, early 2000s road diets in Indy, which are marginally better than the two-lanes-each-way, even worse death road — but still not a safe road. That center turn lane is really unpredictable for folks who are trying to actually turn, and for pedestrians who might get stranded in it while they're crossing the street at rush hour. They're just in that center lane while people are trying to race through it.

Avi Stopper (13:09)

Leslie, I understand that you did some sort of survey with the neighborhood where you broadly asked people how they felt about 10th Street. Why did you start there? What was the survey asking, and why did you feel strategically that was the place to start?

Leslie Schulte (13:29)

So before the tactical urbanism project was even adopted by DPW, I was trying to build support for real construction changes to East 10th Street. I wanted to prompt people to think about the space, and think about whether it's serving their needs.

What we found when we gave out that survey was that everybody — whether they're driving, biking, walking, or waiting for the bus — they don't feel safe. This, to me, is a failure of road design.

Avi Stopper (14:11)

So basically you spend all this time collecting local stories about it, collecting local feedback. And then you go through this massive application process. I take it the application was probably early in the existence of this tactical urbanism program from the city — is that correct? Was this one of the first ones? I think you mentioned there was one other project that had happened earlier, but this is very much in the infancy of the program.

Leslie Schulte (14:39)

Correct. And so the application process was very open-ended. It's a twelve-page document. It took us eighteen months to get a permit.

One of the reasons for that was that the operations department said you can't install anything except traffic control devices. And the capital projects team said you cannot mount anything to the ground. So now I think all groups go into it knowing the materials they can use. Unless you are on a very local, local-traffic-only cul-de-sac, you're really constrained to things like cones, water barriers — just traffic control devices.

The city of Indianapolis is not going to let you put out flower pots. They may look prettier, there's a lot of public support for those, but these items will get hit. That was a challenge my neighborhood certainly had. We were really excited to put planters in the center turn lane. And I'm glad we didn't do that.

Avi Stopper (16:02)

They would have gone airborne, it sounds like.

Leslie Schulte (16:04)

Yes. And the number of people who would have slammed into these items at high speeds would have been alarming. Now, of course, the solution to prevent them from sailing through the air is to permanently mount them to the concrete or the asphalt, to the pavement. And that is not, at this time, allowed by the city of Indianapolis.

Avi Stopper (16:32)

Tony, I want to jump in here real quick. I know there are process issues you have with the way this is currently implemented, but it does sound like it's getting better, and that there have been a series of evolutionary steps in this process. I'm really curious about this idea of a city learning and continuing to refine and iterate a program like this. Are you encouraged — while it's not perfect — about the general direction or trajectory of this program? That it is getting better, that the red tape is being reduced, that hundred-page applications are no longer the requirement?

Tony Cherolis (17:22)

Yeah. It was clearly a fledgling program when we did our first project last year on 52nd Street near the Monon Trail crossing. In addition to the application confusing folks who might not be a civil engineer or a planner by career or day job — it's still confusing for somebody who's not in that role, but you just kind of have to complete the process. They'll look at what you do give them, and then you're working with the planner and engineer to refine your proposal.

There are a lot of questions you just can't even answer. So we just said, I can't answer that question, I don't have an approved plan because I have to meet with you guys first. Here's the idea, but I can't actually give you a traffic plan until you've approved our sketch. It was really helpful to have an in-house DPW person walking you through the different steps that you don't know as somebody outside the department, and not working as a consultant with the city. That definitely made it doable.

I can't say that it's doable for everybody, as I'm also an engineer by former career, so I'm used to detailed technical documents and drawings. But the process — I think they had 20 applications approved this year. The folks working on it seem like they're overloaded with the support they're doing to bring those across the line. And two of those we've been directly involved with.

Avi Stopper (19:15)

We'll get back to those in a moment. It's great to hear that the general trajectory is that it is improving.

I'm curious to what extent your organization, Central Indiana Cycling, has made part of your work on this to advocate for the improvement of the process itself. Is that central to this work — giving them feedback and trying to push on the various strange parameters that still exist, the inhibitors restricting various types of groups from getting these projects on their streets?

Tony Cherolis (19:52)

Yeah, yeah. We definitely feel like giving that input and feedback is helpful for the process, and it has been — if not fully implemented, taken in and considered.

One of the things I noted in the first one we did was that we submitted our report for reimbursement at the end of the project for 50% reimbursement, and it took four months for the city to process it. If I were a very small neighborhood organization, or just a concerned neighbor self-funding this project and counting on the several thousand dollars coming back in matching funds, four months is a long time.

So I gave that feedback. I said, hey, the process for reimbursement shouldn't be more than 30 days after somebody's submitted. That needs to be much quicker for small neighborhood organizations or PTOs that you want involved in this. So they understand that. I haven't submitted my next expense report yet, but we'll see — hopefully it's quicker this time.

Avi Stopper (21:06)

Leslie, back to the 10th Street story. The before state is this high-speed road that has been sort of quasi-lane-dieted back in the early days. It still has this center lane that's largely undifferentiated, two very high-speed travel lanes.

Describe what I would have seen if I'd gone out there on the day you installed your project — your tactical urbanism vision of the future. What would have looked different? Walk with me virtually down the corridor.

Leslie Schulte (21:42)

You would have seen us loading barriers a dozen at a time into the truck, a bunch of volunteers swarming in their safety vests to roll these things out into the road.

So: there's a wide open center turn lane, a lane of traffic in either direction, and then bike lanes on either side of the road. We rolled out 24 median islands across the mile, about every 250 feet, which is supported in the literature as the spacing required so that a driver will choose to go at constant speed. You also would have seen us rolling these out in a straight line along the bike lane paint.

These were supposed to mimic curbs. I think they worked even better than curbs, because the water walls are about 18 inches tall and they're beefy. They're beefy boys. So the protection they provided, and the squeeze on drivers to make sure they're paying attention and keeping their eyes on the road — the vertical height of the barriers really helps with that effect.

So you would have seen that. The other thing you would have seen is that it rained the first day we put out the barriers. And the barriers were set on a slope. So the barriers floated down with the rain — because this is a key point: you fill barriers with pool-filling companies. That's who fills them.

Avi Stopper (23:21)

No.

Leslie Schulte (23:31)

If you're going to have 200 of these suckers, the fire department is not going to fill your barriers for you. It affects their readiness if they're going to spend a half day filling these things for you. It's quite a bit outside their job description.

And pool-filling companies work Monday through Friday, nine to five. But volunteers who will sling barriers work Saturday, maybe Sunday. So there is this gap that exists, and continues to exist, for how do we get these things filled on a reasonable time scale? I've suggested to DPW that they include a water tank that can be mounted onto a truck, just to gravity-fill the barriers with some amount of water so they won't float off. But it remains an unresolved issue. That's characteristic of these volunteer-led projects.

Avi Stopper (24:32)

But we learn as we go. There is a significant data obligation when you run one of these projects. In fact, in their documentation they lead with the idea that data collection is the whole point. What data, Leslie, did you provide them with that told the story of what happened here?

Leslie Schulte (24:55)

So we had the pre-results, asking neighbors — soft data, I would call it. How do you feel?

Afterwards, we found a complete inversion of how neighbors reported feeling about using this particular one-mile stretch. We went from the majority of all users feeling unsafe to the majority of all users feeling safe. And this was so great to see. Something like 90% of people driving went from reporting they felt unsafe to reporting they felt either safe, or that they don't feel unsafe but they also don't feel safe — so kind of a neutral feeling. That's a heck of a lot better than the original data showed, which was that 70% of drivers felt incredibly unsafe on a road really built for them.

The other thing we got was crash data from IMPD. Our project was out for 90 days. In the year prior to this project being rolled out, there were 30 crashes in 90 days — same time period, August to October. So a crash every three days. I could not believe it was that high. But then thinking about it — yeah, you do see a crash a couple times a month, and we're not on the road very long.

With the project in place, we saw eight crashes in 90 days. And half of those crashes were folks in a single car running into a barrier. So that, to me, was a great success.

A lot of members of the community had some fun making fun of the folks who crashed into barriers, but I have to tell the story: two of these crashes were through no fault of the drivers. One, a woman's windshield fogged up on a rainy day, and she drifted into the center turn lane and hit a batch of barriers and a street tree. If that hadn't been there, she could have drifted into oncoming traffic and the crash could have been so much worse. But she effectively had a car malfunction.

Another driver passed out. A neighbor noticed them just slowly creeping down the road, and went and banged on the guy's window. He didn't really hit the barriers, he just pushed them. She got him out of the car, and he spent some time in an ambulance. None of us know exactly what happened, but it's pretty clear that he either fell asleep or maybe had low blood sugar — some kind of medical emergency that required care.

So the design we put in place, with the protections on the bike lanes and especially breaking up that center turn lane, makes everybody safer, including drivers.

Avi Stopper (28:17)

Let's jump over to Tony. In your experience, how do these projects help accelerate a transition from idea, conception, hopes and dreams of community members into actual policy?

Tony Cherolis (28:33)

I love Leslie's explanation of the center islands in the median. Not policy, but that experience and the layout Leslie used in the East 10th Street project — we used both in our 52nd Street project in an uninterrupted turn lane, and we just installed them on 46th Street. So exactly the same kind of center turn lane treatment is something we were able to reuse, as learning and as training people that center turn lanes are safer when there are medians in them and they're not used for high-speed passing. I like that physical learning.

Policy-wise, that tactical urbanism project that Leslie and the neighborhood organization applied for — that very complicated program progressed into a formalized program with an online application. And that process has been adjusted some, even after the first year of it coming into fruition.

Functionally, the city is moving toward a concept of quick build, which is where the city does a semi-permanent installation — Leslie is cheering for it, I'm sure — where they bring in more permanent infrastructure to either replicate or learn from the demonstration project, and keep that in place until a more permanent changing of curbs and full redesign is in place. So you can make a pop-up cones-and-rubber-parking-block demo project into a permanent bump-out with some concrete curbing and some more permanent bolt-down bollards, and leave that in place year-round.

So I'm excited to see the evolution of that tactical urbanism safety demonstration project — the smoothing of the way that creates the quick follow-on by the city as a quick build project.

Tony Cherolis (30:58)

Or, if they're doing a big redesign already, it just gets worked straight into the redesign.

Avi Stopper (31:03)

I want to burrow into the origins of the tactical urbanism program. I want to make sure I understand exactly the sequence of events that led to its creation.

Am I understanding correctly that the sequence was: Leslie ran her project, it was really complicated, it required the expertise of a professional engineer — and from that, we have this Community-Powered Infrastructure program and tactical urbanism as we understand it? That program evolved out of this, as a result of creating this project? Leslie, you're nodding.

Leslie Schulte (31:41)

Yes. So they had an art-in-the-right-of-way policy document, and that had been in place for at least a couple of years when the tactical urbanism policy was adopted. They realized: we cannot just have two documents. The city realized, hey, these policies are great, but no one will really use them to their full potential.

The first year the tactical urbanism policy was out, they got one application, which they approved. And then the second year they got the application that I did, and another neighborhood that I helped. So that is one year to the next year. This is not transformative change. This is a policy sitting on a shelf that is not usable.

So they created Community-Powered Infrastructure, which merged those two. They also added in a 50-50 cost share, which was an existing program for improving sidewalks and resurfacing — it was used a lot of times by HOAs, who would front 50% of the cost and get some improvement. Schools and big institutions would use it. Well, that 50-50 cost share now applies to these smaller, cheaper, much more feasible projects. You're talking about a neighborhood needing to come up with $5,000, and the city will match it, and they can have this big beautiful bump-out or mural.

And then with the Community-Powered Infrastructure program, they built a portal for the application, which was based on a presentation I gave. The city of Indianapolis sat in the room and realized: wow, it takes two and a half hours for a volunteer to explain how they can apply. I think it was like sixty slides that I put together. And they were like, yeah, okay, we got it. We've got to do something different.

Avi Stopper (33:46)

I'm curious whether the way for other cities to break through might be this: you've got a motivated community group that does have some resources. Do they bring in a professional engineering firm and do some project — either small, or in your case large — and somehow convince the city because of the legitimacy, the stamp of approval, of having professional engineers involved? Maybe they can get that project across the line, and that becomes the catalyst for the city to have a formal or improved series of processes by which other community groups can do this.

Which is to say: maybe, yes, it costs a heck of a lot and takes a thousand hours of your time for the first one. But we're trying to find the path to make these types of programs more common, more available in cities across the country. Tony, what's your perspective? Do you see that as a viable path? It's highly speculative, to be fair, but I'm grasping at straws here. I want to do some projects like this in Denver. How do we make it happen?

Tony Cherolis (34:59)

I think that's one path. And a parallel way to push on it is to try a partnered project and then formalize it. The other great thing is that Indy DPW staff are definitely taking this project to conferences and presenting it, where other cities can see what they're doing.

The other way that tactical urbanism was born is if community groups and neighbors just start doing it themselves — hashtag JFDI — and they create their own bump-outs, they start painting their own crosswalks, and the city realizes: we don't want to call the cops on these folks, we want to give them a process that makes sure this is managed and safe.

I've definitely been involved in those unapproved projects before, and had meetings where police were involved. The city does not typically enjoy those projects. They also don't enjoy the publicity of being shown that these citizens are going out and painting crosswalks where they think they're unsafe, or putting in a bump-out, or buying some speed humps online and just dropping them in their neighborhood. They much prefer a formalized process.

So if you can make enough of a mess in your city, where you get in the news several times doing these projects, then you might also help instigate a formalized process.

Avi Stopper (36:35)

That's a fascinating path as well — the guerrilla path to a formalized program. You do that work just so you can get all of the red tape that you then have to cut, right?

Leslie, where are we today with the 10th Street story? As I understand it, your work has really accelerated a transformation of that corridor. Describe what the policy actually is, and where we are in the implementation.

Leslie Schulte (37:05)

So we did our contract in the summer of 2023. We collected data in the immediate aftermath, and we had a data release presentation in February of 2024. The data was so good. Our city councillor was behind it 100%, and that was so critical — to have an elected official on the Community Heights side to push a permanent change to the street based on the data. So it was funded in the next budget season, 2024, the same year the data was released.

For those who don't know construction well: quick build projects would be the solution in between. Hey, something needs to be done here. We did the temporary tactical urbanism project. Now we're going to install something bolted to the ground — and it's got to be bolted, because people are going to hit these things. Parking stops, bollards, just something that could be bolted down today to break up that center turn lane. And pretty inexpensively — we're talking less money than it cost us to purchase the barriers.

That has not been done yet. Tony, are you aware of any quick build projects that have actually been installed?

Tony Cherolis (38:34)

I know of some quick build type things that the city has just done. One quick build they did was the safety improvements at Massachusetts Avenue and College, where a pedestrian was struck by a driver that went up onto the sidewalk. So they've added flex bollards on the curb, and the neighborhood organization — because it's on the sidewalk — was able to put in heavy concrete planters. They've still left the water barriers in place, which I don't totally understand. But they sort of did a quick build there. They didn't have a demonstration project, because the intersection was too complicated to actually change anything without a full design.

I know that on Kentucky Avenue they put in a pop-up bike lane with concrete barriers when they closed the White River Trail for construction, and that's a quick build method. But I'm not aware of any of our demonstration projects getting converted into a quick build yet.

Leslie Schulte (39:52)

So it's promised, but it hasn't actually happened yet. The original project in 2022 that put a bunch of five-gallon buckets — three five-gallon buckets — at the Illinois Street bike lane, they did put three bollards in. So that did happen, and I want to give the city credit for that.

So: design's funded in 2024. The design contract was executed in 2025. Some negotiation back and forth between the design firm and the city had to happen. We are going to be at 60% design in November of this year. So we are now three years after the project came down, and we are almost done with design.

That's pretty darn slow. But in terms of securing funding — you have to do a survey, you've got to take soil borings, you've got to get a design team onboarded, you've got to get it scoped. I personally am like, yeah, it takes three years to get bid documents. That is a known factoid. So in my mind, I've been extremely optimistic. The turnaround from data release to being in budget season, and the project being included, is incredible. That takes a lot of political will. That takes a lot of people saying yes.

We are going to miss the 2027 construction season. The best time to bid a project is winter, when everyone's thinking construction is a little slower and folks are thinking, how am I going to get my crews working this coming summer? We're not going to make that. So construction is expected to start in 2028.

And we're really excited about that. But a couple of months — actually one month — before we rolled out the project, we had a drunk driver traveling in the opposite direction of the woman at the beginning of my story. He ran a red light at speeds in excess of 70 miles an hour, hit a family, and killed both mom and dad. The baby was in the car; the baby survived.

Leslie Schulte (42:13)

That driver was probably habitually running red lights, but the reason he could do it at 70 miles an hour was the continuous center turn lane. And so every five years this type of crash happens, and we're up — this year is what, year three? So by the time construction starts, if we don't have that center turn lane addressed, and if the past tells us what's going to happen in the future, I kind of expect somebody else to lose their life to this continuous center turn lane.

Avi Stopper (42:50)

Three years, on an arterial that probably didn't previously have a bunch of consideration, is a pretty accelerated timeline — and yet you see the human cost of three years, or of timelines that exceed that, by not moving quicker.

I want to wrap this up on a note that I think is perhaps one of the most promising or interesting elements of tactical urbanism. Tony, you mentioned earlier that there are twenty tactical urbanism projects underway this year in some state of development, which is incredible. I think it tells a really remarkable story about the trajectory of this program overall — acknowledging the blemishes, acknowledging it still needs to be optimized. But from where it was when Leslie did her project on 10th, that just seems really impressive.

What I want to ask you both is: how has this work shaped the way you think about how we do community engagement, and what the future needs to be? Tony, let's start with you.

Tony Cherolis (43:57)

I think an interesting thing about these safety demonstration projects is that we are required to do way more community outreach and engagement than the city does for projects that are way more expensive and permanent. And we're not able to do a checkbox engagement, where we have a meeting, nobody shows up, and it gets done anyway — the sort of thing that happens a lot in the infrastructure space.

Not a whole lot of folks will go to a special public meeting for something they don't understand, out in their free time. But if you knock on their door and tell them, hey, we're going to do some traffic calming on the street, we've had a lot of near misses at this crosswalk, kids have trouble crossing the street from this neighborhood to that park or that school — and then you explain what you're doing with that door-to-door outreach in the project area, and then have other ways for people to engage with surveys.

We've had yard signs in the neighborhoods where the projects are going in, where people can scan them, learn about the project, take a survey, and sign up to volunteer and be physically involved in the project themselves, or in the data gathering before and after. These projects have a lot more engagement and data gathering than a typical Department of Public Works project does. And it builds support for the project. At the same time, you've got the demonstration project showing here's what it actually does — they're experiencing it before it's permanent or semi-permanent.

The outreach part is great. I don't know that I see — just because we're such a big city, and our Department of Public Works is so thinly staffed, and their infrastructure budget doesn't give them a lot of room for staff working on outreach — the way this outreach happens is a bunch of unpaid people do it. And the city is getting the benefit of these unpaid volunteers doing the outreach for the demonstration project, along with the installation and the removal and the data gathering.

Tony Cherolis (46:21)

The only paid person on my side is me, working with a team of forty to a hundred volunteers on a project and walking them through a process that is confusing for somebody who's non-technical.

Avi Stopper (46:36)

Leslie, last word on this. You're an engineer. How has this work changed your perception — the way you think about how we need to engage communities in presenting these solutions to endemic problems that maybe they haven't even imagined are solvable?

Leslie Schulte (46:59)

Tony, what type of engineer are you?

Tony Cherolis (47:01)

I've got a mechanical engineering master's, and I worked in aerospace for about fourteen years. So not directly civil, but drawings and technical documents for sure.

Leslie Schulte (47:13)

Yeah, so we're both the wrong type of engineer for this kind of work. I also have a mechanical degree — that's what my license is in. Vertical construction is what we call it; civil is horizontal.

I wonder what our public spaces would look like if everybody was held to the tactical urbanism level of data collection, and to demonstrating what our public spaces will look like permanently. Can you imagine if, before we built the highway network in our inner cities, speakers had to be set up to blast sound continuously? And then you had to go neighbor by neighbor and be like, are you okay with us demoing your house? Yeah, we're going to blow—

Tony Cherolis (48:10)

We're going to blow sand and rock dust into your yard and living room window. Is this cool?

Leslie Schulte (48:16)

Are these NOx emissions? You've got to measure them before and after. These carbon monoxide emissions — are you cool with this?

Yeah, I think we'd have very different public spaces. So I really did enjoy the data collection and the post-processing. And then going on that micro-nano-celebrity tour, going around to chat with folks, was one of the more rewarding parts.

At one point I had a training for how to go through this the old-school way, before it got easier. And a hundred people stuck with me for more than two hours. The desire is there in the community. We know where our public spaces aren't safe, where they don't feel safe, where they aren't built for everyone. And we can really change those spaces with this policy and show everybody that they can be better.

So: more public outreach that requires you to demonstrate what it will look like in the future, or approximate what it will look like in the future, would be a best practice for all of our departments of transportation and cities. It's not a bad idea.

Avi Stopper (49:30)

That's a great place to end it. Thank you both for your leadership on this, and for sharing your stories with the rest of us who don't quite have this yet in our communities.

Avi Stopper 8/21/26 Avi Stopper 8/21/26

John Simmerman: Streets Are for People

Our guest is John Simmerman, founder of Active Towns. John travels around the world trying to understand what’s working well in active transportation systems and what’s not. He chronicles his adventures on the excellent Active Towns podcast and his prolific Active Towns YouTube channel.

Links

Paris playlist of videos

Walk n' Talk with Chuck in Fayetteville

Strong Towns Ride to Springdale

Transcript

Avi Stopper (01:07)

My guest is John Simmerman, founder of Active Towns. John, more than anyone else I know, travels around the world trying to understand what's working well in active transportation systems and what's not. He chronicles his wild and crazy adventures on the excellent Active Towns podcast and his prolific Active Towns YouTube channel.

One of the big themes in our advocacy and our work in general is constructive criticism — an evaluation of what's working and what's not. A piecemeal, step-by-step approach to building bike networks that spans decades, for example, is something that does not seem to be working especially well. An entrepreneurial approach to solving problems requires a level of humility and constant reflection: identify what works and scale the heck out of it, and be candid about what's not working and discard or refine those ideas.

So in that spirit, I wanted to ask John for his perspectives on this show itself, on our work building low-stress bike maps, and on our advocacy, insofar as he understands it — so that we can get better at the work we're doing. John, how'd I do with that intro?

John Simmerman (02:22)

Love it. It's great.

Avi Stopper (02:24)

All right. So just prepare to shred everything Bike Streets. Let's start with a softy, though, just to give folks a sense of how expansive a perspective you have on all of this. Anytime I'm thinking, hey, who knows someone in this place? — you're the guy I turn to. Where have your travels taken you to learn about bike networks, and what are your favorite places around the world?

John Simmerman (02:50)

To really get us started at the beginning, you have to understand how I see the world, because that dictates how I evaluate the communities I'm visiting. My background is in public health. Health promotion and disease prevention is what I studied, and what I did for the first 15 years of my 36-year-plus career.

So I view the world through that lens: what is our built environment like to experience as a human, and how can it help support human flourishing? When I look at a community and a place and ask, is this a place that would support healthy active lifestyles, I see it through that lens of what encourages and promotes and supports healthy active living, or what thwarts it.

The terminology I use around that is: when we see things out in the built environment that help support healthy active living, I call them activity assets. So when we start to look at things in the built environment and we say, over here we've got a protected bike lane, over there we've got a park, over there we've got a pool, and over here we've got a really nice high-comfort bike priority street or livable street — we can put a pin in a map and say these are the assets. The physical hardware assets.

The software assets are the policies and the procedures and the programs and the engagement activities that bring the hardware to life and really engage and activate communities. And you're kind of in the process of navigating and straddling both the hardware and the software. You're advocating for more hardware, in the sense of more people-oriented streets, and at the same time you're doing community rides and engaging communities, and increasingly now you're spreading the Bike Streets app to new communities. So you've got both the hardware and the software acting at the very same time.

John Simmerman (05:13)

And so that's how I see the world.

Avi Stopper (05:14)

You've developed this lexicon — activity asset being one such example. That framing of supporting human flourishing is so powerful. I don't think most people tend to think about that: how does the built environment support human flourishing?

So describe some of these activity assets more broadly. What are you really looking for when you're thinking about human flourishing? What are the indicators, as you move through a community, that decisions have been made at that policy level that have created the types of activity assets that really do undergird and support human flourishing? And by contrast, what are some of the indicators that those types of decisions have not been made?

John Simmerman (06:01)

The easiest way is to start on the negative side, and to see how our largest public realm — our streets — have literally been ceded over to the automobile. That actually works against human flourishing. It's counter to us living a healthy active lifestyle and being in that space.

When we think of places that really promote human flourishing and being able to thrive as a community, we think about places you want to be in. That's when you get to this concept of streets for people. And that counters the narrative that the street is only for driving as fast as possible, with no friction and no hindrances in the way.

That is not a very pleasant place to be. And as we now know, it's not a thriving place to be — not for humans, not for human flourishing, and not for businesses either. You see that when you bring the temperature down and bring the speeds down. Speed is the critical factor, and volume of vehicles is a critical factor, for what we'll be talking about later when we start talking about streets that are welcoming for people to exist in outside of an automobile. Those are critical aspects of life.

But yeah, it's easy to point to what we have done — especially in North America, but in many other cities around the world. Within the last hundred, hundred and twenty years, we have ceded the space from people-oriented streets to the automobile, and the automobile only. And we now have a car-dependent society.

Avi Stopper (07:58)

When you say the kinds of places that people want to be in — is that the dividing line, in your mind, between what is a good use of public space and what is not?

John Simmerman (08:11)

We have to understand that when we look at the public realm, we have places that you want to be sticky. You want them to be places that attract people, where you're going to be there.

In general, when you think of the vast majority of streets within our communities, and the fact that many if not most of those streets are also residential areas — hopefully with a sprinkling of small businesses, because we need to bring small businesses back into the communities and back into the neighborhoods. That was a new construct, putting down land use planning that banned having businesses, having the corner market and the store and the pub, et cetera.

When you think of those types of streets, they have an inherent stickiness to them. And when they are environments you'd consider a livable street — a place where you can see yourself existing in, walking in, biking in, pushing a baby stroller along — it's like, okay, this is a place that is welcoming.

Not every street is going to be one where you necessarily have a chaise lounge out and where you're going to be hanging out. Some streets will be a flow-through and some will be a flow-to. But at the same time, hopefully we get away from the sort of status quo of creating streets as traffic sewers.

Avi Stopper (09:54)

I want to burrow in a little on a particular verb you used about these public assets. You used the word ceded — we have ceded these assets in the last century. When you think about the way we've basically given these over, what was the before state, in your estimation? And what's the future state you'd like to see?

John Simmerman (10:18)

I think it's important not to look at the before state with rose-colored glasses. It depends on where you're at. If you're in Manhattan and you're turning your eyes to what Manhattan was like prior to the automobile, you've got streets with lots of streetcar lines and trams and horses — and there's a lot of horse manure. This is not necessarily a pleasant place.

But on the flip side, if it's small town USA and it's a quiet residential street, and maybe cars exist but they're not overwhelming, you have a place where the street is an extension of the house. This is where kids will learn how to ride a bike. They're playing stickball in the street. It is part of the public realm, in the sense that this is where life happens.

You have to understand that the automobile, almost as soon as it came onto the scene, created a conflict because of its size, its mass, and its speed. But because there was an awful lot of money to be made, the powers that be pulled together and really got organized under what the historian Peter Norton calls Motordom. That's the term they used themselves — they called themselves Motordom. And they really got to the point where they were able to almost criminalize being in the street. The term jaywalker was created, and suddenly it's illegal to cross the street wherever you want — whereas before, the street was your realm as a pedestrian.

Avi Stopper (12:26)

Speaking of getting out of the house and into the public realm, there's this aphorism in startups: get out of the building. In other words, go out and see the world and see what people are really doing, how people actually behave. In the last couple of years, where have your travels taken you around the world? What are some of the places that have been most remarkable in terms of creating these types of spaces and presenting people with an abundance of activity assets?

John Simmerman (12:59)

As part of Active Towns, getting out and exploring these cities that are striving to become more welcoming for people to live a healthy active lifestyle is the core essence of it. So I've been on a constant, quote unquote, road trip since 2012. I've been literally all across North America, all across Europe. I've been to New Zealand, down under, earlier this year. I've been all over the place.

And I will say this, Avi: every place is trying to get better.

Avi Stopper (13:42)

That is an optimistic view.

John Simmerman (13:44)

I have not visited a community — now, maybe it's self-selecting; I'm not going out of my way to go to a place I know is hostile to creating livable streets — but everywhere I've gone to, they are striving. Some of them are more successful than others, but you're really seeing that there is a value being placed on it. You just said it earlier, the imagery: the new Broncos stadium that they're pulling together. They understand that this sells. They understand that creating public spaces and livable streets is something people have an inherent desire to have.

That said, it doesn't mean making these changes is easy. Change is very, very difficult for people to grasp and understand.

I think one of the most interesting success stories that's emerged in the last decade has been the case of Paris. I was first on the ground there in 2015, when Mayor Hidalgo had her very first car-free day. I was there specifically for it. I was at the tail end of a two-month-long trip in Europe, and I was like, okay, I've got to end my trip here in Paris. It was amazing to see the Champs-Élysées without cars.

And just to emphasize how bad it is with cars — the next day, Monday morning, I went back to the middle of the Champs-Élysées and filmed it again.

Avi Stopper (15:29)

Again that day?

John Simmerman (15:30)

I rode it and I filmed it. I had to give that compare and contrast, so people can go and watch my Paris video and see the Champs-Élysées without cars — or excuse me, with just people — and then the next day see it with the noise and the pollution and the violence that is what we cede our streets over to, which is the automobile.

But the reason Paris is such a great success story is not because of one event and one day, one Sunday. It's that Mayor Hidalgo made a commitment to say: we've got a problem here in the city when you cannot see the top of the Eiffel Tower through the smog. We have to do something different. So she ran on a platform, and was re-elected as mayor, that she was going to transform the city — and not just the major streets, not just the streets that had the protected and separated bikeways. But more importantly, and in alignment with the Bike Streets movement, the side streets. Creating livable streets on the side streets. That's been, I think, the most impressive study. And I've been able to go back multiple times since 2015 to document that progress.

Avi Stopper (16:53)

As we're talking here, I'm looking at a book on my shelf edited by a mutual friend of ours, who you introduced me to — Ruth Oldenziel, who was previously a guest on the podcast. This particular tome is Cycling Cities: The African Experience. Ruth is one of the leading researchers on cycling culture and biking for transportation in cities around the world.

And I think I just got an email from them that they released a new volume about the cycling experience in Tehran. Did you get that, by chance? It's fascinating just to think about how global this fight is for reclaiming public space and being able to use it as an activity asset.

John Simmerman (17:29)

I saw that, yeah.

Avi Stopper (17:42)

Just to book-note Paris there — did you by chance swim in the Seine? Speaking of newfound activity assets, the thought of swimming in the Seine is pretty astonishing.

John Simmerman (17:51)

My most recent visit was one month prior to the Olympics, so it was June of 2024. I could have, because the Seine had been cleaned up and was ready for the Olympics.

That's another great example of how we ceded so much of our public realm over to the automobile. We ceded many of our lakefronts and waterfronts and polluted our waterways. So when you start to see that rehumanization of our space, and creating a truly livable public realm and environment — including cleaning up the water — I know you just interviewed some folks in Portland and they've cleaned up the river there, so you can swim in the Willamette again.

These are really important factors: what we're talking about here is not about creating, quote unquote, infrastructure for special interest groups. What we're creating is a higher quality of life for everybody. We're trying to create more livable places for the people who live there and the people who visit there.

Avi Stopper (19:27)

I want to come back to how you began this work. It's so interesting how many different people come at this work from so many different angles. I started working on it because I was passionate about being engaged in the fight against the climate crisis. Others found inspiration elsewhere — maybe they read some Jane Jacobs, or took a class about the work she did in New York City. Lots of folks, tragically, get into this because they have firsthand experience with traffic violence. Others get into it for financial reasons. Our mutual friend Gary Hardy told me he got into this work because back in the day he needed to save gas money to buy textbooks when he was in college.

It's so funny and so interesting that all roads seem to lead to one answer, which is the bicycle. What do you make of that? Why is that?

John Simmerman (20:28)

I'd actually push back a little and say it's not necessarily about the bike. It's about having mobility options. It's about being in a community, being in an environment where you have the choice — where you have legitimate options to meet your mobility needs. Maybe today it's, yeah, I'm going to go for a walk, I'm going to walk to my destination. Maybe the next day it's, I've got enough things I need to do, and the route is safe and comfortable enough for me to ride my bike. So I'm going to ride my bike. It becomes a pragmatic, practical choice.

When we peel off the onion and look at some of our societies where we're seeing the highest rates of bicycle use, it's not about the bike and it's not about, quote unquote, cyclists. It's about creating a reality where riding a bike is a practical, pragmatic choice. You have a ninefold increase in the ground you can cover riding a bike compared to walking.

So I think that's the key thing: creating environments where that active mode, that active choice, is one of a suite of options. It's not just one network. It's a redundancy of mobility networks, where you have a very attractive network for walking, for biking, for using public transit — and yes, you can drive as well.

Avi Stopper (22:10)

I think I set a bit of a trap for myself by saying biking there. It was inadvertent, and I'm glad you pounced on me, because one of the points of feedback you've given me for quite some time is to avoid the word biking. Why is that?

John Simmerman (22:23)

In our society right now especially, it's just so polarizing, and it's beside the point. It's really not about the bike. It's really about creating an environment that is more people-oriented, and creating mobility options and choice.

When you look at some of the communities that have had the most success accelerating and getting, quote unquote, active mobility networks on the ground quickly, it's when they're able to position and frame this as something everyone will benefit from — not just the people who decide to walk or bike to their meaningful destinations. It's a bonus for everybody. Again, you're bringing that level of quality of life up for everyone.

Avi Stopper (23:18)

In terms of the Bike Streets apps themselves, you've long encouraged us to find a way to add pedestrian routing and other modes. In terms of how we've named the project — Bike Streets — that ship has kind of sailed. And candidly, I don't know much about transit. I don't know much about walking, other than that I do it and use it on occasion.

I worry sometimes that advocacy gets substantial mission or scope creep. And biking alone seems to be a lot. Perhaps the answer is that these are actually multi-purpose facilities, and that's plausible. But how do we reconcile that?

John Simmerman (24:11)

One of the things you can do is help yourself out with the recognition of what some of your success stories are. You've interviewed and profiled many streets that are examples of success — maybe stemming from the pandemic and the lockdown, where streets were closed to cars or to flow-through traffic, or motor vehicle traffic was slowed down completely.

It helps to understand what we're doing there. What makes that a successful place is that it becomes more of a street for people. It's not, again, a car sewer. It's not for going through as quickly as possible by driving a car.

I think that's one of the most wonderful things about this concept. One of the statistics I say over and over and over again on the channel is that part of the beauty of the Dutch cycle network is that 60 to 70 percent of it is shared space. And oftentimes it's not the shared street, it's not the fietsstraten and the ETWs — the local access streets — that get the attention. It's the protected and separated infrastructure.

That's where a lot of your frustration is born from: the incredibly slow rate at which cities are able to build out their high-comfort network of protected facilities on the streets where those are absolutely necessary. And streets where protected and separated infrastructure is necessary, according to the Dutch, is anything north of 30 kilometers per hour. So from a North American perspective, if you've got streets accommodating traffic of 20, 25 miles per hour plus, that's when you need to start creating protected and separated infrastructure.

But on those quieter, low-volume, low-speed streets, these can be shared space. They can be shared by a person riding a bike, a kid

John Simmerman (26:37)

learning how to ride a bike, a person pushing a double-wide baby stroller in the middle of the street. Why? Because the sidewalks either don't exist or they're too narrow for a double-wide baby stroller. These are streets for people. And this is where that mantra comes in: that should be a slow street, a slow environment. Each city should be striving for a 20-miles-per-hour-or-less sort of environment there.

Avi Stopper (27:11)

Your Streets for People framing is quite powerful. And it echoes, or is echoed by, a lot of the marketing in the promotional stuff for the new Broncos stadium — that's one of the ways it seems like they're trying to sell it to the community.

And yet cities haven't been able to make these comprehensive networks a reality. That's such a strange disconnect: there's this huge demand or desire for these types of public spaces, and a complete inability to actually produce them in a comprehensive, connected way. What do you make of that? Why do you think that is indeed the case?

John Simmerman (27:56)

Part of our challenge is that the status quo currently on the ground is what we're most comfortable with. Making change to that status quo is stress-inducing and can elicit fear of the unknown. So we have to take a step back, take a deep breath, and have a little bit of empathy for the people who are asking: why? Why are you changing my street? This is my parking spot, or my this or my that.

We have a sense of ownership to that space, which is very odd in many ways — because we wouldn't necessarily think to run a power cord out to the curb and decide that's where we're going to put our refrigerator.

Avi Stopper (28:49)

I like that analogy.

John Simmerman (28:55)

The automobile has this unique place within our existence, where we have such a sense of ownership and pride in that possession — that car, and also that parking space in front of our house.

But one of the interesting things is that we also have this Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde sort of relationship with the automobile. Disney figured this out way back in — I think it was 1954 — when the Goofy cartoon Motor Mania came out. When we get behind the wheel of an automobile, we fundamentally change who we are. We turn into a different version of ourselves. And in many cases it's a worse version of ourselves. We get more impatient. We want to get from point A to point B as quickly as possible, and God forbid anybody should get in our way or slow us down.

So we have to come to an understanding and a recognition that we're working against quite a few things. We're working against the status quo, the way things currently are. But we're also working against the fact that motonormativity — that concept of seeing everything through the lens of the automobile — has been so pervasive.

Now, for people who are able to break that addiction, and give it a taste and give it a trial, it's like: this is so much more independence and freedom, and so much more freeing, that I want everybody to feel this, and I want it to be even safer for me and my family. And so we can get impatient and say, well, why can't we move this thing along faster and faster and faster?

Here's the interesting paradox, though. If you asked somebody, for their home, would they want the street right outside their house

John Simmerman (31:16)

to be a high-speed, high-volume space or a low-speed, low-volume space — what are they going to say?

Avi Stopper (31:24)

I think that's very much what we're banking on with our advocacy work. They want—

John Simmerman (31:29)

—a low-speed, low-volume street. That's what they want.

However, as soon as they get into the car, again, that Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde type of situation, things shift. Now you're a driver, and you want to get from point A to point B as quickly as possible. So even though you may be patient on your own street, if you're getting out onto your street and driving, as soon as you take that next turn it's like: I don't want to be slowed down by a traffic diverter or a slow street environment. I want to be able to get where I want to get as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Avi Stopper (32:10)

All right, I think now is a good time to take a quick break. We'll be back in just a minute with more Bike Networks Now.

Avi Stopper (32:28)

Hey, it's Avi. If you're enjoying Bike Networks Now, subscribe to the Bike Streets newsletter. Every other week we share thoughtful stories, practical ideas, and the latest thinking on building better bike networks and more livable communities. It's a chance to go a little deeper into the issues we talk about here on the podcast, and it's completely free. Subscribe today at bikestreets.com.

Avi Stopper (33:03)

There's a really insightful cognitive bias that informs this, known as the value-action gap. It's basically that delta between what people's stated preferences are and how they actually behave. I feel like that's probably one of the stones we haven't turned over that much.

I'm curious to hear your take, generally speaking, on behavior change from a public health standpoint — or beyond just this assumption that a complete network is going to change behavior, that a really great bike network is going to change behavior. Do you think that's a naive assumption on our part with a lot of our Bike Streets work? What are the other components to behavior change, beyond infrastructure, that we should be thinking about — and broadly speaking, what are the stones we should be turning over on the podcast, the things we should be thinking about in the technology we're creating?

John Simmerman (34:09)

One of the things we have to realize is that as humans we're very, very complicated beasts. We've mentioned practical and pragmatic a couple of times: that useful trip, being able to view walking or biking to a meaningful destination as something that is not only possible but practical. It's also pragmatic — it serves and suits my needs.

But now you're asking a slightly different question. You're asking about behavior change, which starts to tap into habit formation. And then you start saying: okay, not only does it need to be practical and pragmatic and meet my needs — is it also enjoyable? I'm assuming, on the practical and pragmatic side, that it has a baseline of safety and a baseline of an inviting environment.

But if you really want to take things to the next level — and one of the reasons I'm so excited about this whole Bike Streets movement you have going here — one street over might be an absolutely delightful experience. And one street over from that, you might know there are some tulips in bloom in the spring.

That's when you start tickling a different part of the brain that says: this is beauty, and this is pleasurable. And then when you have that experience after you reach your destination, it's like, that was really enjoyable. I feel a mood lift here.

So there's a reason having attractive, beautiful infrastructure and access to greenery is so incredibly important for habit formation. It helps tickle that part of the brain that says, ooh, this was cool — do this again, do this again, do this again, over and over and over. That's how you establish habit formation. Very few people establish the habit of active mobility by doing something that's miserable or threatening day after day.

Avi Stopper (36:32)

How would you describe — I'm thinking about some protected bike facilities on bigger streets, and the conversations I've had with people. One of the points of critique we get with Bike Streets is that people sort of assume we're anti-protected-bike-lane on arterial streets. That is not indeed the case. We are in favor of a complete network. We're trying to figure out how cities can create complete networks so people can go to the places they want to go.

How do you think about the public right-of-way that is so much more complicated, so much more expensive, and takes a heck of a lot of really heavy interventions to reach that threshold people seek — the one that's going to make it acceptable to them?

John Simmerman (37:26)

I think the answer, when you're looking at active mobility networks, is that you do have to address it all.

What I like about the approach you're taking is that you're saying: we've got a hidden potential connective network here that we can create. And with a little bit of tweaks we can make it more comfortable. We can reinforce the assets, the parts of this space that are attractive. Again, low speed, low volume. If you can enhance that and really make it even more low speed and more low volume with some traffic diversion strategically located here and there — or to use your favorite street, in Brooklyn, I think it is: Berry Street. You're using this alternating one-way scheme that creates a delightful, livable street. I wouldn't even categorize it as a bike street. I would categorize it as a much more people-oriented street.

Avi Stopper (38:26)

Yeah.

John Simmerman (38:51)

And I think that's the key: if we can bring to life the incredibly connected network of streets we have in our communities that are those low-speed, low-volume streets, and enhance them here and there to re-emphasize or accentuate those qualities, they can be truly wonderful places for active mobility — kids getting around on a skateboard or rollerblading or roller skating or whatever, riding a bike, walking, running, et cetera. They're just people-oriented streets.

Then you have to deal with the stroads. Then you have to deal with these other streets. Some of these are so profoundly hostile as environments that you're going to have to be creative about creating space — but you know how difficult transforming those is. And to do it right, to do it well, it's also oftentimes very, very expensive.

So I think you still have to do those, and they have to take place. But over the years I've known you, I've drunk your Kool-Aid to the point where I'm like: hey, we've got a hidden network over here. Let's get a critical mass of people who are riding much more frequently, who are rollerblading to their locations. Let's create this network of people-oriented places, people-oriented streets, that really helps support the necessity to transform those environments.

Avi Stopper (40:44)

One place we tend not to work is on these big stroads, as you describe them. Part of the overall Bike Streets theory that I don't talk about that often — because it's so off in the distance that it doesn't feel that relevant — is this: what we're trying to do in the here and now is create complete connected networks using quiet residential streets. However, in the longer term, I do think that if you're able to create a complete network, that gives us a path to create a groundswell of support for more substantial conversion of some of these very large arterials, especially as more people are using active transportation and there's less strain, less stress, on the driving network.

I know you've been listening to this show. What we're trying to do is find the voices who are going to help us advance our understanding of how we make that reality happen. What are some of the voices that you think are missing?

John Simmerman (41:53)

Going back to it's not about the bike and it's not about the typical cyclist — when you think of some of the voices that aren't necessarily being thought about: what about the non-drivers? What about the individuals who, for whatever reason, cannot drive or are not able to drive?

Anna Zivarts wrote a book called When Driving Is Not an Option. She points out that in any given city, 30 to 40 percent of your population are, by definition, non-drivers. They are not able to drive a car. That shocks people. It shocks politicians to think — wait a minute, really? That many people? Yes, that many people. Too young, too old, too sick, this, that, don't have the financial means. All these things. So I think that's one of the voices that's really critical.

I think the most important thing is the framing of what we're trying to do. What we're really trying to do is create a more lovable community for everybody. When I'm seeing cities that are more successful at accelerating this forward, that success is being framed as: this is good for everybody, even if you don't choose to ride a bike. It's even better for people who drive. Why? Because more people are choosing to take a more active mode.

When that happens, then you start to see the political will and the community support for investing the money to bridge some of those gaps.

I'll give you a great example of one I just filmed earlier this spring. In the Northwest Arkansas region, we have the Razorback Greenway,

John Simmerman (44:11)

basically stretching from Fayetteville all the way north past Bentonville to Bella Vista, I believe it is. It's connecting something like seven different communities. So you have this Razorback Greenway feeding into what they call the spine of the active mobility network. And it's served as this burgeoning economic development success story, bringing back many of these struggling downtown areas, like in Springdale, Arkansas, and bringing them to life.

Part of the reason why is that not only did they see the value in that off-street network, that pathway, that shared-use path — they saw that we wanted to be able to connect to that through our neighborhood streets, and, when appropriate, through a bike lane if it's a street with higher speeds. But for the most part, you're talking about quieter, low-volume streets connecting into this shared-use path.

So one of the things you can leverage is when you can create something like that. When you create an off-street network like you have there in Denver, with the Cherry Creek and Platte River trails and all of these — and then you connect them, just like you and Gary and I did, riding from Union Station onto the Cherry Creek path and then making our way toward Lakewood. When you can make that connectedness, you can then get that critical mass of people utilizing these facilities, this high-comfort network, to then be able to take it to the next level.

And that next level is: okay, what do we do now that we're straight-faced with this stroad? How do we get across this dang thing? Well, they have the political will now, and they have the community support — so they're building a new tunnel. They're able to actually go under it. They're not going to be able to change that stroad, which was previously a barrier where you'd have to push the big button and wait to get across.

John Simmerman (46:32)

Eventually they'll be able to bypass that. And a great city right in your neighborhood is Boulder, which has a hundred such active mobility underpasses. So you're able to leverage that concept of the off-street network of pathways, the on-street network of high-comfort livable streets, streets for people — get that connectivity together, and then you're only focusing on building the protected and separated on the more major core arterial network, if you will, which is the terminology Boulder uses.

Avi Stopper (47:18)

You mentioned the Razorback Greenway. One of the perspectives I'm really eager to find — and I'm curious what you've uncovered — is that which demonstrates a clear return on investment. Are there places you've found that have really empirically demonstrated the return on investment you get from these types of investments?

John Simmerman (47:44)

If you want a great case study, the Razorback Greenway is a great example. Because of the nature of the funding sources it came from, they were able to go back and do some ROI analysis on it. But then you also just have empirical evidence of seeing a downtown Springdale come back better than it ever was.

And this is just one of many, many, many examples. By the way, the Dutch Cycling Embassy and Decisio have done an entire return-on-investment economic model to demonstrate just how powerful having mobility options and mobility choice is — having the ability to choose the bike as an option. So yeah, the data is there.

When folks push back on something like this and say, I don't want this, it's often a story that they believe to be true. Data really isn't going to change their mind. What probably will change their mind is if they hear from a peer — someone they identify with, another small business owner, if this is a business owner rejecting it, saying, why are we investing in these safer streets for people? I don't need safer streets for people, I need more cars here. But if they hear from their peers, someone they trust, then that changes the story.

So to get to your question from earlier — who we need to hear from more is: we need more of these success stories from the perspective of people who resisted the change of streets for people. But then after it happened, they're like, my gosh, I was so wrong. I own this ice cream shop, and at least a couple of times a summer, Avi's bringing his group of ravenous cyclists — kids riding bikes and families, entire families riding bikes — to my location. And it's such a great boon for my business. I was wrong.

John Simmerman (50:06)

Having more people-oriented streets is actually good for business. I think that's the type of narrative we need to see more of. More people telling that story.

Avi Stopper (50:17)

Point well taken on storytelling as opposed to cold hard data. Clearly that's one thing people respond to consistently.

In the spirit of ongoing learning, one last question. You have profiled the activity assets in communities around the world on your channel. Is there a place you've been recently, or in recent times, that has really changed how you think about what's possible — something that broke certain assumptions you'd held pretty close for quite some time?

John Simmerman (50:54)

That is a really, really good question. I would say the example of Northwest Arkansas was an eye-opener for me. I hadn't been able to visit until relatively recently — October was my first visit there. So I didn't know what to think.

The great success story that is Northwest Arkansas is the following. They started with recreational bike riding, mountain bike riding. They started with building out a network of what ended up evolving into world-class mountain biking. And then they saw that spill over into the actual community — a wanting, a desire, for safer streets. And a cultural shift: basically an entire region starting to change the way they drive their cars.

That was the thing that was most surprising. I just released a video, a walk and talk with Chuck Marohn, the founder of Strong Towns, and we're walking around the streets of Fayetteville commenting about how courteous the drivers are. They're in the same big SUVs and oversized pickup trucks as anywhere else in North America, but we're noticing them noticing us as pedestrians walking around, and being incredibly courteous.

I think that's one of the most surprising and impactful things I've learned from that experience, because my assumptions were: this is a red state, this is going to be hell for people walking and biking there — but yeah, they've got some nice mountain bike trails, and they've got the Razorback Greenway. No, no, no. It spilled over. They have had a profound shift in the culture that has spread across into the neighborhoods and the communities.

John Simmerman (53:12)

And what that has meant is that you've got people who now want to move there. There are multiple people I know who have gone out of their way to move there. So there's an attractor to this.

And then you've also got the other conversion, which is that — again, we are a herding species. When we see other people out there in the public realm smiling and having a good time, walking, biking, running, doing whatever, it's like: yeah, I need to get out there, it looks fun and exciting and enjoyable. So there's that attractor. There's a positive momentum, a positive flywheel effect, that can cause accelerated changes in culture.

And part of the success story — I know you've spoken with Sara Studdard with CityThread before — part of the success story in Bentonville and Northwest Arkansas is some of the work CityThread did with them about framing the messaging. What we're doing here, and the reason why we're doing this, and the reason we're going to be turning this street into a low-speed, low-volume street that's going to prioritize kiddos being able to get to school. Part of the reason that was successful is the framing: that this is good for everyone, not just for those crazy cyclists. Basically getting rid of that whole framing of cyclists versus everybody else. Versus just people. All people. This is good for everybody.

Avi Stopper (54:53)

That is a very optimistic note on which to end. I love the idea of this evolutionary cascade, almost. It starts with one thing, and bit by bit you add on these other elements, and before long you have a really robust ecosystem — including a transformation in driver behavior.

John, as ever, great to chat. Thank you so much for coming on. Keep up the good stuff.

John Simmerman (55:21)

Thank you. My pleasure.

Avi Stopper (55:26)

Avi Stopper 8/14/26 Avi Stopper 8/14/26

Joel Goodhart: Lessons from Blacksburg

In this conversation, we’re headed to Blacksburg, Virginia, the home of Virginia Tech. In previous episodes, we’ve investigated the state of biking in big metropolitan areas – Denver, New Orleans, Houston, Portland. Blacksburg, by contrast, is a college town with a population of 45,000. When school is in session, the population almost doubles. So what’s it like trying to get around this college town on a bike?

Transcript

Avi Stopper (00:11)

Avi Stopper (01:08)

In this conversation, we're headed to Blacksburg, Virginia, the home of Virginia Tech. In previous episodes we've investigated the state of biking in big metro areas like Denver, New Orleans, Houston, and Portland. Blacksburg, by contrast, is a college town with a population of 45,000 — but when school is in session, the population almost doubles. So what's it like trying to get around this college town on a bike?

My guest is Joel Goodhart, a member of the Blacksburg, Virginia town council and co-leader of Strong Towns Blacksburg, which is also the lead organization on the Bike Streets mapping project there. Joel is also a volunteer for the Blacksburg Bike Bus. I thought it would be great to hear about biking in Blacksburg generally, how the transition from advocate to local leader has gone, and the inner political workings of trying to make a community more accessible by bike. Joel, how did I do with that intro?

Joel Goodhart (02:11)

That sounded great. That was perfect.

Avi Stopper (02:14)

All right, let's kick it off. For those who haven't been there, set the stage and lay the scene a little. What is Blacksburg like in general?

Joel Goodhart (02:25)

I'll say that I grew up in the town right next to it, Christiansburg, so this is very much home for me. This is where my family is, my siblings — my wife and I are both from Christiansburg.

Blacksburg definitely has that small-town feel. We're much smaller compared to any of your larger metro areas like Denver. It feels like a fun, cool little town to grow up in. You get to know and see the same people at the same events. People will come to Virginia Tech for school to study, and it's a very common thread that they decide to stay once they get to experience it. So it's a great place to be.

Avi Stopper (03:22)

There's this general sense that big metro areas are big, scary places to navigate by bike, whereas college towns broadly have this idyllic vibe. This show starts with the premise that biking isn't actually possible for most folks in American cities. How does that hold in Blacksburg?

Joel Goodhart (03:44)

I've been getting around by bike for a few years now, so I feel like I've turned into one of those confident users. I look at Blacksburg — we're about a 20-minute town. If you were going to go end to end on a bike, it would take you about 20 minutes. So to me, that means you can basically bike anywhere and everywhere.

What was really fun for me at the beginning was discovering that decision makers and town staff in the past were really intentional about putting in these little pocket paths. For example, with the bike bus that I help lead, one of the main reasons we're able to take my section of elementary schoolers to the school is that there are all these pocket paths that weave between neighborhoods and allow you to avoid the more arterial-style roads.

So I think biking in Blacksburg is totally viable, which is one of the main reasons my wife and I decided to move here from Christiansburg and raise our kids here — it has a great foundation for getting around by bike. And we have a really strong public transportation system as well with Blacksburg Transit, the BT. That's our bus system, and it's nationally recognized and free to use. So it's really fun to use that to get to different places and then finish that last mile on a bike, or maybe a scooter.

I've really enjoyed being able to get around by bike. In the places I've lived before, it wasn't necessarily the most comfortable option, so it wasn't something I actively pursued. Whereas here, especially if the weather's nice, it's like: why would I drive?

Avi Stopper (05:47)

You said you recently started biking. Was the move from Christiansburg to Blacksburg the catalyst that made that happen?

Joel Goodhart (05:56)

My journey into learning about urbanism — and the idea that you don't have to use a car for everything — started with my discovery of a YouTube channel called Not Just Bikes. The individual who founded that channel, Jason Slaughter, talks about his journey moving from Canada to the Netherlands. One of his videos focuses specifically on what that meant for his kids.

As a young father — I've got really young kids, six and four — I started piecing things together after watching that video. If you live in a place where only the parents can drive, and the kids have no options to get to a park or go see their friends or go see family or do anything, you're stuck in a situation where the kids just need parental Uber for everything. And that's somewhat how I grew up. My outlet turned into: well, there's nothing to do, I can't go anywhere, so I'll just play Xbox and languish at home.

Jason talks in his series about what a day looks like for his ten-year-old, and it involves going to see friends, going to the park to play soccer. And I thought, that's the type of childhood I want to give my kids. Not one where they're stuck in a cul-de-sac and it's like, well, this is all there is, unless mom or dad can drive you somewhere. If you want to go see your cousin — he's just down the street, you can walk there, or you can ride your bike there.

It's so powerful for kids to start exercising some of their own independence. Riding a bike is physical. You've got to be a little resilient, you have to be tough. It teaches kids so many things early on. Our house is on an incline — not a steep one, but an incline. I would talk to my kids once we got to that section and say, "Hey, this is hard, but you can do it." And recently we were doing something and I heard him say, "This is hard, but I can do it." And I thought: bikes taught my kid that.

Joel Goodhart (08:19)

It's such a cool thing to see as a parent — the lessons riding a bike can teach kids. It's part of the reason I also run the bike bus, because you see it in the kids going to school too. It's incredible.

Avi Stopper (08:35)

That quote is definitely going in the book. Thank you for that.

I want to rewind for a second to this idea of pocket paths. That's not actually terminology I've heard previously. Can you describe very specifically what one of those is and what it enables?

Joel Goodhart (08:53)

That's funny — I don't know where I got that, or maybe I just came up with it. When I say pocket paths, oftentimes you'll find these in Blacksburg and they're not necessarily marked, but it'll be a paved path in a neighborhood that connects various streets.

One of the experiences I had in Christiansburg: you might live in a neighborhood right across from a park. If you don't live on the row of houses that borders that park, technically you could walk through someone's yard — maybe you could ask them, but you're trespassing a little. There aren't a lot of pocket paths to get to things. So it'd be like, if I'm going to do this the correct way, I have to go out to the arterial, go all the way around, and then come back to this park that's literally twenty-five feet this way.

Whereas in Blacksburg, there are so many neighborhoods with all these little tiny pocket connections. Some people might call them modal filters. I can get to the elementary school close to my house really quickly — probably five or six minutes — and it uses two of these paths that cut through and connect two streets with a little path right between them. Really helpful.

It's one of those things where I think, wow, someone decades ago was thinking, wouldn't it be great if we put this little path here so people can walk or ride bikes and get to more places without having to stay on the arterials and the scary roads. If you're starting out, it's like: I do not feel comfortable on these. And that's why I think Bike Streets is really cool, because I've been able to go back and map all these paths that are there — and when you first move to Blacksburg, you probably don't even realize they exist.

Avi Stopper (11:09)

Avi Stopper (11:46)

We were talking about these pocket paths. In the creation of low-stress bike maps, we find these things are just gold. One really great example: with our Lakewood, Colorado mapping team, there's a guy I like to describe as the human Roomba. He just bounces off every surface in Lakewood, and the number of these paths he has found that make connections is really remarkable.

Often we'll find those paths aren't even marked in OpenStreetMap. They haven't been added yet, and we add them, and all of a sudden they create these amazing connections. My guess is that these pocket paths, as you describe them, or modal filters, are actually not on the formal Blacksburg bike map. Is that correct?

Joel Goodhart (12:36)

Some of the more prominent ones might be, but oftentimes I'll run into something and think, ooh, this'll take me here — especially at the beginning. We have a bicycle association, and I would reach out to some of the members and say, "Hey, I live in this part of town, I'm trying to bike here. What's the best way to do that?" And through their directions I'd realize there was a connection I hadn't known was there. Now I feel like I'm familiar enough that I know where they are.

My brother recently moved to Blacksburg. One of the things we did was get together and I said, "Hey, I want to show you how you can ride your bike" — he has an e-scooter, actually — "and how we can go from where we are to the middle school, where some of his kids are going to be going." So we took a lot of these pocket paths on this route to the middle school. And when we got there, his comment to me was, "I'm not sure I'm going to be able to remember this."

And I was able to respond: whoa, whoa, whoa. There's this app called Bike Streets, and the route is on there. All you have to do is have the app and it'll take you the route we just went — it's already mapped. That's really cool to me, just to be able to say: this information is all out there for you to use. For someone who's new, that is gold.

Avi Stopper (14:10)

Earlier you were talking about your kids, and how your move from Christiansburg to Blacksburg was informed a lot by the way you wanted your kids to grow up. Props to you for intentional parenting — I wish I could say I'd been that intentional in my own.

One pretty stark reality about children growing up in American towns and cities today is that the way cities tend to think about the creation of their complete networks is on a time scale completely disconnected from the time in which a child is growing up. I'm wondering, because you're someone with a seat at the table now in terms of decision making, whether you've thought about that and how you've reconciled it. You want a particular childhood experience and level of freedom for your own kids, and yet typically these are generational projects — such that if we're lucky, those of us raising kids now will have complete bike networks navigable by kids when our grandkids are growing up. How have you thought about that timeline?

Joel Goodhart (15:26)

If I had a golden scepter and could just say "this is going to happen" and change things at the state level, at the Department of Transportation level, all these things immediately, I would. Decisions have been made in the past few decades that I think make it challenging to have what I'd consider the ultimate complete bike network. The Netherlands were making their transition in the '70s, and so now, 50 or 60 years later, they're benefiting from that. In some ways it feels like we're very much catching up.

I try to focus less on "I want the gold standard today" and more on: what's the next right thing I can do and get done? Let's go get that done. Is that wayfinding? Is that making sure the Bike Streets app collects all the pocket paths, so any Virginia Tech student who comes in as a freshman — where parking services charges $900 a year to park — can find another way to get around town? Bike Streets has been great for that.

So for me it's been: if we get that fully mapped, that's great. I've been talking to town planners, to different organizations and departments, even at the county level, saying, hey, this is a tool we could leverage. And because it's crowdsourced with local users, I think it's so powerful. Instead of just being top-down, where maybe you look at your comprehensive plan every five years, Bike Streets is a living map that can grow and change.

I've had people reach out to me with connections I've never even biked on, because I never had a reason to go that way. They'll say, hey, this would be a really good connection to join this place to this place.

Avi Stopper (17:37)

That's awesome.

Joel Goodhart (17:38)

And I look at it and think, I've never been on that side of town and needed to do that, but that is a really great connection — let's add it. All of that is live and living, and it's quick too, which I like. We can look at it, and sometimes I'll ask someone else, "Hey, before we add this, does this make sense to you?" It does — okay, cool, let's send it. That's definitely something I'm super excited about.

Avi Stopper (18:10)

The transition we see is that the community assembles, in a crowdsourced fashion, this low-stress map that allows people to navigate anywhere today. That's the first step, and it can be done very inexpensively and quickly. The next step is for a city or town to formalize it through what we'd consider a version 1.0 network — taking the low-stress map you've already created and implementing really lightweight interventions. Paint on the ground, wayfinding, inexpensive forms of volume reduction on neighborhood streets, formally designating certain sidewalks as multi-use paths, maybe widening some of those. Very low-cost stuff. We're not talking about heavy infrastructure.

Our contention is that this is the sort of thing communities should be able to do in a couple of years. What do you see as the practicality of that, or the reasons it might not be possible?

Joel Goodhart (19:15)

There are layers to that one. For town staff, I think that would be something they'd be totally bought into. I think our town council would be totally bought into it too.

It would have to be something we ramp up to, once the community starts to see the value and benefit from small bets that prove really successful. I can see some people being frustrated if we went from not much investment to a million dollars into bike lanes.

I remember Blacksburg put in an interesting bike rack. It's framed out in metal in the shape of a car, and on it it says "10 bikes is the same as one car." We put that downtown — and we got complaints about that bike rack. That's just one thing, but it was really more of a statement: you could have ten people bike down here, and if they have a cargo bike, even more. Or you can have one car, driven most likely by one person, and look at how much space it takes up. If biking were more enjoyable and accessible, you could fit more people downtown. Everyone complains about there not being enough parking downtown — well, the person in the space you could have parked in, if they'd taken their bike instead, that space would be open for you.

Culturally, America still seems in love with the car. I think getting people who just love driving and will only drive to understand that if traffic is a problem, if parking is a problem, bikes are part of the answer — if people are on bikes, that means they're not in front of you at the stoplight.

Joel Goodhart (21:30)

I can't say we're necessarily winning that conversation. I did see something recently where, at least at the federal level, bike lanes have been noted as something not worth supporting at the transportation level. I think the transportation secretary even said they were a DEI initiative — so we're not doing this, we're not going to support bike lanes. And it's like—

Avi Stopper (22:00)

Kids' freedom is DEI.

Joel Goodhart (22:03)

Yeah. So clearly we still have a lot of work to do.

What I try to do when I talk to people about transportation issues is focus on how transportation options really help you. It's not just about how do I get there. There are things like cost — biking is so much more affordable. There are people in our community who, if they lose access to their car, which happens, suddenly don't know how they're going to be able to get to work anymore.

What I hope to do when I talk to people is help them understand that having transportation options — where you can use a car, but you can also use a bike, you can walk to some places, you can use the bus — creates a much stronger position for you in being able to get into the community, to participate, to do the things you need to do, and not be shackled to the only mode of transportation, which I find to be really expensive. There are some negative externalities to cars in general. We don't have to do this. We don't all have to be stuck with a single way to get around. There's much better out there.

Avi Stopper (23:21)

It's clear that convincing communities this is a real benefit and a gain is critically important. I'd contend that the solution is staring us in the face: it's tactical urbanism. The way we've often made these arguments historically — and even in what you're describing — is what I'd describe as more of a telling approach: trying, through salesmanship, to explain the benefits of a traffic diverter and of a bike network. Tactical urbanism, by contrast, is a methodology by which you show people. You don't tell them, you show them how slightly modified, rearranged streets are going to improve their lives. Is that a toolkit Blacksburg has considered or explored? And do you agree with the premise broadly?

Joel Goodhart (24:23)

I recently got a video I was going to send to the town engineer. Something happened on Tech campus — I don't know what kind of work they were doing. But I think the greatest example of tactical urbanism that people will recognize right away is road construction.

Avi Stopper (24:44)

Love that.

Joel Goodhart (24:48)

There are going to be people next to the street, so we need to do something to slow down traffic. What do you do? You put a bunch of cones out. We know how to do this on a temporary basis.

Avi Stopper (25:00)

It happens everywhere, every day.

Joel Goodhart (25:03)

Constantly. I got a really good example recently. I was taking my son to soccer camp on Tech campus, and I noticed construction crews had put cones on the sides of the road, but also in the middle of the road.

In some of my conversations with engineering staff, they've been really hesitant to do anything a car might hit and cause damage. And sometimes you get into "the cones are really expensive, so if you leave them up they're going to get destroyed, and they're $500 a pop."

But the effect is obvious. As soon as you enter that, the context of the road changes. Suddenly everyone is actually going 20 or 25 miles an hour as opposed to 35 or 40. So I'm a huge fan of this: what's the next basic thing we can pilot, that we can just test? And if we're getting the results we want, then let's find a way to make it permanent.

The big one for me would be planters in certain parts of the road, which would just communicate that this is a different, more human type of space. But as soon as you introduce something that could be hit, and a driver hits it, it creates some contention.

On my own street, when my kids are in the front yard playing, I put a cone about a third of the way into the road. It's not blocking the road — drivers can still drive by it. But that cone is obvious. As soon as a driver whips around the corner and is heading up the street, they see a cone and think, wait a second, what does that mean? It's about finding design guidelines, or some kind of contextual cue, that says: this road is not the freeway, it's not a high-speed arterial anymore. This is a neighborhood street.

Avi Stopper (27:07)

In the context of your role as a member of the town council, it sounds like you've got a generally supportive group of colleagues who want this type of stuff to be happening. What prevents you and your colleagues from saying: we want tactical urbanist demonstrations here, at these particular point locations where we hear our constituents' concerns — town manager, go implement this? And then it trickles down into the engineering department and they do it. What's preventing the town council from directing the bureaucracy to go do this?

Joel Goodhart (27:54)

My personal take: there's this book written by a civil engineering professor in Denver, actually. His name is Wes Marshall, and he wrote a book—

Avi Stopper (28:09)

Wes Marshall — Killed by a Traffic Engineer.

Joel Goodhart (28:12)

Right, Killed by a Traffic Engineer. I read that book in about a week, and I think it's 500 pages or something. I could not put it down. It's this idea that we have standard manuals and these different things, and well-intentioned people.

I think traffic engineers are generally well-intentioned — they want to do the right thing. I think fire marshals are generally well-intentioned; they want to do the right thing. There are just some priorities they have, like fire truck access.

One of the things I was trying to advocate for on a development happening recently: I wanted a mini roundabout, so drivers would be forced to slow around this sharp curve that's kind of a blind spot. And here are some of the benefits. The challenge I ran into is that the design for the development had already been submitted. The corridor committee had already looked at it. It wasn't in the suggestions, so the design was just fixed. If they were going to change it and do something like a mini roundabout, that would kick off a new traffic impact study.

So there are bureaucratic things that crunch up the gears. In some ways, if I could have a wish list, it would be our state Department of Transportation giving engineers almost the okay — saying, hey, if you want to try something temporary, here's our blessing, and here's how you go about doing that.

If someone comes to our traffic committee and says, "I live next to a school and people are speeding, and my neighbors have kids and I'm concerned about them — is there something we can do?" — I would love for there to be a path for that. Town staff can't necessarily operate that way. They have more strings that tie them up.

Joel Goodhart (30:27)

And those are the strings that, if I could cut them, I would love to have cut.

Avi Stopper (30:34)

I've certainly heard that on many occasions. You already pointed out the intense and sort of shocking double standard that exists, which is the ubiquity of construction. If there were an intersection that needs work, where we'd want to do a tactical urbanist project, it's very difficult to get that approved as a traffic study. But if you were digging up a gas line at that intersection, you could get that permit easily. That is happening constantly.

What's become pretty clear to me is that piercing that double standard is of the utmost importance. How do you think we can pierce it, or end it? It's the exact same kind of thing, just used for a slightly different purpose. Or maybe we need to come up with a pretense — yeah, we've got to dig up this gas line over here today — and you've got some workers scratching at the earth, but really what you're looking at is the redesigned street geometry.

Joel Goodhart (31:44)

I love Strong Towns. Their idea was: whatever you have on hand, straw bales or whatever, can we go out and just test and see what works? I think calling it a pilot is useful — I've latched onto that when these conversations come up with town staff.

There are a lot of different things we deal with, so transportation isn't always in the work session or at the public meeting. But anytime a transportation issue comes up, I'm definitely asking: what if we tested this? What if we tried this? I know we're trying to put this into the capital improvement program, and that's a five-year process that's going to take a while. Is there something we can do today? Is there anything we can do today?

One example I'll call maybe a success: there's a crosswalk I use a lot, and I was catching cars going — it's a 25-mile-per-hour road, but cars were easily going over 45 through this crosswalk. So I messaged the deputy town manager and engineering and said, hey, is there anything we can do right now to rein in this behavior?

They looked at different things, like maybe a speed table. Eventually they landed on flashing beacons that are user-operated. My pushback was: hold on, I have kids, and they might not always think to push a button when they're using this crosswalk. Are there any passive design elements we could use, so that just the context of the road says this is not the place to go fast — it doesn't feel like the interstate, the design standards are different?

So on my end as a council member, it's really about asking: what's something we could try right now? Is there anything we can try today? In my crosswalk's case, the town did put in rumble strips. They're kind of cracked and popped off at this point, which is like — okay, we did try something. Rumble strips aren't my favorite solution, but

Joel Goodhart (34:08)

it is something. So for me it's just been a process of talking to town staff over and over again and saying: there's a little bit more we could maybe do. What about this thing, or that thing?

Avi Stopper (34:22)

Let's leave it there for a second. We're going to take another quick break. I'm Avi Stopper, and you're listening to Bike Networks Now.

Avi Stopper (34:40)

One of the things I think is really cool about your path, Joel, is that you started as an advocate and you're now a member of the local town council. Can you describe how exactly you made that transition? I think it's so important for us to have more people involved at the political level. So much of advocacy is, as you know, banging against the doors of the halls of power — and to the extent we're able to get people with these ideas on the inside, banging on the doors becomes a heck of a lot easier. So how did you make that transition? What was the impetus, and what was the process by which you gained the role you have currently?

Joel Goodhart (35:21)

I feel like I've always been community-minded, always found some way to say: I really care about my community, and what's one small thing I can do to give back? So I've served as treasurer for our local bicycle association. I currently lead the Blacksburg bike bus for one of our local schools.

To me, serving on town council is just an extension of public service. You love your community, you care about it, and you'd like to see some things happen. In my case, when I ran last year, housing was a big one — and that's true everywhere. But transportation was the biggest one for me. My angle was as a parent with kids: I want my kids to grow up and have multiple transportation options that are perfectly viable. That's one of the main reasons I wanted to run. You start to learn about things like urban sprawl, and people sitting in hours of bumper-to-bumper traffic.

Blacksburg is still fairly young when it comes to being built out. We're not fully built out. We're more like a medium town, but we still have that small-town feel. So I thought: okay, as we continue to grow in the decades to come, Blacksburg is going to have to make a decision. Do we want to go more car-centric — the way places traditionally develop, more subdivisions, more cul-de-sacs, more big box stores? Or do we want to go more toward multimodal, with lots of great alternative transportation options, more of a village feel, more local business support?

I internalized those things and thought, all right, this is really important to me. Important enough to stick my neck out and say I'm willing to throw my hat in the ring and

Joel Goodhart (37:43)

run for public office. And I'll say — with our election, I actually placed fourth. There were three seats. I got fourth, but we had two vacancies on town council. So the rest of the council members considered who they'd like to serve, and I was one of the individuals they chose. So in my case I was appointed, which means I get to serve for a year. I'm currently running in a special election this year. So there's kind of an asterisk there.

Avi Stopper (38:22)

Hey, you have a seat at the table. Doesn't matter how you get there — you've got a seat at the table.

Joel Goodhart (38:27)

You have a lot of access to town staff at work sessions. You get to see things that are coming down the line, and some of the challenges we deal with — from engineering and stormwater all the way to tax base and land use. It's been really good. And I hope, for as long as I'm able to do this, that I can continue carrying the flag, so to speak, and say: alternative transportation is not just a cool buzzword to leave in the comprehensive plan and then forget about for five years. This is something we should do.

Avi Stopper (39:14)

I'm glad you mentioned that. In the broader affordability context, I think transportation is often lost. So much ink, so much talk is about housing, which is of course very much at the front of people's minds. But transportation is a huge household expense, often second in most budgets.

The creation of these complete low-stress bike networks, we believe, is actually the fastest way cities can reduce the cost of living, increase overall affordability, and free up cash for people to spend on housing. That's not to say housing doesn't need to get touched, but housing is a really expansive challenge. Transportation networks like the ones we're talking about are super lightweight — they use a lot of existing infrastructure and just slightly amend it to make it more conducive to more people and more trips. The return on investment can be disproportionate relative to the actual cost.

As we wrap up, I wanted to ask quickly about the bike bus you lead. Those are just joyous occasions. For folks who haven't been on a bike bus, it's worth finding one and riding — the joy of them is incredibly palpable. Beyond the joy, in what ways, if any, have you found that creating it helps advance policy?

Joel Goodhart (40:47)

There's something about seeing kids on bikes that is just extremely powerful. You see the smiles, you hear the laughter. It's a really powerful thing.

So sometimes I'll invite different people and say, hey, do you want to come check out the bike bus? We do other types of rides that are more social and kid-oriented. I'll invite staff members or council members. There's one that a community member hosts every year called Pizza Roll — it's a lighter bike ride around town and through Tech campus, and then we end at a pizza place and all share pizza together.

Just seeing the kids — one of my videos is all the things my son said while on one of these social rides. Different observations he's making. I mentioned the one where he said, "This is hard, but I can do it." And there's an excavator. Or, look at the butterfly. And just talking to the kid next to you. Or you see another kid who's really biking hard, and kids feed off each other. They think: you hit that bump in the road and got a little bit of air — I'm going to try that. And now I've conquered something new and I've got a little more confidence.

Those are the types of things I love to share and show people and say: isn't this cool? Isn't this something worth supporting and investing in?

My vision for the bike bus is to eventually incorporate all the schools. One of the cool things about Bike Streets is that the path I'd take to bike to the middle school and the high school is definitely a path that could pick up a lot of different kids in the community.

Joel Goodhart (43:02)

It's a little harder now that my kids are in elementary school, but as soon as they're in middle school, it's like: okay, guess what, it's Wednesday, we're biking — anybody else want to join us?

I think the optics of having a massive pile of kids biking to school is going to be hard to ignore. And then that turns into: hey, there's this one part of that path that could use some love, or could use some safety features, or some type of design change. The bike bus rolls through here. We want these kids to have fun, but there are also things we could do to make it safer.

And then those kids grow up, having biked all throughout their school years, and they're going to take that with them into the future, wherever they live, and think: yeah, I could drive a car now, but bike bus taught me there are other ways to get around.

Avi Stopper (43:58)

Other ways to get around. Last question — and maybe it can't be riding with the bike bus to school, although that would be a good answer, I have to say. What are your favorite places to ride to in Blacksburg, and why?

Joel Goodhart (44:13)

Favorite places to ride to. I'm definitely more of a social, practical bike rider, but we do have some phenomenal rides if you're into recreational cycling. There are some really beautiful bike rides in our area, and I've been on some of them, or at least sections of them. This part of the Appalachian Mountains is really pretty.

So if I were going to do that, the Huckleberry Trail deserves a shout-out. That's our big multi-use trail, and it even connects all the way up to Christiansburg. It's quite a few miles long — I don't know the exact number, I want to say ballpark 20 miles. If I just need a bike ride to be in my own thoughts and process some things, that's probably where I'm going.

But honestly, as a substitute teacher, one of my favorite rides is just biking to the middle school or the high school. If I'm subbing that day, I can go in the morning. There's something about taking about 20 minutes on a bike. I read a book recently about this idea called meandering thought — it's the type of thinking you do when your brain is trying to piece things together, and it creates these eureka moments.

So if I'm struggling with something — I mentioned I'm doing some DIY building right now — sometimes I'll think, how am I supposed to do this? How do I want to do this electrical piece? And it'll be on a bike ride that your brain just slams the two cables together and you think: that's what I need to do. Then you go home and you've figured it out.

Avi Stopper (46:09)

There's this great quote from Einstein, something along the lines of "I thought of that while riding my bicycle" — and the implication is that it's the theory of relativity.

Joel Goodhart (46:20)

It's important. I like listening to music, but sometimes I'll hop on my bike or go for a walk and the intention is: no distractions. I'm just going to let my brain do whatever, and it's making these connections. That's one of the cool things about those bike rides — 20 minutes is just enough for some of those things to happen. And it's magical when it does.

Avi Stopper (46:48)

The bike is an incredible thing. Great work in Blacksburg. Thank you so much for your partnership on the low-stress Blacksburg bike map, and thank you for your time, Joel. Have a good one.

Joel Goodhart (46:58)

Thank you. You have a good one too.

Avi Stopper (47:04)

Avi Stopper 8/7/26 Avi Stopper 8/7/26

Eva Frazier: Lessons from Portland

On this episode, we’re headed to Portland, which is to many people the Xanadu of American bike cities. If I only had a quarter for every time someone, talking about biking, has wistfully started a sentence with, “In Portland…” What is the reality on the ground in Portland? It’s ranked 8th for cities its size in the PeopleForBikes City Ratings. Is its reputation deserved? And why have recent times seen decreases in ridership?

Transcript

Avi Stopper (00:08)

Despite voter support and billions of dollars of investment, there's no city in America where biking is a practical reality for people of all ages and abilities. Why is that? And how can we fix it so anyone can ride to the places they want to go today? These aren't just freewheeling conversations — we're in search of an answer. And that answer, a modern approach to innovation, is the topic of a book we're writing on how cities can make bike transportation possible today.

Avi Stopper (01:06)

We've now done a bunch of episodes in our quest to understand why biking still isn't possible for most folks in most American cities. They've generally been pretty high-level conversations about the bike movement. So over a series of episodes, we're going local — trying to learn as much as we can about how the bike movement is doing in cities across America by talking with the folks who know those cities best on the ground: the advocates trying to make biking a practical reality.

This time we're headed to Portland, which is to many people the Xanadu of American bike cities. It's ranked eighth for cities its size in the PeopleForBikes city ratings. Is the reputation deserved? And why have recent years perhaps seen decreases in ridership? To answer that and more, my guest is Eva Frazier, board chair of BikeLoud PDX, former owner of Clever Cycles, a Portland e-bike shop, and a self-described evangelist of Pedalpalooza — also known as Bike Summer — a series of bike events from June to August in Portland. Eva is also a host of the BikePortland podcast, In the Shed.

So yes, I suppose the subtitle of this conversation could be "Podcast Host Interviews Podcast Host," and probably for an audience of podcast hosts, given how things are these days. Eva, welcome. How did I do with that intro?

Eva Frazier (02:37)

Amazing. Portland is an amazing place. I'm not a podcast host, though — I'm a co-host. And sadly, BikePortland's podcast is no longer, or at least it's on hiatus. So that's on pause.

Avi Stopper (02:55)

The difficulty of maintaining an advocacy group is a known challenge in this work.

Okay, so the fundamental question this show asks is: why is bike transportation not possible for most people in American cities, and how do we make it a reality? And the question with Portland — given everyone's enthusiasm for it, at least at a distance — is whether the premise even holds there. This is the city that spent 20 years building out its bike network, the one everyone points to as the exemplar in American biking. What's it really like there?

Eva Frazier (03:34)

I do think Portland is a wonderful place to ride a bike. When you've been here a long time, you start to see all the holes and the things you can nitpick — advocates are always picking at those, asking how we can make it better, how we can make it better. But if you were to step into Portland from pretty much any American city of our size, you'd think this is amazing and fantastic.

And it's not just the infrastructure that makes Portland a great place to ride a bike. It's the climate. It hardly ever snows here. It hardly ever gets above 95 degrees. It's not very hilly. It's not very big. And we have things like Bike Summer, which is three months of bike rides and fun stuff related to biking. It's not just slogging from A to B, getting sweaty on the way to work. So I think Portland is a very holistic place for riding a bike, whereas maybe you go somewhere else and the biking is just recreation, or it's just getting from point A to point B.

Avi Stopper (04:51)

Let's talk about the on-the-ground infrastructure reality on the good side. You said most people would come to Portland and say, "Wow, this is incredible." Give us the hard sell for Portland. What does it have going for it that's indeed so good?

Eva Frazier (05:08)

There are a lot of off-street paths that are really wonderful. Portland is basically split in half by the Willamette River, and we have paths along the east and the west sides of the river where you can feel super comfortable riding with your grandma or your toddler. That's one of the key things Portland has — some really nice bicycle- and pedestrian-only infrastructure.

But we also have greenways. Not a completely connected network of them, but greenways are basically quiet city streets connected all over the city, with wayfinding that helps you get from point A to point B. And beyond that we have all these things like green paint and bike boxes and special signals — just a little bike signal, things you see in Europe but not necessarily in the US. So, a little bit of everything.

Avi Stopper (06:14)

It sounds like there are the classic marquee features — the trail along the river, which I'm sure is quite picturesque. I'd like a bit more detail on what the reality is like when you're riding on the famous Portland greenways. You're riding on neighborhood streets, generally speaking — is that correct? And what kinds of indications are there on the ground that you're on some sort of designated facility? What's the actual infrastructure reality on those streets?

Eva Frazier (06:45)

Generally a bike greenway is already a quiet city street that's essentially been marked as a greenway with little signals that it's for bikes. So there are sharrows painted on the road. We get these green and white signs put up periodically that give you little indicators — say you want to go to the Cully neighborhood, it'll tell you how far it's going to be and to just continue on your path.

The reality is that sometimes the crossings aren't great, sometimes there are more cars on these streets than we would hope, and the pavement is usually on the poor side of good. Really, there's nothing more than little paint markers on the street to make this a bike street. The city has done some things more lately to help people on the greenways get across bigger intersections and to slow traffic by putting in bumps and diverters. But essentially it's not much more than picking certain streets you'd already ride your bike on.

Avi Stopper (07:53)

A lot of our advocacy is about how you can use that kind of greenway technique to create a complete connected network in a shorter period of time than it typically takes. One of the interesting philosophical differences that presents itself when we're making these arguments is a discussion about how the right-of-way is designated for different users — specifically, that using these greenways is in some respects saying we're not going to go to war, at least for the time being, over arterial streets.

One point of pushback we sometimes get is: that's nice, but bicyclists deserve a place in the right-of-way on arterial streets; there should be protected infrastructure there. Is that a discussion that's active in Portland? Would you say advocates are generally quite supportive of the greenway approach, or are there concerns about it?

Eva Frazier (09:01)

I think people like both. You want to be riding on the main thoroughfare, because that's where all the shopping is. You want to have a bike lane there — maybe parking-protected, maybe a protected bike lane. But at the same time, the quieter greenway streets are going to make a lot of people feel safer and more comfortable, so you also want to encourage those.

So I honestly think cities need both. They should be striving to have both, and to also see that the people using these two different forms of bike infrastructure are either different people, or the same people at different times of day, or with different family members.

Avi Stopper (09:43)

Do you tend to find that if you have both types of facilities side by side, the more family-type rider — kids riding to school — is more inclined to use greenways than arterial protected bike lanes? Or is it not really possible to say?

Eva Frazier (10:06)

I don't know that I could say — I don't know that our data is that granular. I will say that people who are new to biking are more aware of the bike lane streets, because those are streets they've used either taking the bus or driving a car. The greenways aren't as well advertised, I guess.

Avi Stopper (10:26)

So they're hiding in plain sight. A lot of people don't know that network actually exists. Interesting — so they're marked, but maybe not marked in a way that registers.

Eva Frazier (10:37)

Exactly. They have paint, but you have to connect the dots. The cookie crumbs are there, but not everybody knows.

Avi Stopper (10:45)

I think that provides a good segue from the utopia that is Portland into some of the lumps. What would you say are some of the bigger challenges? At the outset you mentioned there's good, bad, and ugly. What are the bigger challenges in the network?

Eva Frazier (11:02)

Like so many bike networks being built, there are connection problems. Say you get two miles of beautiful protected bike lane, and then you're forced into a two-and-a-half-foot-wide bike lane with four lanes of car traffic. It's always those kinds of things, those connections. And then fighting for those little cookie crumbs of money to make those projects happen.

The biggest thing that probably a lot of bike advocates in cities throughout the country deal with is reallocating space from car parking. For whatever reason, parking is a thing people hold near and dear to their hearts — free parking everywhere. Portland actually — I don't know if you know Tony Jordan from the Parking Reform Network, a super cool organization — they're pointing out all the ridiculous rules and regulations we have around car parking. Like a bowling alley needs to have six car spots for every lane, or something like that. All of these zoning rules we've put into place over the years that we're now realizing are problematic when we're trying to add more space for people biking and walking, and realizing that as population grows, we can't keep adding cars.

So I think one of our biggest issues is car parking, and the fact that city councilors often aren't willing to push back against businesses and constituents who are angry about it.

Avi Stopper (12:49)

How does BikeLoud orient its advocacy in relation to protected bike lanes that end abruptly? In other words, the city is contemplating a protected bike lane on a coveted corridor, you have a mile or two of protected bike lane, and then they've run out of money or there's some obstacle that makes it difficult to actually make the comfortable connection. How do you think about that conundrum — orienting your advocacy to both support and oppose at the same time? And are there specific examples where you've had that headache?

Eva Frazier (13:32)

I don't know that it necessarily always does work, because of the way we fund our projects. Our projects are often big capital projects with a very distinct delineation of money and space and scope. What happens is you have a single piece of the puzzle, and none of the rest of it is considered.

So I guess the answer is: I haven't figured that out yet. I'm not sure that we have figured that out yet. Have you figured that out yet?

Avi Stopper (14:09)

I wish. A lot of our advocacy, though, is oriented around what we describe as network-first. If you can't really complete the network and it's a bit of an island — especially from the perspective of an all-ages-and-abilities rider — maybe that's a scenario where you need to take your chips to a different table. Maybe that's a longer-term goal, we revisit it, a plan calls for it. But at least in the near term, if we're not able to make this connection, what's the benefit?

And I often wonder, candidly, in those situations whether there's a detrimental effect, because it puts us in the position of defending something the data don't really support and people's observations don't support. I find myself wondering: is this indeed the moment to go after this particular facility, or is that something we consider down the line?

One very interesting challenge you just described is when funding has explicit point-to-point bookending. Those funds that are allocated — that's a tricky conundrum. I don't know how to unravel that particular one.

Eva Frazier (15:38)

Absolutely. And we see projects where they say, "when more funding comes through, here's all the other things we're going to do to make this complete." And then three years down the line you're asking: where are you with this that you promised us? And also just keeping track of these projects and understanding when it's worth using your political capital to go push.

Avi Stopper (16:07)

In terms of actual outcomes, one of the things I think Portland probably does better than any other city is this organized bike count. I'd love to hear how the Portland bike count works. It gets all this volunteer effort, with people positioned all around the city, as I understand it. Can you describe in more specific detail what the bike count is? How does it work? Who orchestrates it? Where are people, and what are they doing?

Eva Frazier (16:35)

The Portland bike count is run by the Portland Bureau of Transportation. They recruit volunteers to sit for two slots of time, one in the morning and one in the evening, looking at peak commuter hours. They have, I think, 100-plus locations around the city they're monitoring. You sit down with a little sheet of paper and record which direction people are riding. You note whether it was an e-bike, whether you thought they were male or female. And you sit there for two hours.

I sat at one location in East Portland and I literally saw two people in two hours. Then I sat at another location in inner southwest Portland, which is close to downtown, and saw hundreds — 270 riders or something like that. So I do think it's a bit flawed in who and where it's measuring, to a certain degree. It's measuring that nine-to-five, Monday-through-Friday type of rider. PBOT pushes back and says it's still accurate, even though work from home and errands and whatnot are potentially different now than when they started doing the PBOT bike count.

But then they come back with data to show us where we're at with ridership in different neighborhoods, with gender distribution, with e-bike distribution. It's useful data for PBOT and advocates to use to show what's working and what's not.

Avi Stopper (18:15)

Is the idea to look at the data from the same point longitudinally and say this point has an increase of this percentage year over year, this point has a decrease or is flat? Or is it something more extrapolative, where you're trying to say this is what we think total system usage is — the number of actual people, based on point-location observations? How are the data used?

Eva Frazier (18:46)

I think PBOT, for its outward-facing presence, is generally just using it to say something like "7.5% of people in Portland ride their bikes to work," or however they phrase it — essentially taking all of those data points and compressing them into a single figure. But the data is all public. So you can go in and look at location 36 and see it over time.

In fact, I think they've looked at, say, some new bridges they put in town, to see how people have redistributed their commutes based on those pedestrian bridges. So it is nice to see statistically over time how useful that can be. As advocates, we haven't necessarily seen it as terribly useful other than to say: biking is down, what can we do? We keep adding infrastructure — and this is a thing people have been talking about lately — we keep adding infrastructure and yet cycling isn't bumping back up to pre-pandemic levels. So what do we need to do?

Avi Stopper (20:05)

I want to ask you about that. It seems like the data, candidly, have been a little rough in recent years. The pandemic seems to have dented things substantially and it hasn't recovered as much. Maybe even pre-pandemic there was a bit of a ridership decrease. What is that attributed to, assuming the network is getting more established and more stuff is being built out?

I think it's important for us to be candid with ourselves. We generally have this baked-in assumption that a complete network is a critical enabling condition for people to use active transportation. If the correlation — or the causal relationship — between "build more bike infrastructure" and "get more ridership" isn't exactly there, that's a problem, and we need to take a look at it. What are some of the explanations people have come up with for those ridership declines, the weirdness of the pandemic being an obvious exception?

Eva Frazier (21:15)

Bicycling was increasing at a pretty great rate up until something like 2014, I think, in Portland. Some of that decline has been attributed to the finances of people living in town. It used to be a more affordable city, but we had a huge influx of population in the late 2000s and early teens. A lot of younger people, people with less money — who might potentially be the people who would choose bicycles as transportation — are going further out of town and needing or choosing to drive a car, because it's a faster way to get around, or honestly the safer way to get around if you're out in the outer reaches of Portland. So one factor is economics.

Two is car size and that sort of feeling of safety. You see it in road biking shifting to gravel biking. I think there's been a huge number of people all over the US who feel more threatened on the roadways, so if they're continuing to ride a bike, they're choosing to find ways to ride away from cars. In a city environment it's really hard to get away from the cars. So that's another factor for sure.

I also think there's this sort of old guard of bicyclists that was around in the nineties and, quote unquote, didn't need bicycle infrastructure to ride a bike. Those people have sort of aged out of it, and the newer generation doesn't feel that way about infrastructure — they want it, they need it, they want to be told where to ride and what's going to feel comfortable.

We've also looked at how other cities are doing things like making car parking scarce, making car parking quite expensive, raising the cost of car ownership. That disincentivizing of driving we haven't done in any measurable way in Portland.

Avi Stopper (23:31)

In terms of the construction of bikeways to surmount some of those safety considerations — bigger cars, et cetera — are there ways you've repositioned the advocacy work in terms of the facilities you're advocating for, what the actual construction needs to entail, to imbue people with that sense of confidence so they can overcome that objection? Is that part of the story here — reorienting advocacy to think about how we make it truly safe, so people aren't concerned about those issues?

Eva Frazier (24:13)

Yeah, we've definitely seen more of our membership saying they want parking-protected bike lanes, they want concrete curbs on the bike lanes, they don't want just paint. That has certainly been happening in the city of Portland — we've started doing more of that, but funding is always the biggest barrier.

Something we've also pushed for is shifting away from a flex-post approach, where typically they get run over, run over, run over, replaced, replaced, replaced — or just put concrete in in the first place. That's something PBOT has listened to us on.

Avi Stopper (24:55)

When they do concrete first rather than the repetitive Sisyphean project of putting up flex posts, are they typically putting in preformed concrete, or actually tearing up the street and pouring concrete in place? Or does it vary by location?

Eva Frazier (25:12)

They're pouring curbs. It depends on the project, for sure. Advocates have told PBOT there are cheaper options out there that still give us the same feeling of safety, but they have their design guidelines they're following. So that's another factor in the advocacy sphere: trying to get the project that can be done quickly for less money, but also not pushing too hard on your Bureau of Transportation to change everything in their manuals.

Avi Stopper (25:51)

All right, there's a lot more to talk about, but let's take a quick break. We'll be back in just a moment. I'm Avi Stopper, and you're listening to Bike Networks Now.

Avi Stopper (26:07)

Hey, it's Avi here. The conversations on this podcast are just one part of what we do at Bike Streets. Every other week, our free newsletter highlights the people, projects, and ideas helping create places where more people can choose to ride. If you're passionate about better bike networks — or just curious about what's possible — we'd love to have you join us. Subscribe today at bikestreets.com.

Avi Stopper (26:42)

Just to rewind to the bike count: one of the things that shouldn't be missed, and can't be overstated, is the partnership relationship you have with PBOT. It seems to me that city governments are often quite cagey about bringing volunteers in to do this work, and yet there's so much energy, so much enthusiasm, so much willingness and desire to help uplift the community in that respect.

Has that ever really occurred to you? Am I projecting, or do you feel that's a unique opportunity — a special relationship that cities, Portland in particular but cities broadly, should think about scaling? There's a lot of free labor, for lack of a better description, a lot of enthusiasm, a lot of people who want to participate. And it's always budget, budget, budget: we can't do this project, we can't do that project, we're so limited. What's your take on that as a way to bring people into the process and accelerate this?

Eva Frazier (27:50)

We have a decent relationship with PBOT. I will say that BikeLoud is currently suing PBOT for not following some Oregon laws — the Bicycle Bill from 1971, which essentially says they need to add bicycle lanes every time they rebuild a street. There are several projects where they haven't actually done that. So currently we're still in negotiations with them to settle this lawsuit. We've had a little bit of a strain.

But generally, working with PBOT is very helpful for us — being able to have open lines of communication with people working on different projects around town, understanding where they're coming from with different design ideas, and bringing our own ideas in early in the process.

We've also presented on our bike lane sweepers. BikeLoud owns and operates these basically on volunteer time. One of the detriments of a protected bike lane is that a regular street sweeper can't fit in there. So we have these little bike lane sweepers we take around town to clean up leaves and glass and that kind of thing. We offered our services to the Portland Bureau of Transportation and tried to work something out, and that didn't quite pan out. But PBOT does have one or two of these really cute little bike lane sweepers they drive around, which obviously cost an arm and a leg more than our little drag-behind sweepers, including the union labor to drive it around. But those are things we've tried to work with PBOT on.

Avi Stopper (29:37)

So let's talk about some of these points of conflict. As I gather, maybe this one isn't with PBOT itself but with the Portland Environmental Management Office, or something along those lines: the removal of diverters. Portland is often held up as an example of low-cost, aesthetically pleasing traffic reduction measures on quiet streets, and some of these have been removed recently. Can you provide some context on what actually happened there — who was objecting to them, and why?

Eva Frazier (30:18)

This was one of those things where a community member found out about it. PEMO is some sort of semi-governmental office that operates to do quick city maneuvers to help neighbors or businesses or whoever's complaining.

There are two diverters in an area of northwest Portland, which is close to the stadium where our soccer teams play — a pretty dense, walkable, bikeable neighborhood. We found out the city was going to be removing two diverters there, and we had to dig in a little to really understand why, and who, and what the catalyst was for removing them.

It turns out the police just wanted to be able to drive down this street to chase people who had stolen things from the grocery store. Which felt a little — I don't know — really? A man is running, and you need to drive a car after him? For whatever reason we were all like: this is ridiculous. They could even drive the wrong way on the street. It's a one-way street with a bike lane going in the opposite direction, and a beautiful diverter with flowers and everything.

So we sort of had a vigil — I don't know what to call it. We tied ourselves to the diverters and said, you can't take these away. And all the neighbors were asking why they'd take these away. Basically the city had told no one. They were just going to come one night with their little truck, pick it up, and take it away.

Luckily we saved it — but it took way too much work to save this one piece of concrete that's the size of a dining room table. Which I think is indicative of all the work advocates do just to hold on to these little nuggets of bike infrastructure that we get.

Eva Frazier (32:33)

We wrote multiple letters, we had people testify at city council, we sent out so many emails and got people to show up and bought them all pizza. I think probably every advocate has a story like that, where you've put in 800 hours of work to save something — and it's actually cost the city more money in the end, in labor hours, to listen to you. It feels ridiculous. That's why I say: can we stop being reactive and actually do things on the front end?

Avi Stopper (33:08)

It's come to that — we have to tie ourselves to concrete planters. I do want to parse one thing in there that I think is really interesting. There are obviously always these different constituencies. I've certainly heard about emergency vehicle access in more of a fire truck context — can the fire truck navigate around the neighborhood traffic circle? I have never heard about police vehicles chasing people who are shoplifting down streets, and therefore you have to remove the diverter.

But what I wanted to call out is that it sounds like the neighbors themselves — I think these were on residential streets, right? — the neighbors themselves like these, because when neighbors experience traffic calming, they like it. Is that right, or am I assigning my own values to it?

Eva Frazier (33:52)

Yes, yeah.

Eva Frazier (34:08)

I think people do. Of course nobody likes change. You put a diverter on my street and it inconveniences me, so I'm going to be angry. But then ask me a year or two down the road, and I'll be happy about how quiet my street is now.

Avi Stopper (34:24)

Let's talk about another point of conflict: the Broadway design reversal. Give a little context and color on that project.

Eva Frazier (34:31)

Broadway is a street that runs through downtown Portland. It's sort of a civic corridor — it goes by a whole bunch of really nice hotels, a university campus, the Schnitzer concert hall that has events all the time, every night. And there's a really beautiful bike lane they put in there that's parking-protected. It's a one-way street: two lanes of car traffic, parked cars, and then bicycles.

And the city tried to take that away. It's been a couple of years now, maybe two or three, since that happened. It kind of came out that one of the hotel owners was grumpy, and maybe found one or two other hotel owners who were grumpy, and they made a little backroom deal. So BikeLoud showed up. We protested, we wrote letters, we showed up to city council. And thankfully we were loud enough that we kept the bike lane on Broadway.

But honestly, this is one of the biggest and most used streets in Portland by bicyclists, through our downtown corridor. It's just frustrating and sad when they spent all this money to build the infrastructure and then were willing to just rip it up in a day.

Avi Stopper (35:55)

There's a statement that you and some folks from BikeLoud issued, in which you criticized city council and said something along the lines of: plans approved by city council must be the ones implemented by the city leadership; after reviewing the city's communications, we are concerned about our current leadership's ability to execute council-approved policy with transparency and integrity. That's a pretty strong statement. What were the conditions that led to it, and what was the response?

Eva Frazier (36:28)

When you're told one thing and then you dig into the documents and find out another thing, that's when you have to question leadership. That's what we ran into. You get told one thing over and over and over, and then you put in a request for documents, and you get to dig into people's emails, and you're like: okay, they did know what was going on. Whereas you keep getting told, "I don't know what's going on, we just have to take this away."

Avi Stopper (37:02)

Was there a particular episode that prompted that? Or was it general frustration — you were so fed up that you wanted to get the receipts and show that what you were being told was going to happen was indeed not happening, and in fact there was some subterfuge?

Eva Frazier (37:27)

I don't know. I wasn't the chair at the time. I was part of the board but didn't know exactly what we were digging into — I mostly saw the aftermath. So I couldn't tell you directly.

Avi Stopper (37:44)

Okay. But suffice it to say that with the open records requests, you managed to at least open the door to the smoke-filled room where the decisions were being made.

All right, flipping the script a little: if you were in charge of PBOT, the Portland Bureau of Transportation, how would you think about the implementation of the plans? What are the affirmative, positive actions you'd take if you were in that seat?

Eva Frazier (38:11)

Sounds like fun. I think one of the biggest things is slower streets around schools especially, and getting traffic volumes down on streets that are marked as greenways. Those are two of the biggest things that, for actually very little money, could create some feeling of safety.

This is something we can do. It's something other places are doing — slowing down traffic around schools, even just closing streets around schools to car traffic and encouraging walking and biking that way. I'd really start with those two things.

And another thing we talk about a lot here is daylighting corners, just for visual safety at intersections — high-crash intersections, and intersections where a bike street is crossing another street. Just making it easier for people to make good decisions.

Avi Stopper (39:22)

Those are great. I note that what you're describing are all relatively lightweight things. In Metro Denver, there's a redevelopment of one substantial intersection on a US highway that goes into the mountains — it's a $200 million project. And what you're describing, the three items on your wish list, are lightweight things that could make a massive tangible difference in people's day-to-day lives at minimal cost.

I think that's something so often missed or forgotten: the bicycle is a lightweight vehicle, and with gentle, lightweight, low-cost but comprehensive network-wide interventions, we can actually make it possible for more people to go where they want to go — even if it's just something as basic as reducing the speed limits in a neighborhood. I find it very interesting that at the top of your wish list was not a marquee protected bike lane facility or something along those lines.

Eva Frazier (40:28)

Well, projects like those are so hard to do. They cost so much money and take so much time. You're doing the entire city — if you can implement things all over the city at the same time, I think that's huge.

Avi Stopper (40:42)

Okay, last question. What are your favorite places to ride a bike to in Portland? Describe the joy for those of us who don't get to ride there regularly. Where are some of the places you like to go?

Eva Frazier (40:53)

I live in North Portland. I'll say that Portland has really fantastic parks — every neighborhood has multiple parks. My local park, Peninsula Park, has roses, a fountain, a splash pad for little kids. There's a swimming pool that's open in the summertime.

So riding from there down to the Willamette River — we have what's called the Duckworth Dock, a pedestrian path connected to a bike lane that I can take all the way from my house. And you can just jump in the Willamette River. There's a dock, and there are always people there hanging out and swimming in the summertime. It's 95 degrees out right now, so that might be what I do after I talk to you.

Avi Stopper (41:40)

That sounds optimal. People actually swim in the river, huh?

Eva Frazier (41:43)

Yeah, absolutely. We can thank the Human Access Project for that. Willie Levenson has done a huge amount of work making the Willamette more swimmable.

Avi Stopper (41:52)

A major river cleanup. It's also 95 degrees here, and there's maybe a puddle down in Cherry Creek I could go vaguely immerse my toes in. I'm jealous — enjoy.

Eva, thank you so much for your time and for sharing the lay of the land with us. Hopefully we get to ride bikes together sometime.

Eva Frazier (42:12)

Yeah, thanks so much for having me.

Avi Stopper (42:16)

Avi Stopper 7/31/26 Avi Stopper 7/31/26

Cassie Hoperich, Robert Grobe, & Madeleine Pelzel: Lessons from Houston

In this episode, we're headed to Houston. If you’re like, “Biking in Houston?!” that's exactly why this is one of the conversations I've been most looking forward to. Houston is the punchline in a lot of national conversations about cars and sprawl—the fourth-largest city in the country, defined in the popular imagination by freeways and heat and distance. The city rating from PeopleForBikes for Houston is a 17 out of 100. No less, the bike movement persists.

Transcript

Avi Stopper (00:06)

Why is that? And how can we fix it so anyone can ride to the places they want to go today? These aren't just freewheeling conversations — we're in search of an answer, and that answer, a modern approach to innovation, is the topic of a book we're writing on how cities can make bike transportation possible today.

We've now done a bunch of episodes in our quest to understand why biking still isn't possible for most people in most cities. Generally speaking, they've been pretty high-level conversations about the bike movement broadly. Over a series of episodes, we're going local — trying to learn as much as we can about how the bike movement is doing in cities across America by talking with the folks who know those cities best: the advocates and planners trying to make bike transportation a practical reality.

Today we're going to Houston. And if you're thinking, "biking in Houston — what?" — that's exactly why this is one of the conversations I've been most looking forward to. Houston, I think it's fair to say, is the punchline in a lot of national conversations about cars and sprawl. It's the fourth largest city in the country, defined in the popular imagination by freeways and heat and distance. The PeopleForBikes city rating for Houston is a mere 17 out of 100. So it's the last place most people would expect to be navigable by bike.

We're going to poke at that mythology today with Madeleine Pelzel, a planner with Nelson\Nygaard, who created the Houston Bike Guide and led the Bike Streets mapping project in Houston. Robert Grobe is program coordinator at Bike Houston.

Avi Stopper (02:22)

And Cassie Hoperich is the vice president for planning and economic development at Downtown Houston+. Cassie, the Kinder Institute for Urban Research at Rice University called Houston the most sprawling, least dense, most automobile-dependent major city in America. What's your take on that?

Cassie Hoperich (02:45)

It's interesting to phrase it that way, given that there are so many cities across North America with a built environment quite similar to Houston's. I think what they're perhaps insinuating is that given the tremendous population we have — fourth largest city in the country, nearly about to overtake Chicago for third — in that context, on a per capita basis, one could argue it.

I'm not a transportation planner and I'm not an expert in bike systems or networks across the country. But I would say we do have a substantially lacking network relative to the sheer volume of people who live in this city and could otherwise take advantage of access to bike trails, or at least roads with some form of protection for cycling.

Avi Stopper (03:43)

Within that context, describe your work — what Downtown Houston+ is thinking about and working on to counter either the mythology or the actual reality. It's probably a little of both.

Cassie Hoperich (03:58)

The organization I work for is actually an alliance of three different organizations — not uncommon in many North American cities and some cities around the world. We're an entity that includes a redevelopment authority, which means we can work with incremental property tax and use property tax revenue from downtown to invest in capital projects: streetscape projects, parks, as well as buildings, so long as there's a public benefit to a contribution we make to a building. Think affordable housing, flood mitigation, stormwater management improvements, things of that nature. We're also a management district, which is also referred to as a business improvement district. The alliance of all three organizations is guided by a strategic alignment plan.

What's notable about our organization is that Houston has quite a conservative revenue cap, which means the city limits the amount of tax revenue it can bring in. In a geography like ours, that makes an entity like ours more useful than it would be in other city contexts — Seattle or San Francisco, say, which don't have this type of revenue cap imposed. On a day-to-day basis, it means we're often at the helm of leading not just planning, design, and engineering for public spaces, but also the implementation and then the stewardship of them — enabled through interlocal agreements, city ordinances, and other forms of bureaucratic infrastructure that let us serve in a quasi-governmental role.

To get back to your question: what does that mean for broader policy and planning goals around bike infrastructure? It means historically we've had quite a voice in the conversation. While the city put together the bike plan, there are obviously parts of downtown where we lead streetscape projects. Most recently, in terms of bike infrastructure we've realized, we led a substantial streetscape improvement project on a street called Bagby. Bagby Street now has an off-street shared path of travel for both cyclists and pedestrians, and it connects a number of our theaters, our aquarium, and several parks — not only to each other and to the north-south points of downtown, but also to entrances to our Bayou Greenways network, specifically Buffalo Bayou. So that's the role we've played.

In terms of capital projects, what we're really focused on today are improvements to our public realm that advance heat mitigation and spur economic development. We're focused on our existing sidewalks and on work that helps the health of our downtown buildings — and specifically the health of our storefronts: bringing in new retail and keeping it here, so we can become a place where people live, work, play, and enjoy. That's our focus at the moment. But historically — most recently in 2021 — we did a $12 million project to build a pretty great connector.

Avi Stopper (07:10)

That's great, thank you for the context. Robert, over to you. Since you're with Bike Houston, I need to ask you the fundamental question this show is probing: whether bike transportation is a reality in Houston for most people, why it is or isn't, and what the actual reality is on the ground. From your perspective, how would you describe the reality of biking around Houston today?

Robert Grobe (07:40)

It's complex. It's as diverse an experience as the people and the food scene in Houston. A lot of people like to refer to Houston as a city of neighborhoods, so you have a lot of distinct neighborhoods with their own culture, their own highlights, their own lowlights. What we see is that people in certain parts of the city have a very different biking experience than people in others.

It is a reality that you can bike around Houston. Some people choose to do it. Some people don't have a choice and are forced to do it — a lot of Houstonians don't have access to a car. Public transit is spotty, and it's just like the bike network: very uneven across the city. So there are people day in, day out, biking when it's hot and when it's cold, and it is possible.

I hate that for a lot of people it's almost an identity as a rebel — that we've pushed against the headwinds the built environment presents and we continue to bike anyway. I wish it were something easier for more people to get into. I think this conversation will lead toward some of the tools and resources making it easier. But right now, it takes a lot of courage to bike on Houston streets. It takes a lot of know-how. It gets easier with each month, with each year, as you learn the tips and tricks — knowing the right routes obviously makes a huge difference. We're also a city that's diced into little pieces by highways, so knowing how to get under and over these highways is really important.

I think the perception of Houston as a car-dominant city is true. I led a ride last month, and we crossed over six different highways. The visuals of going over I-59 or I-45 — it's just wild how wide these highways have gotten in Houston.

Avi Stopper (09:44)

I think that's a good segue over to Mads, who led the low-stress Houston bike map creation. Given this context — the reputation, the low bike network analysis score — the low-stress Houston map you assembled is something like 630 bidirectional miles. One of our underlying Bike Streets theories is that in every city there's a complete bike network hiding in plain sight, to Robert's point about needing to know the routes. So Mads, I'd like your take on that. Is there indeed, all of these challenges notwithstanding, a complete network in Houston hiding in plain sight?

Madeleine Pelzel (10:32)

It's a good trick question, Avi — I appreciate that. I do think that's the question that led to the formation of the bike guide. The initial impetus was that all of these routes — which take months, years, sometimes lots of near-miss collisions with vehicles to figure out — needed to be drawn. Given the number of people who die walking and biking in Harris County each year, it's quite an urgent piece of information to get out there.

I don't want to call it complete, though, because completeness offers a sense of safety that all those miles we've drawn don't offer. They are the best available network, and I take that pretty literally. Those lines don't mean the same type of safety or conditions in every instance. A map drawn based on what's often referred to as level of stress for people walking or biking would have many different flavors, and the lines drawn on the Houston Bike Streets map or the Houston Bike Guide definitely do not incorporate a uniform level of safety.

One of the big opportunities the bike guide tries to describe is the places that are most difficult to cross — the highways, but also a lot of our major thoroughfares and arterials — and how to get across those as safely as we can right now. Each of those moments where you're trying to cross one of these, those intersections are statistically the most dangerous places in the road network generally. Two vectors moving and intersecting is dangerous. So those crossings that are currently quite dangerous — that's why we have "careful crossings" as one of the categories on the bike guide, because there are places that currently don't have any mitigations for those risks. Those are great opportunities, outside of completing the bike network, to do things that would make it at least a little bit more complete for more users.

Avi Stopper (13:01)

If you were prioritizing, Mads — if you had a set budget for development work around a network — would you be assigning that budget generally to building protected bike lanes, or to fixing point locations like these challenging crossings? What do you see as the priority?

Madeleine Pelzel (13:23)

I think it differs, which isn't a helpful answer. But there are a lot of contexts in Houston where we have really great neighborhood side streets that can help you get around and don't need specific bike infrastructure to qualify as an all-ages-and-abilities bikeway. I like to think of a complete bike network as one where you're not moving between different levels of safety.

So if we were looking at a set area or a neighborhood plan, we could really determine whether a linear treatment was needed or more point-intersection treatments were needed to create a zone of a more complete network in that area — where you could get in and through and between all of those thoroughfares, arterials, highways, or to a bayou, safely.

Avi Stopper (14:21)

Cassie, Rob described a city of neighborhoods — all of these neighborhoods, and to Mads's point, they're often islands quite substantially separated from downtown. How do you think about getting people to downtown? If the goal is to get a lot of folks downtown to use the various facilities, to visit and patronize the businesses and come regularly — is your focus just downtown? Or are you thinking about connectivity out into the periphery, so people can actually get there, not just get around once they're there?

Cassie Hoperich (15:05)

Absolutely — we do think about connectivity in and out of downtown. It doesn't work without ingress and egress that work for all. In that spirit, we look at accessibility for single-passenger vehicles, for buses, either park-and-ride or our greater METRO network. We look at pedestrian connectivity, both on sidewalks and to and from our trail network.

The northern part of downtown is hugged by Buffalo Bayou, and it's also where White Oak Bayou meets downtown. So those are two major pieces of our watershed that have highly amenitized trails. I like to describe downtown as the knuckle of our multimodal system. Connectivity to it is incredibly important no matter what mode of transportation you're using.

To the points that have been raised: we've had a bike plan produced, and really important ligaments of that plan have been implemented. Even prior to administration changes, a lot of the decision-making around what was implemented and what wasn't was intended to be phased. So there are already gaps in a pretty central aspect of the bike network — and I'm not even talking about changes that have happened in the last year.

In terms of what's important right now, what's guiding our work and our agenda, we're really focused on strengthening our connection to the bayou network. We have clear entrances and exits into that network, but what we've seen is that the entrances from downtown into the network are some of the lowest-accessed in the city. And I mean both the entrances and the trails themselves — they're just not utilized. You can look slightly outside of downtown at the activity on the trails and see tremendous numbers, both walking and running and rolling, whether on a bike, a scooter, or in a wheelchair. That number really starts to fall off the closer you get to downtown, which is a shame, because again, the knuckle of the network is here. You could get from White Oak Bayou to Buffalo Bayou, east-west.

That's one thing that stands out — not just to me personally, but it's what came up after months of extensive community and stakeholder engagement for our 2025 Public Realm Action Plan. When we asked people what is not working in the public realm here, it was trail connection.

We talk a lot about what it takes to feel safe on a bike. I bike to work every day. I have no problem doing it on both bike lanes and not bike lanes. But I also came here from New York City, where I biked regularly, as well as Los Angeles and San Francisco. So I have a different temperament — it's a totally different reality for me. If I were to take, say, my father-in-law on a bike ride for the first time in years, which I did a few years ago — where did we start? The bayou network. It's extensive and it's very well connected. So if we're trying to get even close to the number of people who take single-passenger vehicles into downtown, let alone the bus, we've got to start from our strengths. And our strengths for sure are our bayou trails, and we need to strengthen those connections. Huge priority for us now — and the people told us it's a priority too.

Avi Stopper (18:32)

I love that you mentioned your father-in-law. When making these low-stress maps, I encourage folks — because often they're people like ourselves who are already confident navigating city streets — to have a companion, either literally or figuratively in their mind. Someone in their life who theoretically wants to ride a bike more but doesn't, for any set of reasons; generally safety and the ability to navigate are the core ones. That's a really great example of being out there and interpreting the world in a very different way because of the person you're with, whom you have to empathize with. You have to really see the world through their eyes: how might they get places?

Just to button that up — you did all this public outreach and engagement. It sounds like there is connectivity to the trail, but why aren't people using it? Are there big gaps? Are there sort of on-ramps to the trails but giant gaps? What are the reasons people aren't availing themselves of it?

Cassie Hoperich (19:36)

I'd say that at the entrances — going in either direction, whether you're getting onto the bayou trails or off of them — there are not many adjacent amenities. If you were on the Buffalo Bayou Trail and said, "I want to go into downtown," it's not going to take you right away to any type of destination right out the gate. You immediately enter either a set of more civic office buildings or more corporate facilities — in both cases, office buildings.

That's why a huge goal for us is thinking about the journey someone might go on, and how we then look at their level of comfort as they get further into downtown, to a destination that makes more sense to them. That said, we do have bike lanes downtown. We have two primary arteries, Austin Street and Lamar Street, and both feed right from those entrances and get you straight to one of our biggest, most popular parks downtown. We've lost some connectivity to the east side of downtown, but when we measured cycling activity prior to the change in that connection, we still saw very, very low volumes of ridership — and we measured across times of year, weekdays and weekends.

So in general, while we do have bike lanes with protection of some form, either concrete barriers or what we all call the armadillos, and we have color calling out these bike lanes, and they've been around for a while — I just think we have low ridership in general. It's both about what's adjacent to the trails and who's really using them, but also about what journey you're trying to complete. That still needs some more thought.

For me, as a daily commuter, I'm on a protected bike lane for most of my trip, but then not when I'm actually getting to my office. So there stands to be better connectivity to front doors, if you will. The challenge is that the data right now is so low. We have very, very low ridership compared to the volume of commuters taking other forms of transportation.

So I think it means starting with recreation and looking at weekends. By recreation I don't just mean the bayou trails — I mean people out riding on weekends and exploring our city that way. We see a higher volume of riders then. I think there's a way to rework some muscle memory by bending those journeys into downtown a bit more. How can we amenitize the entrances more, pull people to destinations centered around weekend activities, and show them firsthand: hey, this is a pretty nice journey. Now consider, when you go to work on Monday, maybe trying that route again.

It's looking at the lowest-hanging fruit, where we're most likely to encourage behavior change — because that's really the challenge in all these cities. This is wildly foreign. Density is not what we have. So you're having to work with where there already is some trust. That's where looking at those types of journeys is likely where we'll see greater success.

Avi Stopper (22:55)

I can just see the trail of ice cream stands leading people off the trail and into downtown. Bike to Work Day here in Denver is fascinating — the extent to which free burritos activate people and get them riding bikes is pretty astonishing.

Okay, so we've now referenced the plan on a few occasions. I think that's the 2016 Houston Bike Plan, which called for something like 1,700 miles of bikeways over 20 years. So we're 10 years into that. The estimated cost of the total network was somewhere in the range of $500 million. Robert, over to you: we're halfway there in terms of the timeline. Are we halfway there in terms of the construction of said network?

Robert Grobe (23:45)

I'll give the city a lot of credit. There was not a lot of infrastructure prior to the Houston Bike Plan, and the infrastructure that was there was very low comfort. The city and the county knocked it out of the park getting going with the Houston Bike Plan. It did take some additional funding to encourage some of the entities, including the city, to invest in the infrastructure.

But we've seen a massive expansion of the bike network, and the city deserves a lot of credit for that. The individual management districts and reinvestment zones, the Harris County commissioners — we have four county precincts, each with over a million people in them, so this is a massive area we're talking about. And we've seen all of the county commissioners, even in the more rural or conservative parts of the greater Houston area, invest in bike amenities.

I've been fortunate to see Houston through the eyes of people new to the city — people coming with a keen eye for biking — and there's been a lot of positive response to biking in Houston. Now, some of that is maybe not as applicable to the person getting out on a Monday morning trying to fight Houston traffic. But you can come to Houston and have an amazing experience by bike. And as we continue to invest in biking and in public transit, we start to chip away at a little bit of the car dominance Houston has been known for.

Avi Stopper (25:33)

I was hoping we'd poke some holes in the mythology around Houston, so thank you for that uplifting and optimistic note. Nonetheless — what would you say are some of the good, the bad, and the ugly hard-won lessons from the creation of a bike master plan and how it produces action?

Robert Grobe (25:55)

One of the positives that came out of it was the depth of engagement. The level of stakeholder engagement and community engagement was really top-notch. The bike plan that was produced is comprehensive, and it is the network Houston deserves.

On the less positive side, we're now 10 years out from that plan. If you look at the names, if you look at the organizations — a lot of the organizations still exist, but we have a whole new city council, we have a new mayor, we have a lot of new people at the organizations that were part of the planning. So there's been a loss of institutional knowledge around what went into that plan: why they chose a particular street to put a bike lane on, why they didn't put a bike lane on another street. When those conversations were being had, you had a lot of really good-hearted and talented individuals having them. But time has changed. I wasn't part of any of that — not to say I would have made it any better, but I wasn't part of those conversations. So as an advocate now, going and speaking in front of communities and at meetings, there's a serious gap between the people who were part of the original planning and the people implementing it today.

Madeleine Pelzel (27:20)

Coming from the perspective of a planner who often gets hired for these one-off efforts — something like the Houston Bike Plan; I wasn't on that team, but the firm I used to be with was — I think it's important for cities to then own those processes. The website that got made during that wasn't continuously updated. There wasn't a process that was formalized after the big day when it all got signed at City Hall. That was an amazing moment, and then there wasn't an effort afterward. It takes a lot of maintenance to keep people up to date and informed.

That's something Downtown Houston+ has done super well throughout this last effort with the Main Street Promenade. We constantly knew what was happening. I'm sure there were separate conversations with business owners and so on, but all those stakeholders — those are relationships that have to be maintained, and the public's trust and their ability to keep caring about it has to be nurtured and maintained.

So I just want to emphasize Rob's point. Not to say the plan wasn't a success, but some of the follow-on — even just immediately afterwards, and I think the pandemic didn't help — that trust and relationship building is so critical to anything we're trying to do in the public realm. It can't be understated. That has to be a follow-on effort after the major one that's the big win.

Avi Stopper (28:52)

Point taken. And with your planning hat on — these things are multi-generational to a degree. It's implicit in a lot of these plans. There's a level of fatigue, and transitions and buy-in are a huge component. You, as I understand it, have a mayor who is less supportive of all of this than the previous mayor, under whom the plan was either passed or who came into office immediately after it was adopted and took ownership of it.

This is a theme we see repeating from city to city. They adopt a bike master plan, there's some momentum and energy about it, and the timeline for development is two decades, three decades in some cases. Do you see that, Mads, as a fundamental flaw in the planning process? Setting aside the gravitational pull of the difficulty of building stuff — is this assumption that a plan is a decades-long thing a broken assumption? Is it something we need to reevaluate, to find ways to accelerate so the momentum, the moment, can be harnessed?

Madeleine Pelzel (30:05)

I don't want to dissuade people from thinking about the future as a vision. Having a visionary, maybe multi-decade plan is reasonable when we're thinking about transportation modes. All modes have long-term plans. Long-range plans are a very important part of how we build and maintain things at a state of good repair, and how we build toward that vision day to day.

However, specifically with the type of infrastructure we're talking about for a bike plan, there's a lot that can be done more immediately as temporary pilot infrastructure — that can allow us to test things, see if people's behavior changes, and then actually work on the behavior change itself. Changing people's behavior is a whole field of study. Sometimes when we're talking about transportation and planning, and how great it would be if everyone were just walking around like we were in New York City and not Houston, I think we forget to discuss the elephant in the room, which is that we're all creatures of habit. Changing someone's commute trip — like Cassie was saying — is the hardest trip to change. We should think more about those other trips that are in more reasonable grasp.

And if, at the onset of a plan, we did more of the temporary or less permanent infrastructure that lets people feel some of the safety and security the final plan would deliver, maybe we could see how that behavior worked, gain some of that trust, and gain political momentum in a way that would make it easier for people to both stay connected to the plan and build political will and support for actually getting it done.

Without some of that continual work after the plan — and that's work that has to be funded — it's hard to keep passing the torch on a multi-decade plan when maybe the two-year, five-year, and ten-year parts weren't a priority in the plan-making process.

Avi Stopper (32:32)

I think you're dancing around a term that's basically a drinking game on this podcast — I have to say "tactical urbanism" a couple of times in each episode. Is that what you're getting at?

Madeleine Pelzel (32:44)

It is, but I think sometimes tactical urbanism gets a rap for not being institutionally formal. What I'm talking about are formal temporary lanes. A couple of years ago on Polk Street, there was an orange barricade — I think it had sand or water in it — that connected the typical Polk bike lane to Austin Street when the Lamar stretch around Discovery Green was closed. I see Rob nodding; I think you remember this. That was a very formal, city-produced temporary bike lane. I guess we can call that tactical urbanism, but I don't want to take the onus away from the folks who have the power to do things in our right-of-way.

There are definitely things that can be done from a tactical perspective, and we're talking more from the community or advocate perspective there. But often, when we're thinking about something like a bus network, there are things the transit agency can do in the short term to augment or change the bus rider's experience and then see how that affects ridership. So I think we can think about bike planning in a similar way — there are formal means to do short-term improvements and then evaluate the results.

Avi Stopper (34:14)

Cassie, I've got to kick this over to you, because I'm fascinated by the structure of your organization as you described it. It sounds — and maybe I'm overfitting this a little — like you have almost a local DOT adjacency, which is to say you have purview to do stuff like this. Am I correct that you and your organization have the wherewithal to do demonstration projects, to coordinate that kind of thing, to do temporary installations that let people see what the future can be like? Is that written into your charter and how you operate?

Cassie Hoperich (34:58)

It's not written into our charter, but it is how we operate. We're still talking about city-owned land — this is still right-of-way. What we're able to do, because of the nature of the projects we do, is partner with the city, get permits, and work with them on unique permitting configurations to test things out.

I appreciate what Mads is saying about tactical urbanism. I worked in tactical urbanism — one of my first jobs in San Francisco was testing out a number of design interventions on Market Street to see how we could create places for people. What differentiates what we think of as tactical or temporary urbanism from more strategic moves is whether it backs into some larger plan, goal, or at least study.

An example of how we've done that recently is Main Street. It's the spine of our downtown. Once upon a time it had a streetcar, which went away, and then it was just for cars. And then — poof — pandemic. Not only had we reintroduced light rail to the street over the previous 20 years, but with the pandemic we had a big question mark about how the street would continue to be used. We did some tactical urbanism. We tried out more open space for businesses, many different configurations. Given our reputation and our ability to run design processes and capital projects, we were invited in to evolve that into a permanent transformation for the street. So now seven blocks of Main Street — thanks to studying it, thanks to measuring impact, especially on the businesses and residents along that corridor — consist of sidewalk space and light rail and no other form of modality.

In general, it's about instilling trust in people, especially in places where cycling is not only somewhat foreign — particularly on typical roads rather than a trail — but also dangerous. It scares a lot of people. But to Rob's point, it's also sometimes the only option for single-car or no-car households.

What's challenging about cycling in Houston is that our city, much like Paris actually, has people who are more resourced financially concentrated in and around the urban core — we call it the inner loop. It's the same in Paris. Those who earn less live further out. It's a very typical demographic pattern, and again, the same in Paris. Paris is actually experiencing something similar to Houston, which is the questioning of bike infrastructure in the urban core by individuals who have no other choice but to commute by single-passenger vehicle to get to their job, and who see bike lanes not necessarily for what they are, but as a symbolic impediment to their dignity, to their own lived experience, and to the inconveniences they must bear that people living closer to their jobs don't have to experience. In Paris you see a lot of movements for removal of bike infrastructure, because it's insulting to those who not only have to drive in and can't bike in, but don't even have metro access at the distance they live from their jobs. That's why it's a focus now for the city of Paris to expand their metro network.

But cut to Houston — a city that doesn't have anything close to that metro network — and it's foreign and confusing on many different levels. So there is experimentation, but there's also the political reality of working-class individuals seeing something they haven't experienced, because they live in a place like Houston, and immediately seeing it as an offense.

So testing out ideas, changing them, showing adaptation — that's huge. But two, being mindful not to hang a plan so much on a single administration. There will always be different mayors, different city council people, different department heads. If you hang a bike plan like ours too much on one administration, you're tethering it with political challenges as much as built-environment challenges. The way planners need to continue to advance work is not to shy away from long-range plans, but to embed them more in the community than with elected officials — knowing that one administration may be focused on a different priority, and maybe it's not bike infrastructure on roadways; maybe the next administration is focused on planting trees smack in the middle of streets, and that could mess with the plan in a different way. You have no idea what's coming down the pipeline with elected officials. So the more you can embed big ideas in the community and make it as plain as day to the average person — that's really what we need to be looking at in terms of planning in our public realm going forward.

Avi Stopper (40:19)

With that sensitivity in mind, are there projects you've run that you'd hold up as leading lights — examples of how to present these kinds of things to folks? It doesn't have to be bike-related specifically, but types of changes to the built environment that people get to see first, that they might be apprehensive about if they only learned about it in the abstract. Are there projects where you've thought, yeah, we just nailed this? I'm thinking about the Times Square reconfiguration in New York City as an example.

Cassie Hoperich (40:57)

Our Main Street project was absolutely that. It was only several businesses that took advantage of it — essentially what they did was reclaim roadway in order to have expanded space for their patrons. That not only made businesses happy and gave them more seats they could put people in and sell food to, but it showed residents what this looks like and what it feels like. It really demystified the notion of taking away space for people to either walk through or for businesses to use.

I'd call that strategic and iterative phasing for projects, which is a huge area of work I've been privileged to work in for almost 15 years. It's that bit-by-bit approach — but also being willing to say where things didn't work, talk about it with people, own it, really embrace that level of accountability, and then repeat back exactly how you made a change for the experience that didn't work well for folks.

Main Street was definitely that. And it has enabled us to work with the city to create a new definition of public space called "managed public realm," which means we're now able, as a city, to look at corridors around Houston and contemplate a new future for them as managed public realm — essentially linear parks. That was an outcome of this as well. So not just a beneficial thing for downtown that allowed for iteration and humility in the process, but something the rest of Houston can come to know.

I also think, though, that for decision makers, it's the classic — was it Jonathan Pacheco Bell? — "you can't plan from your desk." We've all heard that. It's great. I love that sentiment; it's wonderful. And I just don't think that, despite it being repeated and memeified over and over in our collective urbanist space, people actually do it — especially in Houston, because it's hot as heck. But it's so important for the work we do. For instance, right after this, I'm going to be outside in ninety-six-degree heat meeting with a business about something they want to do with their facade. That's just what you have to do. You can't email about it.

On projects like that, when you iterate and someone says to you, "I hate this bike lane because it slows me down when I get to my bank" — don't just dismiss it and say, "find a new route." Go get in their car and drive it, show them a new route, and time it with them. Literally do these things, because people may not even remember their specific gripe, but they'll remember that act of listening and humility. We've found that these types of actions don't just change people's minds; they can create true champions in the least expected type of person.

I also think that, especially in a 2026 reality with a new generation of planners coming up, we've lost a little bit of the meaning behind getting out there, doing the work, pounding pavement, and feeling the experience for people — because we can rest on our laurels, our great competencies, and our education. It's like: no, we don't have all the answers. What we're doing now may feel right and may feel fact-based, but look at the past. We've always changed and iterated. The only way to know for sure is to get out there. My sweet, understanding team appreciates the civic-mindedness, I think, as they sweat with me when we go out every day. But it's just what you have to do.

Avi Stopper (44:27)

There are few things I think are as compelling in this work as iteration — small iteration based on actual observation. And it's cool to hear that one of the results is basically a proof of concept the city is inclined to scale to other parts of the community. That's a great story.

Robert, I want to kick it over to you and talk about the political realities. From what I gather, the mayoral transition has been challenging from the perspective of getting a lot of the bike plan implemented. It's that handoff — the level of momentum, the sense of enthusiasm and ownership people have — that's difficult when there's a substantial transition. Am I right in my understanding? And how has Bike Houston been thinking about greasing the wheels on that, making the mayoral handoff a lot smoother in terms of continuing progress?

Robert Grobe (45:31)

You're on the right track. You might even be underselling it. To say it's a challenge would be generous.

There were a lot of projects in the hopper. We all know these infrastructure projects — the design time, the community engagement time, the construction time — those are measured in years. We had a lot of projects at different points in the design phase that were shelved. We had the same engineer presenting on a project in, say, 2023, and then in 2025 presenting completely different projects, selling the neighborhoods on the safety and the improvements each time.

It was jarring to a lot of people like myself who got involved in bike advocacy during the good times. What's that Andy Bernard quote about how we don't recognize we're in the good times? I got involved as a bike advocate — it had a very sad beginning to it — but there was a lot of cheerleading the city on the investments they were making. Bike Houston primarily positioned itself as a cheerleader and educator to the community, explaining the benefits of safe active infrastructure coming to their neighborhood.

With the most recent mayoral change, we found ourselves being painted at times as a special interest group, as an outside agitator — even though, as we said with the bike plan, this was a lot of community and stakeholder engagement that all spoke with one voice saying we want safe active infrastructure. And now there's outsized importance put on a few critics of the bike infrastructure we have. No bike lane is perfect. When you have safe active infrastructure that creates barriers between people and cars, you have people hitting curbs, you have people causing a little bit of damage to their vehicle. And that now is the main driver of how our city is being built out: how accommodating is it to individual vehicles? Are we giving up space for other forms of transportation?

There was a moment where Bike Houston felt like the rug was pulled out from underneath us. We had projects in the hopper. We don't build the bike lanes, we don't design the bike lanes, but we're big fans of them and big promoters of them. We realized that the city at times is going to be working with us, and at other times is going to be doing things we have disagreements about. So we've tried to strengthen ourselves internally — doing things that utilize the informal bike network, highlighting how that can help you get around the city by bike. We're doing bike lane cleanups to show we have skin in the game; we'll actually be hosting a bike lane cleanup next weekend. We've moved toward a more direct-service, internal locus of control — we can't wait around for everything to be perfect. So we're out there doing what we can with the resources we have.

Avi Stopper (48:49)

Mads, you created — or were one of the central figures in the creation of — the Houston Bike Guide. You're kind of the personification of the Houston Bike Guide in some respects. So, a non-cartography question: what do you say to folks when they say, "Yeah, I can't ride my bike, the conditions are totally impossible"?

Madeleine Pelzel (49:11)

A couple of things. Every city has challenges. Houston is unique in that it's flat, and I think we sometimes don't sell enough how much that makes biking and walking easier for a lot of people. Learning to ride a bike when you're not trying to stop the bike going downhill or start the bike going uphill — those things are really challenging and can be huge barriers. Also, icy streets can be huge barriers. Snow on the streets for months and months of the year. Of course, we've had our fair share of ice storms these last couple of years, but it's not prolonged.

So, a couple of things to counterbalance: it's hot sometimes, and that's a really hard part, but it's also getting hotter all over the country for longer parts of the year. And there's a lot we can do to mitigate that. One is to keep going outside as it gets hotter. Your body does adapt — at least some people's bodies adapt more — and that can make it easier, rather than stopping biking during May and June and then trying to start again in July. That will definitely be harder.

But there's a lot we can do in the urban realm to increase people's ability to enjoy biking when it's hot. When we had bike share in Houston, July, I think, had the highest ridership of any month. So people do ride in the heat, and historically have — we have the data to show it. We have counters on the bayous, so you can see every single day how many people have ridden on many of the bayous across the city, and those numbers are always highest in the summer months. Statistically, people are riding when it's hot, for sure.

But shade is a huge factor. More shade directly along our bayou trails is super important. The areas of the bayou that get the most use during the summer are often the ones with shady aspects, compared to some that are much more concretized, as I like to say. Restoring the riparian buffer to our watershed would really help with cooling along those trails, in addition to shade within our neighborhood contexts and along our arterials.

That's a long-term project. Trees take a long time to grow. But it's never a bad time to start planting them. We thank all the people who planted our beautiful live oaks many decades ago, and I think we can lean on that principle and try to ensure that in fifty years there's a much higher tree canopy in our city, which will make it that much more comfortable as conditions continue to stay hot for longer parts of the year.

Avi Stopper (51:51)

I can just see the guerrilla planters with their trees and their cargo bikes going out in the middle of the night and dropping in some live oaks. You're selling me on riding a bike in Houston.

Last question, Mads: what's your favorite place to ride a bike to in Houston?

Madeleine Pelzel (52:07)

To ride a bike to, or to ride a bike along?

Avi Stopper (52:10)

It's an open question.

Madeleine Pelzel (52:07)

I'm going to make a blanket statement that I love all of the Bayou Greenways. But my actual favorite — which, to my own chagrin, I didn't discover until 2020 — is the Spring Creek Greenway, north of the city. From what I've gathered, it's the longest linear urban forest in the country, and it has this incredible trail network. The way to say it is that it's between some highways, but that's the most useful way to describe it: between I-69 and I-45 is the paved section, and then it continues on toward the west from there. So it goes roughly from Kingwood toward The Woodlands, and it's this gorgeous urban forested connector along the San Jacinto River. It's truly a gem of our region.

Avi Stopper (53:01)

Cassie, same question for you.

Cassie Hoperich (53:04)

I really like biking up White Oak — as far as I can, but usually to a street called Ella, which is super scary to bike down. But at the end of it there's a brewery I love very much. I'm a very treat-motivated cyclist. So from my home to this brewery along White Oak is a solid weekend workout adventure with a very tasty treat breaking it up. It's something I love very much.

But I'll also plug a future ride I'd like to do more of: the ride from my home in the East End to Memorial Park. There's a section of the Buffalo Bayou Trail that just doesn't exist, and hopefully one day there will be some version of a protected trail for cyclists and walkers to get to Memorial Park, which is an outstanding green space. I see a future where that'll be my new favorite ride.

Avi Stopper (54:07)

I like the vision. And I'm totally adopting "treat-motivated rider." All of our group bike rides here always, without fail, end with ice cream. That is treat motivation right there.

Robert, last but not least — what's your favorite place to ride a bike to in Houston?

Robert Grobe (54:26)

I'm sitting in Bike Houston's downtown office, off the Austin Street bike lane, and we're about three blocks south of Buffalo Bayou. At the end of the Austin Street bike lane is the José Campos Torres plaza, which provides a wonderful gateway to the bayou trail. It speaks to Cassie's point earlier about having wayfinding, having some way to find these wonderful trails. There's a section of the Buffalo Bayou Trail through downtown that sneaks under some buildings and off to the side of them, and it's just an amazing hidden gem of the Houston bike network. Buffalo Bayou Partnership is continuing to improve the trail system along Buffalo Bayou.

I'm also a big treat guy. A lovely date night my wife and I have is to bike over to Black's Bodega in the warehouse district, get a pint of ice cream, and then — there's a new section of Buffalo Bayou on the east side with a really cool hill you can sit on that overlooks downtown. It feels like you're on a European vacation when you're there. So that's become our "when we've been good for the week, let's go to Black's, get some ice cream, and go to the hill."

Avi Stopper (55:48)

That is the right note to end on — again, poking holes in the mythology of Houston. It's just like a European city. Take that quote and bank it.

Thank you all for your time. I really appreciate it, and thank you for your work. I look forward to riding bikes with you someday.

Robert Grobe (56:04)

Thanks, Avi.

Avi Stopper (56:07)

Avi Stopper 7/23/26 Avi Stopper 7/23/26

Martina Haggerty: What the Data Says About Connected Bike Networks

Transcript

Avi Stopper (00:00)

Welcome to Bike Networks Now. I'm Avi Stopper, the founder of Bike Streets. Through a series of conversations with leaders in bike transportation and beyond, we're trying to answer a question: Why is bike transportation still not possible for most people in American cities, and how can we make it a reality? Despite voter support and billions of dollars of investment, there's no city in America where biking is a practical reality for people of all ages and abilities. Why is that? And how can we fix it so anyone can ride to the places they want to go today? These aren't just freewheeling conversations. We're in search of an answer. And that answer—a modern approach to innovation—is the topic of a book we're writing on how cities can make bike transportation possible today.

This show orbits around the premise that biking is still not really an option for most people in American cities. My guest today has spent years building the tools that let us actually measure whether that is indeed true. Martina Haggerty is the Vice President of Infrastructure at PeopleForBikes, where she leads the Great Bike Infrastructure Project and the City Ratings initiative, which scores hundreds of cities on how well their bike networks actually connect people to the places they want to go. They call this the Bicycle Network Analysis, and we'll dive into that in a moment.

Martina has also been out in the real world, not just at the keyboard. She has built bike networks for the City of Providence, where she worked for 13 years, six of which were as the city's principal planner. In that role, she led the creation of more than 40 miles of bikeways in under two years through the Great Streets Initiative. I want to understand what the data actually say about where cities are in the course of their bike network development, and whether it's more than just a feeling that many of us have. Martina, welcome. How did I do with that intro?

Martina Haggerty (02:02)

You did great. Thanks, Avi. And yeah, I think it's been a great experience to be at PeopleForBikes after being out in the quote-unquote real world of doing the work on the ground. It has helped our organization really stay in tune with how hard this work is—to build great bike networks out there in the real world—and to provide the right tools and resources to help people do it.

Avi Stopper (02:25)

It ain't easy, and in this episode we are going to solve all of those problems. Just really quickly, describe PeopleForBikes—what it is, how it works—for those who aren't familiar with the organization.

Martina Haggerty (02:36)

Yeah. For folks who might not have heard of PeopleForBikes before, we are a national bike advocacy nonprofit and the U.S. bike industry's trade association. That means we represent hundreds of bike industry suppliers through the trade association for the bike industry, and about 1.4 million individual folks—folks who love to ride bikes—all throughout the country through the PeopleForBikes Foundation.

Avi Stopper (03:03)

All right. So I'm curious to hear—you've been at this for a long time, and this show starts with a fairly high-level question. Here we are, it's 2026. In most cities in America, for most people, it seems to be the case that biking for transportation to all of the types of destinations they might want to visit isn't a reality. What's your take on that premise? Do you feel like that is indeed the case?

Martina Haggerty (03:29)

I'd say that I largely agree with the premise, although I'd soften it a little bit. I think there are definitely places where biking is a practical way for folks to get around, for transportation or for recreation. But for most Americans, I think it is true that it might not be practical for all the kinds of trips that they could make. And I think the biggest reason is really simple: it's that we haven't built complete, fully connected bike networks in most cities. And until we do that, it's not going to become very practical for a lot of people to get around by bike.

Avi Stopper (04:05)

So you have worked both in the real world building these bike networks, and you have also done advocacy work to try to advance the cause of getting them built. What are some of the key advocacy or policy lessons that you have learned that you feel like could really bend this in the direction of complete networks?

Martina Haggerty (04:27)

In general, we've gotten a lot better at understanding how to build great bike networks. We know what works. We know how to design good places and safe places for people to ride. But I think the place where we have a lot of work to do is how we talk about why this matters with people.

Too often we—and when I say we, I mean bike advocates, city leaders, city officials that are doing this work out there—too often we lead with bike infrastructure instead of the outcomes or the results that people actually care about. Most people probably don't wake up thinking, "Wow, I really want a new bike lane." We might. I do. But in general, most people wake up thinking, "I really wish my street was safer. I wish my family had a more affordable way to get around than having to pay for gas every day. I wish my kids could get out and ride their bikes like they did when I was a kid." They want the freedom to choose how they get around, for recreation and transportation. Infrastructure is the how, right? That's how we deliver those outcomes, but it's not the outcome itself. And I think often we don't lead with the right messaging on that.

Avi Stopper (05:45)

How would you say the messaging is typically framed?

Martina Haggerty (05:48)

I think it's typically framed as, "We're going to build a bike lane and it's going to make your life so much better." And yes, that is true—a lot of us know from research that's true. But I think the messaging should really be flipped: "We're going to make streets safer. We're going to make it so that your kids can ride to school or ride to the park. We're going to make it safer for all road users out there. We're going to make it more affordable for families like yours to get around your city for recreation or for transportation."

So that's one lesson. Another key lesson is really shifting how we think about projects. For a long time, American cities have just been going project by project. And that's great—we have to start somewhere. Everything has to start with one bike lane or one project. But we're far enough along, for the most part, in most U.S. cities at this point, where we need to start thinking about connected networks more often. It's this key lesson that just adding miles of bike lane doesn't solve the problem. It doesn't make it practical for people to get around. Building a network does.

Avi Stopper (06:55)

I'm glad that you got to the methodology—you jumped ahead a little faster than I wanted to go, so I'm going to rewind real quick. What you're saying about safety, affordability, freedom, freedom for your kids—one thing that we seem to rarely discuss is that when parents are untethered from schlepping their kids all over the place, the parents themselves have more freedom to spend their time doing things that they might want to do. Spending time with friends, going to work out, just relaxing, reading a book, for goodness' sake.

That reminds me that in sales training, often what is discussed is selling benefits rather than selling features. And it strikes me that talking about a bike lane—here's the configuration, here's what it's going to do—those are all features, whereas benefits are really the kinds of things that you're describing. Have you ever thought about it from that framework? And do you feel like that is indeed one of the reasons that a lot of this advocacy work kind of falls on its face?

Martina Haggerty (07:55)

That's one of the key lessons that we try to convey to advocates and leaders that we work with in cities all throughout the country: lead with values-based messaging. And there are lots of ways you could do that, but it really starts with listening—listening to what people need and want and what they care about, and then figuring out how to solve for that and how to lead with that message.

Avi Stopper (08:18)

From a policy standpoint, and from the perspective of policymakers, one of the things that you didn't mention—Kevin Mayne, who is a longtime European bike industry advocate and led what I think is maybe loosely analogous to PeopleForBikes in Europe, was on the show previously—he described job creation as a really strong selling point for European leaders as to why they should invest in bike networks. His organization had developed some research suggesting that if cities across Europe were to invest in bike networks and in bike access broadly speaking, it would have a lifting effect on the overall workforce and labor market of an additional million jobs.

Is that something that PeopleForBikes has ever looked into? The overall local economic lift in terms of how many new jobs are created, how many new bike shops are able to get up and running—is that a benefit you've looked into?

Martina Haggerty (09:22)

Yeah, we do know from our own research that communities that have great low-stress connected bike networks have more bike shops and more bike sales. So we know that there's a connection there. But the connection, as you sort of mentioned, goes way beyond that.

When we build bike projects and complete streets projects that think about all the different modes—they create sidewalks and transit stops and bike facilities—those types of construction projects create more jobs in the short term for construction than traditional road projects. There have been studies done that show that. And then there's a longer-term benefit of lifting up local economies and local businesses, revitalizing main streets. We all know that when we get more people out on a street experiencing it in different ways, whether they're walking or biking or driving, that is going to create a stronger local economy and stronger local businesses, which is a really compelling thing for a lot of communities.

Avi Stopper (10:25)

What do you think it is about the advocacy where there's often so much pushback from local businesses on projects? Are we not, in many cases, just trotting out these studies that say, "Yo, if there is a bike facility in your neighborhood or in front of your business, your business is going to experience an economic lift"? Do those studies exist? And if they do, is there a reason that you can see—is it naive, is it poor strategy—that we don't bring those to the fore and tell people, look, you're going to benefit from this, your business is actually going to do better, you're going to see increased revenue as a result of this investment?

Martina Haggerty (11:07)

In some cases I think it is that—part of the problem is that these studies aren't being talked about. They exist. They're out there. They're accessible to everybody, in different kinds of communities, different sizes. What happens in New York City might not be comparable to what happens in your small town, but there are certainly studies for smaller communities, rural communities, suburban communities that show the same information, generally all pointing in the same direction.

But even in communities where they do show those studies and reference them, what I have seen in general, in a lot of places, is a resistance to studies from other cities. Sort of a disbelief that even if it's a comparable community, that's that place, that's not here, and you don't know what my city is like. You don't know what my neighborhood is like. You don't know what my street is like.

It's one of those things where people can't believe it until they see it. So I think if your city has done a great bike project and you've seen results, capturing that data and showing it within your own community is one of the best moves you can make, because it's going to be more relatable and more believable for a lot of folks. You could show them studies until you're blue in the face, and in a lot of places it just isn't going to matter.

Avi Stopper (12:28)

That's so funny, because I typically think of the way that people glaze over when someone starts to wax poetic about Amsterdam or Copenhagen and they're like, "Well, this isn't Copenhagen." But I think what you're saying is that if you show someone in Wichita a study from Topeka, they're just going to say, "This isn't Topeka." Is that the reality of it?

Martina Haggerty (12:48)

Yeah, that's what I've seen in my experience working on the ground and working with communities all across the country. People believe what's local. They care most about what happens locally. All the other studies are really important, and I don't want to discourage folks from using that information and that data—but capturing your own data from your own community, and then bringing those folks out and hearing their stories.

So if you created a really successful protected bike lane on a corridor, maybe there were a few business owners who were kind of skeptical or not sure of it when it happened. It's been a few years, it's actually been really beneficial. Bring them out to your public meeting. Get quotes from them, get video snippets from them, use them on social media—because people know who they are. They believe them. They're real people in their community. Their stories are going to be more relatable and believable for folks than all the data in the world. You have to gain the trust of the people you're working with that this is going to work, and that their neighborhood is special, of course, but that it can work in our neighborhood.

Avi Stopper (13:50)

Who do you think bears responsibility for collecting this kind of data, for being able to demonstrate that the ROI is there? Because generally speaking, the modus operandi is you build something and then you move on to the next project. There's very little ex post facto analysis of, "Is it working? Is it performing in the way that we want it to perform?" Am I right about that? Do you see that happening anywhere? Are there opportunities where this is indeed being undertaken?

Martina Haggerty (14:22)

I think you're right. I think cities are responsible for doing this sort of post-mortem analysis of projects that they build. What I've seen and what I've experienced is that a lot of cities are under-resourced and under capacity. It shouldn't be that way, but it is. And usually they don't have the resources to sit down and go through that process that they really need to. So I think one great lesson for cities is to invest in that analysis, because it'll pay dividends later on and it'll make your processes and your public engagement a lot easier down the road once you've gathered that data.

Avi Stopper (15:01)

PeopleForBikes produced a study a few years ago—it's in the form of a white paper or PDF—about quick builds. It describes this kind of incremental, startup-like approach to creating infrastructure, creating networks, and evaluating the efficacy thereof. And it describes four phases: demonstration projects, which use super short-term ephemeral materials; pilot projects; then interim designs; and finally permanent installation. It doesn't strike me that that has become the status quo in terms of how people and cities are actually operating. Do you think I'm right about that? And is there a reason for that? Is the reason perhaps embedded in what you just described—that they're stretched?

Martina Haggerty (15:47)

Some cities have taken quick build as sort of the final solution, right? They're like, "These are great. I can get a super cheap flex post and some paint, call it a day, move on to the next project. Wow, that was so much easier than digging up the street and pouring concrete and putting in all the things to really make this a high-quality project."

I think the best way to think about it is that quick build is a tool. It's a way to learn quickly, collect information, and refine your process and your design before making permanent investments. That's a really important step that I think a lot of folks have just kind of skipped right over. Things like delineator posts are helping cities move a lot faster and build a lot more—we used them a lot in Providence—but they're never really meant to be the final place that you land on.

So the more that we can use these projects as a process to go back to the community and say, "Okay, what worked, what didn't? Yes, it was cheap and easy with the flex posts. Maybe the barrier needs to be sturdier. Maybe the bike lane needs to be a little bit wider. Maybe we need to think about the curb management for deliveries in this particular place in a different way." It gives you that flexibility, where you haven't poured the concrete, you haven't invested, and you can redo things and fix mistakes or errors that you might have made along the way. But it shouldn't be the be-all and end-all.

Avi Stopper (17:09)

I'm so glad that you describe that as a tool for learning. Back to the previous point we were discussing about building support among business owners, among community members—that iterative approach where you put something on the street, you evaluate it, you have some people, maybe some volunteers, sitting out observing what's going on, tracking the number of people riding bikes, the number of drivers who are navigating it appropriately or inappropriately. Instead, we just go through the conventional planning process and we miss this opportunity to iterate and improve. Would you say that's generally your view? Am I just reiterating what you described, or is that indeed a big missed opportunity?

Martina Haggerty (17:56)

I do think it's a huge missed opportunity for communities. It's going to be a lot easier to convince a bunch of skeptical business owners along a corridor to let you put in a bike lane when you say, "Okay, it's iterative. It's not necessarily permanent. We want your feedback throughout this process, and we're going to improve it."

And I think making sure you allow enough time for that process to play out is also really important—I don't want to skip over that point either. This shouldn't be a one-day test project. That's a tool, and communities do that; I've worked on projects where we've done that. But really letting it stand for six months, maybe, and letting people really get used to it and experience it, and then iterating on it just like you described.

Avi Stopper (18:37)

All right, let's talk a little bit about network creation. At a high level, describe what you do, what the Bicycle Network Analysis is, how the City Ratings are produced, and what the significance is.

Martina Haggerty (18:56)

Each year, PeopleForBikes releases City Ratings scores for thousands of U.S. communities and hundreds of international communities as well. What the program does is analyze the quality of those communities' low-stress bike networks. Essentially, we look at how people can comfortably bike between where they live and the places that they need to go, and we use a consistent, data-driven methodology to do that. We produce a report card for each community's bike network that gives local leaders and bike advocates a really clear roadmap for how they can build safer and more connected bike networks.

The BNA, or our Bicycle Network Analysis, is what we use to calculate that City Ratings score. It gives each community a score between zero and 100, with 100 being the highest. Basically we look at every street in the city and we look at whether somebody can comfortably bike on that street. We use data from places like OpenStreetMap and the U.S. Census. We look at where people live, where people work, where key destinations are, and then the characteristics of every single street segment in that city. That might include things like how wide is the street, what's the speed limit on it, how many lanes of vehicular traffic are there, is there bike infrastructure, and if so, what kind of bike infrastructure.

Then we use that to create a score for each census block, saying, is this low stress or high stress? And then we combine all of those weighted scores for individual census blocks into an overall city score. It's not saying, "Hey, this is how many miles of bike infrastructure the city has. Great job, city, you have a hundred miles of bike infrastructure." It's saying, is this hundred miles of bike infrastructure actually useful to the people who live there and work there?

Avi Stopper (20:47)

I'd like to hear about how you define and think about what a network actually is. When I think of a network, I'm typically thinking of a subset of the existing streets that have some sort of formal bike infrastructure on them, and they connect in a way that makes it possible to make trips across cities with a chill first mile and last mile connection. Is that how you think about it? Which is to say, you look at a map and there is a clear bike map that is a subset of the infrastructure that exists in a city.

Martina Haggerty (21:22)

Yeah, I think that's a great definition. I define it very similarly. A bike network is something that allows someone who maybe isn't already a confident cyclist to comfortably reach the places that they need to go. People talk about that as being people of all ages and all abilities. That doesn't mean that every street has to have a protected bike lane in your entire city. It means that every trip has a comfortable route, just the way you described.

So that might be a combination of things. Part of your trip might be on an off-road trail, part of your trip is on a slow residential street, part of your trip might be on a protected bike lane on a major road where that is an important way to keep cyclists safe. The goal is really to create that connected, low-stress experience without gaps in your network. You might have all of that, but if you have one intersection, one trail crossing, one street segment that feels really unsafe for folks, that's what we call a gap. And that's a reason that someone might not ever ride a bike again if they experience that. So you want to avoid those gaps and really focus on filling those in. That's what we look at with City Ratings.

Avi Stopper (22:34)

The way I think about networks is that a route is only as strong as its weakest point, and gaps are really important. I just want to call out that your previous framing of this as lanes, not networks, is really on point—because if your focus is on lanes and on the number of miles built, you can trumpet that as a big accomplishment, but the reality on the ground might be totally different. You could have hundreds and hundreds of miles, but if those miles are not connected—if there are large, gnarly, really unpleasant gaps between them—you still have the miles, but you have this giant gaps problem, and so you don't have an actual network.

As you look at this data, do you feel optimistic about where we are? How do you feel when the City Ratings emerge?

Martina Haggerty (23:26)

I think you have to be somewhat optimistic at your core to be able to do this kind of work, right? Whether it's at the national level or the local level, you have to have some optimism in you. Otherwise it's really hard to wake up in the morning and do the work, because the data can be grim. We know what the safety statistics are in the United States.

Avi Stopper (23:34)

Always look on the bright side of life.

Martina Haggerty (23:50)

We know what's possible by looking at a lot of our international peers and European cities that are doing this really well, building out bike networks really quickly. So it can be really discouraging at times.

But overall, I would say that things are getting better in America. When we look at the miles of protected bike lanes in the U.S.—and I know it's not miles, like I said earlier, it's networks, but it's part of the story—back in 2000, I think, we had about a hundred miles of protected bike lanes in the U.S., according to our measurements. And last year we measured over 4,000 miles. So things are clearly changing. It's much more common in cities to see protected bike lanes and trails than it was 25 years ago.

One of the other things that keeps me feeling optimistic is that we know that people want this. We know from our participation data at PeopleForBikes, and from other surveys communities have done, that it all points in the same direction: more people want to ride bikes more often, but they need to feel safe and comfortable doing it to make that decision. It feels good to know that we're doing things that people actually want that will make their lives better.

Avi Stopper (25:01)

Can you describe some of the archetypes of cities that emerge from the data as you're doing this analysis? What are some of the actual American cities that typify certain levels in the different rating categories?

Martina Haggerty (25:19)

I don't think there's one perfect example of a city, but certainly there are cities that are operating at different levels. You have places like Minneapolis and Cambridge that are really knocking it out of the park, that have been doing this work for a long time, that have put systemic changes in place in how they build their bike networks, what their department of public works looks like, what their public engagement process looks like, and what their goals are.

Then you have another tier of cities that are not quite there yet but are making really promising efforts toward building out bike infrastructure. Places like Austin, Texas are among those that don't have a perfect connected network yet, but are making a hell of a lot of progress in getting there.

And then you have another tier of cities that we call cities that are kind of on the cusp. Maybe they're rated in the twenties or thirties. Clearly there's some level of bike network there, but it hasn't yet permeated the culture of their city. It hasn't reached all of the neighborhoods it needs to reach, and you're not really seeing a lot of people ride. Going back to your main premise, it's not a practical way for people to get around.

Avi Stopper (26:42)

Okay, I'll just cut to the chase. What is the best bike city in America as per the City Ratings, and why?

Martina Haggerty (26:50)

According to our City Ratings scores this year, which we released in June, the highest-scoring large U.S. city was Brooklyn—which I know is not a city, but for practical purposes we have broken down the boroughs of New York City to be evaluated on their own as large cities. Brooklyn scored a 70 out of 100 for a large U.S. city, followed by Minneapolis and Seattle.

When you look at medium-sized cities, other places that have scored really well include Hoboken, New Jersey. They've got an 83 out of 100 this year. Places like Anchorage, Alaska have scored really well too, which surprises a lot of folks. And even places like Grand Forks, North Dakota. I think there's this misconception that it's very specific coastal cities that have done really well in this and that care about bike infrastructure. But what we see through City Ratings is that it's communities really of all sizes all across America that do really well.

Avi Stopper (27:51)

I'm delighted that you mentioned Brooklyn, because there is one bike facility there on a street called Berry, under the Williamsburg Bridge, that I'm totally obsessed with. It is an evolved pandemic-era slow street, and it is incredible. Of all of the bike facilities that I have seen, I think it is the most scalable. So I hope that that alone just boosted their rankings massively.

All right, let's flip the script. What is the most dismal place in America to ride a bike?

Martina Haggerty (28:21)

We try not to name and shame places too much. We try to focus on the places that are doing the best. But there are certainly some cities that are lagging behind. Houston, Texas is an example of a city that's lagging behind. Los Angeles—very auto-oriented, and really a shame that the city is wasting this incredible opportunity with the Olympics coming up, where they could be speeding up and accelerating the construction of their bike network to help people get around during the Olympics and change the city in the long term.

You have other places like Chicago that have spent a really long time building out their bike network. They're building a lot of projects right now, but they haven't focused on the connectivity piece as much. They've really focused on doing a lot of isolated projects. There are a whole lot of reasons why that has happened in Chicago, and I know the advocates are working really hard there and the city is working really hard to fix it, but there are just a lot of pieces at play politically that make it challenging to connect bike projects and think about the connectivity of the network as a whole rather than getting specific projects.

Avi Stopper (29:36)

Do you know the Chicago scene in detail at all? Can you describe that a little bit more? I think the general narrative is that at least under Rahm Emanuel, there was this transformative push to add protected bike lanes all through downtown and all over the place. I didn't know, however, that the connectivity challenges are what you described. Do you have a little bit more detail on the Chicago story?

Martina Haggerty (30:03)

In Chicago, for folks who might not be familiar with it, there are 50 wards and 50 alderpersons who are sort of like city council members. Not every city has an alder, but they sort of operate and run each ward, and they have a lot of sway in what projects get built or don't get built. I think that has made it really challenging for local advocates and for CDOT to think beyond ward boundaries in a lot of cases. I'm not saying that's absolute, but in a lot of places I suspect that is true.

And I know they're working on other things like lowering their speed limit in Chicago, which is something we encourage all cities to do to help improve the quality of their low-stress bike network. But they've struggled with it. They've tried a few times to get the speed limits lowered in Chicago and just haven't quite been able to get there due to some political boundaries.

Avi Stopper (31:02)

As we discuss this, there's a really important assumption that's baked into a lot of it. The assumption is that there is a causal relationship between network completeness, network connectivity, and usage—which is to say, the return on investment. So in some of those exemplars that you described, commensurate with the connectivity, is there empirical proof that this causal relationship does exist? Are we seeing the kind of lift that you would assume in an "if you build it, they will come" sphere—which is to say, you build the network, the network is connected, it scores high in the ratings. Do we also see a commensurate level of ridership growth that we would expect if indeed our theory that complete networks produce ridership is true?

Martina Haggerty (32:00)

We know that when cities build connected, complete bike networks, more people ride. It isn't instant. You don't flick a switch and build a bike lane and have hundreds of people flooding your street on bikes. Maybe you do—that would be awesome—but in a lot of cities that's not true.

Often I have seen that used as an argument against building out bike lanes or bike networks: "Well, the city built that bike lane on this street last year and I don't see anybody ever riding on it." That may or may not be true. It's a lot harder, for some reason, for people to visualize and notice people biking on a road than counting cars. So that's part of it. But it's also often that the bike lane is isolated, it's not well connected to where people live or where people want to go, and for that reason people aren't using it as much as they might if it were truly connected.

Avi Stopper (33:01)

Do you think that kind of infrastructure creation is counterproductive? We go to war to build this facility over five years, a decade in some cases, it gets built, and then the results are underwhelming and the naysayers are like, "See, told you so."

Martina Haggerty (33:17)

In an ideal world, a city would be able to go out and build a complete network connection. Think about it: people might be taking this complete trip from this neighborhood, across the city, through downtown, to the other side of the city. And here's what the full connection looks like. Really thinking about, okay, if someone's riding on this and they need to get to work downtown, what does that trip from A to B fully look like? Let's build the whole thing, not just a piece of it.

I think it's really hard for a lot of cities to do. It shouldn't be that way, but it is. So I don't want to discourage cities from building out specific segments, because you have to start somewhere. If you're building your first piece of bike infrastructure, you might only have funding and buy-in to build a specific segment. But unfortunately, in a lot of places, that is counterproductive, because then you're going to hear a lot of those arguments that we just described.

Avi Stopper (34:08)

I think at its essence, what we are doing with Bike Streets is developing a theory for how to solve that problem. We call it Network First—the idea that a city needs a systems-thinking approach, a network-first approach, which is to say we can't go facility by facility. We need to come up with a way to actually create a comprehensive connected network, because as long as there are gaps it is going to be prohibitive for the vast majority of people.

I know that Sara Studdard and City Thread have been working on a theory of their own that is akin to this, and I think that might have tied into the work that you did in Providence when you were working there. Does PeopleForBikes have a theory for how this kind of complete network creation can happen at an accelerated pace? Is there some element of your advocacy work around an approach for how cities can do this and get out of the rut of a disconnected thing here, a disconnected thing there, and then at some theoretical and indeterminate point in the future, those two things will connect?

Martina Haggerty (35:19)

I think it requires a few different things. This is a lot of work that I did when I was working in Providence as part of PeopleForBikes' Final Mile program, which Kyle and Sara, now at City Thread, helped get off the ground at PeopleForBikes—doing this work in a really accelerated way in a short period of time. In Providence, we did it with a few other cities: Austin, Denver, Pittsburgh, New Orleans. We really tested that theory: can this be done if the right pieces are in place?

What we found was that you have to have political leadership. It's really hard, if not impossible, to do this work in a community if you don't have leadership at the highest level that is supportive of this and willing to go to bat for it. Whether that's a mayor or a city manager—it could be a different person, it could be a business leader. So that's one piece of making the theory work: political leadership.

Two is having a really strong advocacy organization locally that has built a real, broad coalition of folks beyond the usual bike advocates. That means connecting with people in all neighborhoods of the city, connecting with business leaders, folks that are working on youth programming and access, mental health—really reaching out beyond the group of usual suspects and building a broad coalition, messaging your work really well, and building relationships with city leaders along the way. And then having the city have the backing it needs to go about this work in an aggressive way. I think you need those different pieces there in order to do it really successfully.

Avi Stopper (37:09)

I'll just note there's an interesting addendum to the point about political support, which is that a sense of urgency has to pervade this. From a political perspective, you might have an elected mayor or a city council that is supportive, and you have a window in which they are relevant, in which they are there. To what extent do you think cultivation of elected officials is part of this? Are there techniques or methodologies that you have seen really work, where advocates have been able to convince elected officials that this is not just some pet project, not just a small group of people—that a plurality of the population wants this and will benefit from it, and the city will be radically better? What are the techniques that you have seen that are most effective at getting elected officials on board?

Martina Haggerty (38:08)

I think they need to see, just like you described, that it is a true cross-section of the city that supports this—that it's not a handful of advocates, that it goes way beyond that, that it's everyday people who live in their community, that it's business leaders, business owners, people who live in the neighborhood where they are. And that they vote.

At the end of the day, that's what most elected officials care about, right? Most of them are running to get re-elected or to run for higher office, and they need to know that in order to achieve what they want to achieve, they need to go in the direction that the majority of voters want to see them going in.

We've done that in cities through polling, where we've used the mayor's trusted pollster—whoever they use for their own election campaigns—and gone out and asked these questions of community members, and then brought it back to the mayor and the city council leaders and said, "Look, 70% of voters in your city"—we're not talking about a hypothetical city somewhere else in America, or a cross-section of Americans in general, we're talking about voters in your city—"want to see this happen. Here are the reasons why we talked to them about it. And we can see that it's not just Democrats or just Republicans, that it's folks of all different backgrounds, all different ethnicities, all different income levels that want to see this happen."

That is really convincing for a lot of elected officials, to see the raw data, because then they're thinking, "Okay, those are actual voters that are going out there and voting for me or against me." So that helps a lot.

And then just being really vocal about it. Making sure that when there are town halls or other things, folks are showing up and asking them questions about decisions that they've made, thanking them when they've done things that are positive—that helps a lot. And in general, just making sure that the media is on board as well, that the media is holding them accountable, and the general public is holding them accountable and paying attention.

Avi Stopper (40:10)

It's always struck me that there's a bit of a gap, perhaps, between the stated preferences that people have—if you ask someone in the abstract, "Do you want biking to be possible in this city? Should it be possible for you to ride places?"—I think the majority of people are probably going to say yes. Is there a way that you have seen where cities or advocacy groups have connected those stated preferences that you get in surveys? "Interested but concerned" being kind of the classic one. Which is to say, my gosh, 60-plus percent of the population wants to ride their bike but says they don't because they don't feel safe or comfortable. How do you connect that to the actual nuts and bolts of getting bike networks built?

Martina Haggerty (40:56)

Well, I think getting those people to show up to the meetings where the decisions are getting made—whether it's a city council hearing or a public engagement workshop out in the community—getting those people to actually show up to the meeting and talk to the decision makers is really, really critical. That transfer from "Okay, we talked to you, you said you'd support this—now here's how you can actually put that into action and support it."

Ideally, city planning departments and public works departments should be doing that work. But in a lot of cases, advocates are filling that void right now, doing the work of building those coalitions with community members and asking them to show up to the meeting.

I'll give you a specific example of some work that we did in Providence back when we were working under the Final Mile program that I described, of this accelerated construction in a few years. The Providence Streets Coalition, which is our local advocacy group, went out and started canvassing businesses along Broad Street, which was a corridor where the city was planning to put in a protected bike lane that would connect seven different neighborhoods—a busy commercial corridor in the city. We knew it was probably going to be slightly controversial, but it was also one of the most dangerous streets in the city.

Providence Streets Coalition went out and canvassed business owners three times during the planning process, and all the way up to when the project was being constructed, to talk to them about this project. Door to door, they went into each business, introduced themselves, explained what the project was, explained its benefits, why they were there, and then asked them if they would support the project. They really specifically showed them: "We're going to remove parking on this section, we're going to remove the center turn lane, we're going to do this, we're going to make the lanes narrower." And they wrote down on a clipboard the contact information, the phone number, what they said about it, whether they were supportive, whether they weren't sure yet, whether they needed more information.

I forget how many—it was probably hundreds of businesses along this corridor that they went out and did this to. And they found there were only a handful, I think maybe three businesses, that said they outright weren't supportive of the project. That helped a lot. I'm not saying that every city should do that, because it's kind of crazy to even have to do it. But it's a great example of how to put it into action. And then we were able to reference that data to say, "Nope, actually people do support this. They want to see this."

Avi Stopper (43:18)

I see. That's how you oppose the vocal minority.

Martina Haggerty (43:21)

Yeah. Because that's what you hear—you hear it in all kinds of politics, but especially, and I've seen it, with planning projects and bike projects: someone coming into a meeting or getting the mayor's ear and saying, "Nobody supports this project. Nobody wants it. I know the people of this neighborhood." And often that's not true.

Avi Stopper (43:42)

I'm glad that you bookended this conveniently with Providence, because that was going to be my last question. Let's just say hypothetically we were to rewind to when you were with the City of Providence, and you were in charge of everything—you could do things how you want. What kinds of actions would you take? What would you do differently? What would be the strategy that you believe will activate a huge swath of the population? Which is to say, inform directors of departments of transportation across the country on what you have learned, both through your analytical work and your practical work.

Martina Haggerty (44:22)

Trust your gut. Go out and do the engagement and the outreach no matter what someone tells you. You might have a city council member in an area that says, "Nope, I've talked to the people in my community, they're supportive, don't worry, just go do it." Don't just go do it. Talk to the people, do your own research, keep your receipts—because those will become really important later on. Key lesson that I learned.

The second part of trusting your gut is just doing it. You're going to get a lot of pushback and thoughts from different people at different levels, from community members in different areas. I think ultimately it is going to make your city a better place. You might make small mistakes along the way. It's okay. Just go do it. Take advantage of that window of time that you have.

You talked earlier about how often you have a mayor in place and you just have two terms to get it done. Take advantage of it, because it might be ripped away, and your city might have to pause for the next 10 years after that. So get as much as you can.

Avi Stopper (45:24)

And done. I think that the idea of getting it done in eight years is probably kind of mind-blowing for a lot of people, because what we have been habituated to expect is that these are multi-generational—that the creation of these complete networks are multi-generational projects. But you stand by that timeline. You think that cities can do these kinds of big things in short periods of time.

Martina Haggerty (45:48)

You can. If you are messaging it right, building the right coalitions, putting in the work with public engagement and building the network, people are going to see the proof pretty quickly. It works. It works in cities of all sizes and all shapes, and it's worth it.

Avi Stopper (46:07)

Well, let's leave it there. Martina, thank you so much for your time. Really appreciate all of your work, and thank you for shedding light with your work on what is actually happening in cities.

Martina Haggerty (46:19)

Thanks, Avi.

Avi Stopper (46:21)

Thanks for listening. If you have questions, comments, or suggestions for guests you'd like to hear from, drop us a line at info@bikestreets.com. Bike Networks Now is a production of Bike Streets. Anyone should be able to ride a bike to any destination in their city today. You can learn more about our work at bikestreets.com.

Avi Stopper 7/20/26 Avi Stopper 7/20/26

Bike Networks Now! Audiobook: Chapter 22. And Now, We Build

If there’s one picture that summarizes the vision of a modern innovation approach to building complete bike networks, it’s this: a small child on a 16-inch bicycle on a New York City street. She’s not ripping along with an urban ninja’s grimace on her face; rather, she’s serpentining joyfully as kids do.

The idea that streets can prioritize people over cars isn’t just fantasy. In bits and pieces it’s a reality in cities across America. The next step is to take those lessons, apply them at a citywide scale, and build complete bike networks – not over decades, but in one, two, three years.

On a recent crisp morning, I was in New York City and made a pilgrimage to Berry Street in Brooklyn, the most scalable bikeway in America. I used the Bike Streets app to navigate to Berry Street from Penn Station. I arrived, a humble pilgrim, and rode up and down the corridor. It was astonishing to see how many people were already out: the girl on the 16-inch bike, a golfer biking back from an early tee-time with his golf bag, more than a few moms pushing strollers and patronizing local businesses. I stopped at Apollo Bagels – which I highly recommend – for a bagel and to take it all in.

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Avi Stopper 7/18/26 Avi Stopper 7/18/26

Andy Boenau: Challenging the Status Quo from the Inside

Transcript

Avi Stopper

My guest is Andy Boenau, the director of transportation for the city of Richmond and the author of the Substack Urbanism Speakeasy, which he's been writing since 2013. His 2024 book is called Neighborhood Character: 365 Daily Affirmations for Defenders of the Status Quo. A recent post he wrote, "Here's Why the Status Quo Keeps Winning," caught my eye, and I wanted to have him on to talk about it and his work broadly.

Andy refers to himself as a "plangineer" and a "propaganda artist" — we'll get to that in a bit — and jokes about converting readers to the all-powerful bike lobby. He's irreverent, satirical, and, I think, deliberately provocative toward the planning and engineering establishment, even though he's a career insider. I thought it'd be great to talk with him about challenging the status quo, especially because, as a director of transportation, he sits in the seat of someone usually charged with defending it. Andy, welcome. How did I do with that intro?

Andy Boenau

That was fantastic. Thanks for having me.

Avi Stopper

All right, let's get going. So — Neighborhood Character: 365 Daily Affirmations for Defenders of the Status Quo. That's a satirical title, I think. What are your favorite affirmations?

Andy Boenau

Is it, though? Because if you read it, you're going to wonder whether it's satire or real life. I'm not one to live on the Nextdoor app, but I've seen a couple of screenshots from time to time from friends, and each time I've thought: come on. I thought my joke was better — but that's real life. We live in a sitcom.

Avi Stopper

Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction. But indeed, just to be humorous for a moment — what are some of your favorite affirmations for defenders of the status quo?

Andy Boenau

I'll tell you the overall theme behind writing it. I didn't do a proper book launch — I just wrote it and got it out there. I even made it so there's no audiobook version and no digital version; you have to get the hard copy, because I thought it would be fun for people to just read the back cover, with the "scathing reviews" from characters like the NIMBY.

Why I wrote it is part of my favorite thing about observing life. I'm a people watcher. I'm in transportation in large part because I'm a people watcher, not because I'm a ones-and-zeros analyst type.

One of the fascinating things about human beings is our tendency to check logic at the door. If we want a thing to be true, we'll find a thousand excuses after the fact. We'll make up our minds — "I don't want any new neighbors, I like my street just the way it is, I don't want anyone to change it" — and then come back and find a hundred or a thousand reasons to defend that. Psychologists know this, sociologists know this. But planners and engineers, who deal with the built environment, aren't trained in how our silly brains work.

So my favorite thing about writing this stuff and continuing to gently mock people who say these things out loud is: these are serious topics, but also, don't take yourself so seriously. It's okay to have an opinion — "I hope the guy next to me who has a single-family home doesn't convert it to a duplex." Fine, have your opinion. But that shouldn't entitle you to rule over his property and decide he can't do a thing with it just because you don't like it. Generally, that's my outlook on life.

Avi Stopper

I know you poke at both sides — one being self-critical and challenging how the establishment works. And I'd say — I'm curious whether you agree — that describing yourself as a people watcher is, in itself, somewhat anti-establishment. At least in the creation of bikeways, what I observe is a tendency to plan and plan and plan, then build, and then do very little observation after the fact — very little watching of how people actually interact with and behave around the things we build, in what ways they're succeeding, and in what ways they're failing. We have a tendency to build the thing and then move on to the next project. Iteration based on observation — or, as you put it more elegantly, people watching — seems not to be part of the standard process. What's your take? Do you agree that people watching isn't happening as often as it should?

Andy Boenau

Absolutely. And it ranges even to well-meaning people in the planning or engineering industries who do their work ostensibly to improve the human experience. Watching gets dismissed as a childish thing — and the downside is that it's actually childlike. There's a difference between childish and childlike. You should go through life asking dumb questions. I'm still asking myself what I want to do when I grow up.

We all do it outside of work. You can be a person who only lives in AutoCAD or some design software, or a permit technician at a local government agency, or a consultant designing transit routes all day, and never think about how people move through the stuff after it's built. But then you go home, sit on the porch, and watch people. If you're at the mall waiting for your kids while they're roaming around at ballet class, you're people watching. It's human nature. So it's a shame that, as grown-ups, we don't practice people watching more often in our professional work.

One of the biggest misses of standard planning and engineering as industries is that we don't teach our people to watch others. It starts in school. If my job is to design a network of bike infrastructure — maybe a combination of paths and on-street facilities, maybe going through parks — I should absolutely observe to see if things are working, just like any scientist in another field. If a physician is testing an idea, they'll see if they can replicate it, and if other things happen, they'll make notes: that's interesting, I wonder what happened there. But we aren't trained in that kind of observation. I think it's partly this American cultural thing of saying there's hard science over here and soft things over there — and people watching gets filed under "soft."

What's interesting at the same time is that even those within planning, engineering, and architecture who aren't constantly people watching will name heroes like William H. Whyte and Jane Jacobs — people who were famously people watchers and documenters of people watching.

Avi Stopper

I'd ask whether you feel incentive design is part of the problem — that we tend to reward the creation of things rather than the outputs those things should produce. In other words, the things themselves become the ends instead of a means to an end, which produces a set of behaviors from planners and engineers focused simply on constructing the thing rather than on its ultimate use. Is that something you see playing out — that we plant a flag and declare success when we've built the thing, rather than when the thing is actually used?

Andy Boenau

I think that's true; it does happen a lot. Though I also think about the idea that the purpose of a system is what it does. If an engineer's job is to deliver a set of design plans, or oversee a consulting team delivering them, there's process in that. If the system of that team is to deliver a paper product — design plans for a bike infrastructure network — then delivering it is "good." But there are going to be limitations in that system.

Even though planners and engineers as groups love to poke at each other — planners will say engineers are the reason we can't have better bike infrastructure; engineers will say planners make the rules that prevent it (both are accurate, by the way) — they both tend to be process-oriented and checklist-oriented. They want to follow the rules.

And I'll say, as much as I like to poke status quo in the eye — and it's easy to take some big behemoth thing and say "I'm anti-big-thing" — there are a lot of applications where status quo is good. Gravity is real, so there are a lot of ways we design our environment that take gravity into account. There are architectural, engineering, and planning habits that should remain the status quo. Even lighthearted things — I think it's good that it's customary to chew with your mouth closed at a table with other people. So I'm not saying status quo is evil for its own sake.

But when you have all these processes — if you're a planner whose job is to receive a set of plans and say "yes, they meet our rules" or "no, they don't," and that's that — that doesn't make you an anti-bike person as an individual. The big miss is that planners and engineers aren't encouraged or incentivized, either on the small team or coming up through the industry, to problem-solve at a bigger level: "Is this the fifth car-oriented project in a row I've received that virtually rules out riding a bike? I wonder if that's about our rules, or a coincidence." And if every single project coming into my shop meets my rules and is also terrible for riding bikes — hmm, maybe I should take a look at my rules. Maybe we can change them. That kind of critical thinking and problem solving is not common among planners and engineers who deal with the built environment.

Avi Stopper

Do you feel that's cultural — that DOT-type organizations aren't encouraging that questioning? Back to your point about childlike wonder: is one of the missing components an organizational culture that really encourages asking these basic questions? Why is it this way? Is it logical? Does it make sense? Is it producing the outcomes we seek?

Andy Boenau

I think it's cultural, but bigger than engineering. I was born and raised in the United States, and I've been in this industry since the late '90s. I can say without a shadow of a doubt this is a planning and engineering cultural thing — but it's broader. As Americans, we aren't typically taught and encouraged to be critical thinkers. We're quick to argue, but we're not good at something like a Socratic circle. Talk to an American kid about Socrates and asking questions — trying to get to the essence of a thing, wrestling with questions, looking for truth rather than just to be right as an individual — and it's a painful exercise, because we're not trained or encouraged to do it. Many of our workplaces don't encourage that behavior either.

When you do see it, you see tremendous advances in civilization. You see bursts of technological innovation. You see an industrial revolution. Not because people are trying to prove themselves right, but because they're genuinely curious. Then they try to solve problems, or figure out what makes a thing happen, how to replicate it, whether it needs to scale. There's a lot of excitement when you embrace that critical thinking.

To your question — is this an engineering cultural thing? In engineering circles I'll say: you engineers need to be critical thinkers. You think you're problem solvers, and you're problem solvers with an asterisk, because you've got blinders on. You're solving problems within a preset group of rules — rules you can challenge, but you're so accustomed to staying within what you've been told to do. If I'm with planners, I tell them the same thing: as a fellow planner, I'm exhorting you, please be a critical thinker. Be willing to look at your own rules. If you're a local or state government planner, you're the one setting the rules for traffic engineers to write traffic studies that justify more car traffic — wider roads, faster cars. Those rules are set by planning groups. So if I'm with planners, I challenge planners; if I'm with engineers, I challenge engineers.

But broadly, this is cultural. We don't get this kind of schooling in school. I hate school — I love learning things I'm interested in, but our school system is a mess. From kindergarten all the way through higher education, it's rare for an American student to really absorb critical thinking, get taught how to do it, get to exercise it, and see all the benefits and joy that come from it.

Avi Stopper

What are some specific ways that encouraging critical thinking, in your current role leading transportation in Richmond, has produced results — gotten people to think differently? When you encourage engineers and planners to think critically, what breakthroughs have you achieved as a result?

Andy Boenau

It's a new role, so I don't have a great "here's the before and after" yet. But I'll tell you where I'm headed in this role, and also the big picture. Big picture, here's an example. The very beginning of my career was eye-opening. I didn't learn about walkable design, bike-friendly infrastructure, human-scale design, or Jane Jacobs in college. I came upon these things by asking dumb questions — or what I thought were dumb questions.

I was learning to use software to analyze traffic at an intersection, and there was a little box that said, "click this to convert this intersection to a roundabout and analyze it as a roundabout." I didn't know anything, so I asked my boss: I've run the analysis as a traffic signal — do I also check this box and do it as a roundabout? And he said, "What are we, France?" So I did the nervous laughter — "yeah, we're not France, are we?" — with no idea why we shouldn't. But the message was loud and clear: don't analyze as a roundabout.

I learned over time by asking more questions. Why don't we? Well, we don't analyze as roundabouts because that's not what we do in the US. Well, why don't we do them in the US? Is it because they're more dangerous? No, actually they're safer — but we don't like them. So when you're willing to just say "why do we do this thing?" — not from a point of pride, thinking you know better than someone else, because sometimes the status quo is right and the thing that's always done is always done for a good reason — but when you get answers back that are fluffy, like "our fathers' fathers' fathers have always done this," that doesn't sit well with me. And anyone who has issues with authority won't sit well with it either.

Here in Richmond, we're in a really good situation. From the administration to local politicians — we have nine city council members and a mayor — and the staff, everyone is very pro-walk, pro-bike, pro-transit. There will be arguments from time to time about the application of things, of course — that gets back to the fun of writing Neighborhood Character. But generally, City Hall is moving in the same direction and wants the same things. And that's great about Richmond culture: Richmond broadly wants pro-walk, pro-bike, pro-bus infrastructure. It's not a huge city — about 250,000 people, a little less. We're an old mid-Atlantic city with great bones, a very walkable city. We want to be much better, but as far as American cities go, we've got a great starting point to build on.

One of my big challenges is the pockets of people who are influential but, at their core, don't care first about human flourishing for the city — they care about their own personal flourishing. If they feel any threat or sense of loss — for example, if they have to park a block away from their home — that's felt as a loss. Those are the people I'm focusing my energy on: finding ways to get them to think differently about public space; reframing how we talk about mobility; reframing how we talk about something as simple as the bus. If the bus is frequent, convenient, and reliable, then the bus in Richmond is an express sidewalk. Who wouldn't want sidewalks — and express sidewalks? It's not a charity thing for "those poor people who can't afford a car," or just for a college kid who can't yet afford one. It's for everybody. Just like everyone should be able to use the sidewalk — how great is it if everyone can also use the express sidewalk?

Avi Stopper

I love your emphasis on "why" — simply asking, why is it this way? Does it have to be? Is there something innate that dictates this must be the way things work going forward, just because it's how they've worked historically? For my group, Bike Streets, one of our central arguments is oriented around the question of "why bike networks?" When you think about a network, you need a comprehensive, connected network. Why is it that bike networks have always been built one facility at a time, rather than what we call a network-first approach — asking how a city can quickly create a complete, comprehensive network without gaps, so we have a network to begin with? Why does it have to be this one-bikeway-at-a-time, piecemeal approach? I'm curious for your response, and whether you think, on the merits, that's a good critical-thinking question to be asking.

Andy Boenau

Yeah, absolutely — even just as a matter of checking your own biases. I think you and I would both consider ourselves joyful members of the all-powerful bike lobby: we want people to have the freedom to use a bike to get around. It's a great tool. But we're not forcing anybody to do it. So something as basic as looking at the design of a bike lane and asking, is this the right width? Is the bike lane design we've been using good? Are there downsides?

One of my favorite quotes — not just from economics, but from Thomas Sowell, the economist — is: there are no solutions, only trade-offs. So don't even attach morality to it. Don't say something is right or wrong. Just start from: if we have bike lanes that are only three feet wide, what are the trade-offs? If we have bike lanes that are eight feet wide, what are the trade-offs? Check the bias at the door for a second, and just start thinking about trade-offs. I don't even like to say "pros and cons" — just trade-offs. Force yourself, for a brief period, to document what happens. If I turn this lever, what else happens? If I turn these two levers up, what else happens? That's a really important exercise.

To your point about links versus networks: if we have the choice between one mile of continuous, premium, corridor-level bike lane, what are the trade-offs of that versus a smaller network? And there are trade-offs — because with a smaller network, you'll have a neighborhood over here saying, "Why don't we have anything? Why do those guys get it all? Is it because they're rich? Because they're well connected?" So everything has trade-offs.

Avi Stopper

I think that's a brilliant framing. The way I've long thought about this — and, frankly, one of the reasons we get heat for some of our advocacy — is oriented around exactly those trade-offs. What we're fundamentally saying (and I'm curious whether you think I'm framing it correctly) is this: say your budget equals X. You can use that budget to create a premium, excellent protected bikeway on an arterial street. The trade-off is you get that, but you may miss the opportunity for a complete network, because you're preoccupied with that one facility. On the flip side, if you take a network-first approach — since your budget is basically the same — you're thinking about how to create bike boulevards and lower-cost, lighter-touch facilities, and your trade-off is saying maybe now is not the moment for the really high-end protected bike lane on the arterial. Is that the right way to think about it?

Andy Boenau

I think so — because then you're also asking another one of the "why" questions, and its sibling, the "what if." If you're constantly asking "why do we do this?" and "what if we did this other thing?", the combination might lead you to say: if we're taking a network approach, let's take one neighborhood at a time. Picture a waffle grid of a comfortable bike network. What if not all of those streets have true bike lanes, but they're comfortable? A low-stress street is one where hardly anybody is driving, or where the cars that are driving are calm and under control. Is that part of a comfortable bike network?

There's a related thing I see happening in advocacy right now. As we learn more — especially from folks overseas, where premium bike infrastructure generally happens before it does in the US — anybody who ultimately wants people to have the freedom to ride bikes in a city, town, or county knows what top-shelf bike infrastructure looks like, because other countries have been ahead of us: separated from car traffic, paths through parks, landscaped islands between you and motor vehicles. We know what premium looks like. But if you put your money only into premium, you have to ask the trade-off questions. I could spend $2 million on a few blocks of premium bike lane, or I could use cheaper methods — just paint and flex posts — and have a whole network: that waffle grid across a neighborhood or three. It doesn't give you the same physical protection as premium, but that's the trade-off conversation.

If I want to change the culture — if I want people to see that there really is an opportunity to ride bikes — am I putting residents in a position where, if we only do premium, it's really their grandkids who'll get to ride safely, and they themselves will never be able to ride around town? So first, the corridor-versus-network question is very important. And then, within the network approach: what makes up a network? Does it have to be streets with bike lanes, or is it anything that's comfortable? Including low-stress streets in this conversation is something we're doing in Richmond.

Another thing: we don't manage our local transit system — we only have buses; we're just surface transportation — but we do what we can to roll out the red carpet for transit, because we see the bus as an extension of walking. A transit trip is just a walking trip that moves a little faster. And there are times when a corridor needs to prioritize that express sidewalk, the buses. There's only so much space. We're not suburbia, and we're not one of those European cities that were bombed out during World War II and got a blank canvas to start from. We have tight streets — for the most part, a tight grid city. So some corridors need to prioritize the express sidewalk.

Does that mean there's no opportunity to ride bikes there? Sometimes there are parallel corridors that are low-stress. But what about corridors that don't have space for bike lanes, where the parallel streets don't either? So one thing we'll be doing is taking the opportunity, where we have dedicated transit lanes that make the bus a true express sidewalk — not stuck in traffic — to let that space also be used by people riding bikes. Again, it's not the same as a completely separated path in the woods, or a protected bike lane with a landscaped median. But it's an important part of systems thinking, or network thinking, about connecting streets to each other. I expect to see that expand more and more in the US.

And you're seeing, in recent years, more cities and counties across the country finally understand that this mobility stuff is not red versus blue. You don't need to play the political game where buses are for Democrats and cars are for Republicans. It's so silly. Regardless of local politics, people are seeing the opportunities in a good transit system and a good bike system. And if we can think not just about a network of bike lanes, but about how these things work together, that opens up exciting opportunities.

Avi Stopper

You choose your words really carefully and, I think, intentionally — "express sidewalk." That's no accident. And your piece about why the status quo keeps winning is, at its essence, about how emotion drives people's responses to things, and how that produces outcomes in how people respond to projects under consideration. Can you lay out the general thesis of that piece, and what you've seen that prompted it?

Andy Boenau

I don't know if anything in particular prompted it. But on the emotional front — and forgive me, whoever in my network I'm stealing this from; I'm pretty sure it was Ann Sussman, a cognitive architect who does fantastic work on how the built environment affects how we feel, act, and respond as human beings — the statement is this: we think we're thinking creatures who sometimes feel, but really we're feeling creatures who sometimes think.

The social sciences know this. Behavioral economics knows this. Psychiatrists and psychologists know this. Planners, engineers, and architects aren't taught about the human brain or how people behave. Even marketers and advertisers know these things — their business depends on it. Their livelihood depends on making the right gambles about emotion. So if your entire livelihood depends on people buying your product, and you're marketing to emotion, and it's working — why shouldn't we learn from them? That's not to say every seller does everything right, but it's a core thing other industries identified and made use of long ago. And here we are, planning the built environment around us, where human beings are going to do things, and we don't take into account — or even learn — what it takes to change a person's behavior.

How do you nudge behavior? How do you guide a person to do one thing and not another? How do you calm a person down when they get into the car carrying the baggage of a day — they're angry, their kid did something terrible first thing in the morning, whatever? We're humans; we carry emotional baggage. Then we get in a motor vehicle, we're impatient, and we do terrible things behind the wheel. We don't understand how dangerous it is to go 45 miles an hour down a city street, because it feels safe inside our car. It's just one thing after another.

Back to the emotional point of view: if I, as someone in transportation, see the terrible behaviors happening on city streets — and the elephant in the room when it comes to danger is people driving their cars, that's the huge danger — and I'm trying to persuade people to change their behavior, then I'm looking for all the opportunities. What are the engineering ways to change behavior? What are the enforcement ways the police department can change behavior? Parking enforcement? What carrots and sticks? What are the education ways, the marketing campaigns that can help change behavior?

But it all starts — this goes all the way back to the beginning of our conversation — with a willingness to ask: why do we do the things we do? Is there a better way? What if we did something different? Even good marketers do this. They'll say, "My brand is not performing as well as it should, and I'm not sure why," or "I've got this service priced at a thousand dollars a month and nobody's nibbling." The knee-jerk reaction — what I think planners and engineers would generally do — is "that thing's not working, shut it off." But marketers understand that sometimes the opposite of a good idea is also a good idea. Maybe this service shouldn't be a thousand dollars — maybe it should be three thousand. Maybe I'm not reaching the right customer. Again, this is related to emotion. You have to understand: we are feeling creatures who sometimes think, not thinking creatures who sometimes feel.

Avi Stopper

That's a great summary. I want to pull in a couple of examples from the piece. Your thesis, I think, is that people defending the status quo — NIMBYs, quote-unquote — are often instinctually very good at this. An example of a NIMBY-type response would be something like: "Think of the families who've lived here for generations. This plan will destroy the community we've spent decades building together." That's a strong emotional appeal.

By contrast, you're suggesting that those of us challenging the status quo need to present our messages with the same kind of emotional resonance — something like: "I've watched friends and family get priced out over the years. These changes finally give young people and working families a real chance to stay and build their lives here." That second quote is, I think, the kind of appeal you're suggesting urbanists should make. First, did I get that right? And second, can you contrast that with the fairly prosaic arguments — or, to borrow the title of another of your books, the "boring industry speak" — that typically get used and just won't tap into that emotional need?

Andy Boenau

I think this gets, again, to both planners and engineers, since in so many ways they're similar — the stereotypical planner and the stereotypical transportation engineer. The tendency is to take yourself too seriously: this is important stuff, it's black and white, I'm right, I know what I'm talking about, here's the data, I will present the data, these are the facts, I am correct. All those facts can be a hundred percent true — but what's the point, if you're overlooking human nature? If you present it that way, you might as well be delivering the message in another language. People can't understand what you're saying; it's a foreign tongue. You've got to understand how humans are.

When we relax and talk about something outside our area of expertise, emotion comes through naturally. I'm not a soccer fan, but the World Cup is happening right now. If a bunch of people are talking in the office kitchen about whatever game was on last night, somebody's going to make an emotional case about the game, about the ruling — "the ref said this, the ref did that." It's easy to do when you're relaxed, because it's outside your expertise. You don't care about the emotion coming through; you're just talking with other people. Then suddenly, when it's our job, it's "I've got to stiffen up, be straight-laced, use more adverbs, make my sentences longer, my email needs to be a nine-hundred-word blog post." Everything about our work gets unnecessarily complicated, I think because deep down we're taking ourselves too seriously. It is serious stuff — but you don't have to take yourself seriously.

And appealing to emotion isn't some 20th-century marketing gimmick that emerged when TV took off. Aristotle talked about this — making appeals to evidence, to credibility, and to emotion, and how, when you do all three, that's the most powerful way to persuade or guide someone toward the truth of a thing. It's the combination. So facts are important, yes. Credibility is important — I didn't just start talking about bike networks last week. But also emotion. If you can't communicate in a way humans are ready to receive, what's the point?

Back to the NIMBYs themselves: if people feel they're going to lose something — "there goes the neighborhood; if this happens, all is lost" — then they're going to unload with emotion. That's why I say NIMBYs, or my new favorite version from Gil Peñalosa, CAVE people — citizens against virtually everything. If the CAVE people feel like it's the dark night of the soul, like all is lost, then of course they'll try anything and everything. And they're very good marketers for doing nothing, for keeping things as they were. So if those of us who want a city to grow and be healthy — who want it to be more than an idea, who want our place to actually grow — we've got to not just copy the CAVE people because they're the CAVE people, but go back to these roots of reaching people, all the way back to Aristotle: make appeals to credibility, to evidence, and — most importantly, I'd say — to emotion.

Avi Stopper

There's a really interesting paradox baked into that: this is a discipline that likes to think of itself as scientific, yet there's this oversight of being unscientific about how human beings process information. That's where the emotional gap enters. Your point about loss versus gain, scarcity versus abundance, is really well taken. It seems to me there are basically two ways to appeal to emotion. One is telling — storytelling, persuasive language, the language of abundance and gain rather than scarcity and loss. The other is showing people. I'd love your take on tactical urbanism as a way to create emotional connections.

People hear about something abstract and wonkish — a diverter on a quiet residential street. That's a very technical idea, and it's difficult for most people to imagine what the result of putting something like that in the neighborhood might be. And yet, consistently, over and over — Janette Sadik-Khan showed this in New York City, Mike Lydon has written about it expansively in Tactical Urbanism — when people actually interact with these things and start to experience them (you're showing them rather than telling them), the emotional connection is "wow, my street just got way better," and it's very well received. So how do you think about the balance of telling and showing?

Andy Boenau

I adore tactical urbanism and the folks you mentioned. They're heroes of the profession. Interestingly — as a sidebar — I'm going to give a session to the American Planning Association on this topic of heroes. It's interesting that in planning, the heroes are very rarely people who came up within the planning industry. Look at the top-ten lists — the greatest fill-in-the-blank as ranked by American Planning Association members — and it's rarely someone who came through the system. Again, that's not to say the status quo is inherently evil, but it's interesting. Why is it that this system, which produces all these AICPs every single year, isn't producing tons of heroes?

Tactical urbanism is one of those great examples. It's like Jane Jacobs — many years later, people say, "She was amazing, the way she did this and that." She was poking holes in your rules, planners. She was saying city planning as an industry is a disaster, and you should be run out of town, because you're telling other people what they can and can't do on a block — you're preventing a block from having any life. Why do you hate fun? Why do you hate kids? The planners of her day hated her for it, because she was the adversary. Decades later, they adore her.

Same kind of thing with tactical urbanism, or guerrilla urbanism. I don't know if you're familiar with the Guerrilla Gardener — the story, I'm pretty sure, out of Los Angeles, where growing tomatoes in the grassy strip by the sidewalk or on a median was illegal. This guy very smartly did it in a way that would make a scene and get press attention. He was arrested for growing vegetables and fruits, and for teaching neighbors how to grow them so they could eat healthy in a food desert. These things come out because the status quo is jacked up about something — either preventing us from having nice things, or attacking us when we do good things.

I think we're at an interesting spot now, after many years of quick-build and tactical urbanism projects. Especially with the growth of the internet — I don't think this would be happening without it — you can instantly share pictures and videos of things anywhere in the world. Any human being can very quickly see the benefits of a 10-foot lane versus a 12-foot lane, the benefits of tightening up what used to be a slip lane and turning it into something else, the benefits of just about any common tactical urbanism project. So we're at a fun tipping point where, for a lot of cities, it's no longer about testing a thing to see if it will work. It's converting it into what we in Richmond call quick-build projects.

We know, for example, that rearranging the street space — realizing we don't need two general-purpose car lanes, we only need one — makes room for bikes. We could wait a generation for a very nice, top-shelf concrete landscaped island, or we can quick-build using paint and flex posts and create a network of bike lanes, and use paint and signs to create a network of transit lanes. You can do a lot of stuff that 15 years ago would have been called a tactical urbanism experiment to see if it would work. Now we know it works. It'll be safer for people riding bikes, and — happy coincidence — safer for the people driving who will never use the bike lanes. So it's a fun way of looking at tactical urbanism now.

Avi Stopper

So, you're a bit of an outside-the-box thinker, a bit of a provocateur — and yet you're in the firmament. You're running a DOT. I think it's fascinating that you have that role, and it seems to me we need more people like you in those roles. So how did this come to pass? How did you become the director of transportation there, and how can we get more folks like you into that kind of role?

Andy Boenau

Good question. My entire career was outside any government agency — government agencies were my clients. I'd only been on the consultant side: telling people what to do, how to make things better, analyzing things. I started my career as a traffic engineer. So I don't know how somebody goes through all those years saying, "If there's one thing I know for sure, it's that I will never, ever work for a government agency," to being the person sitting in this role. It could be that, as a contrarian — my dad worked for the Federal Transit Administration for a hundred years, so I knew: one, he works in transportation, so clearly I won't; two, he works for a government agency, so obviously I never would. And here I am, all these years later, doing exactly that.

I see this as a role you'll either love or hate — there's no in-between, no mediocre version of it. I'm a wabi-sabi, punk-rock type of person. I like fast and sloppy things; I'm not interested in perfection. In school, that was partly because I wasn't a good student — "who wants an A-plus anyway?" — so it was easy to line up with that.

But if you take into account the rules of the game — just like, if you're looking at a chessboard you don't play checkers, and if you're looking at a checkers board you don't play chess, and if you're swimming you don't try to sprint across water — then understanding the rules of engagement matters. Where's the red tape and where isn't there? What can I control? What can I influence but not control? And what's the category of thing I can neither influence nor control, so I might as well not waste energy there? That's part of my daily reminder to self: find the category I can't even influence, don't bother with it, and go all in on the other two.

I'm in a fortunate spot. We've got a well-oiled machine for delivering work. Over the next five or six years, the city is going to spend over a billion — with a B — dollars in transportation and safety improvements. And it's not even mostly local money; about 90 to 95% of our funding is federal, state, and regional grants. So we're not competing with a parks project or a school project — we're chasing grant money for these projects, which can be a challenge.

Like you said earlier about funding corridors versus networks: a lot of these grants have strings attached, and some strings prohibit you from doing a whole network. You have to do a street from here to there — a very simplistic approach. But those are the rules of engagement, so we play by them. If we're pursuing a grant scored on safety — how do you reduce crashes, how do you reduce speed — and we know we want to expand the bike network, then we frame the approach to demonstrate that when you do this street rearrangement, you'll reduce speeds, reduce severe crashes, and save lives. That's a safety win. That's how we go all in. We're not emphasizing that people get to ride bikes, that their liberty is expanding — we're focused on safety. And if a different grant has a different angle, we go after that. You just have to be smart about the game you're playing. That's the lay of the land in Richmond.

As far as getting more people to do these kinds of things — it comes back to what we discussed earlier: being willing, even happy, to ask "why" and "what if" questions, and then spending time learning how humans tick. You may not love advertising and marketing as much as I do — it may not be an instant love — but at least make yourself learn it. Make that your vegetables. Eat your vegetables by learning about behavioral economics and decision making. Why are the cereal boxes placed the way they are? Why are the logos designed the way they are? There's science behind it, because of how we — silly feeling creatures who sometimes think — behave in a store. If you're willing to ask those "why" and "what if" questions, it's funny how quickly other people start looking to you: "Maybe you can help me over here with this thing." I'm not special. So much of it comes out of asking those questions. And if you get a little critical mass — to speak in bike terms — of people asking "why" and "what if" across departments, then things really get exciting.

Avi Stopper

Well, let's leave it there — I think we could go on for hours. Keep pumping out the interesting countercultural ideas, Andy, and working to change things from within. Thanks so much for your time.

Andy Boenau

Things do get better in the end. Thanks for having me.

Avi Stopper 7/13/26 Avi Stopper 7/13/26

Bike Networks Now! Audiobook: Chapter 21. An Advertising Upgrade

We’ve only succeeded if huge numbers of people use the complete bike network we create. Without that outcome, it’s just a bunch of inanimate signs and concrete.

Part of our work to activate the network is to reframe how people perceive biking. We need to up our advertising and communications game. Those of us who already ride bikes know how awesome it is, but that perception isn’t widely shared.

READ THE CHAPTER

Avi Stopper 7/6/26 Avi Stopper 7/6/26

Bike Networks Now! Audiobook: Chapter 20. “What Do You Do?” Not “What Would You Do?”

Among those cultural changes cities need to make is a shift in the research questions they ask.

Once you’ve done enough innovation work and taken enough lumps from getting it wrong, you know not to touch the question “What would you do?” with a ten-foot pole. Behavioral psychology has shown us that people aren’t good at predicting their future behavior. Instead, we need to ask people questions about their experiences in the past and present and then, when we build bikeways, we need to observe what they actually do.

READ THE CHAPTER

Avi Stopper 7/3/26 Avi Stopper 7/3/26

Laura Mitchell & Patrick Stephenson: Lessons from Minneapolis

In this conversation, we’re taking a good look at Minneapolis. Laura Mitchell is the previous board president of Our Streets, the main advocacy group in the city. She’s now the founder of the Minnesota Cargo Bike Library. And Patrick Stephenson is a long-time Minneapolis bike person. He’s the founder of 30 Days of Biking and the Joyful Riders Club.

Transcript

Avi Stopper (00:00)

Welcome to Bike Networks Now. I'm Avi Stopper, the founder of Bike Streets. We've now done a bunch of episodes of the podcast in our quest to understand why biking still isn't possible for most people in most cities. So far, they've been fairly high-level conversations about the bike movement broadly. So over a series of episodes, we're going local — trying to learn as much as we can about how the bike movement is doing in cities across America by talking with the folks who know those cities best: the advocates trying to make biking a practical reality.

In this conversation, we're taking a good look at Minneapolis. Laura Mitchell is the previous board president of Our Streets, the main advocacy group in the city, and is now the founder of the Minnesota Cargo Bike Library. Patrick Stephenson is a longtime Minneapolis bike personality — the founder of 30 Days of Biking and the Joyful Riders Club. Welcome.

Laura Mitchell (00:58)

Thanks for having us.

Patrick Stephenson (00:59)

Thank you.

Avi Stopper (01:00)

I'm excited to talk about cargo bikes. I'll just note that I picked my wife up from the train station in the cargo bike yesterday, after she came back from a family trip. I had my dog, she had her suitcase, and we just rolled home from the train station. It was magic. Cargo bikes are amazing, aren't they, Laura?

Laura Mitchell (01:17)

They are. They're incredible. I'm always up for talking about cargo bikes — and all types of bikes.

Avi Stopper (01:22)

What's the craziest load you've ever carried in a cargo bike? This isn't how I was going to start, but I'm curious now.

Laura Mitchell (01:29)

It probably doesn't sound that crazy, but with context it is. Over the winter, we were helping some neighbors who needed help getting their kids to and from school. So I actually had four kids — three first graders and one fourth grader — all in my Bunch bike, the cargo trike. I have a mid-size SUV as my family car, and I cannot legally move that many kids in the SUV because of car seat requirements. But I can move that many kids in my cargo bike.

Avi Stopper (01:53)

Just get those sardines in the sardine can.

Laura Mitchell (01:56)

Yes — their legs were touching. They had to be friends. But it was great, and I got them to and from school safely all winter. That was fantastic.

Avi Stopper (02:03)

Patrick, do you rock a cargo bike from time to time?

Patrick Stephenson (02:06)

I sure do. I have two kids, so we do school pickups on the bike and similar adventures. We go on all kinds of adventures. I've had three kids on the back rack, and I've also attached a Burley trailer to the back, which fits two to three more kids. So my total kid-carrying capacity is about six. They're getting bigger and bigger, though, so who knows — it's going to end eventually.

Laura Mitchell (02:35)

Or we're just going to keep getting bigger bikes.

Patrick Stephenson (02:37)

Yeah — just bigger bikes.

Avi Stopper (02:39)

It's possible. I'll note that I do have this custom box I built on the front of my Larry vs Harry. It's a little preposterous how large it is, but let's park that for the time being. Let's start with the overarching question. From your perspective, do you think biking to any destination in the city of Minneapolis is really possible for folks of all ages and abilities at this point? Are we there? Are we close? How would you describe the situation at the highest level? Patrick, let's start with you.

Patrick Stephenson (03:13)

There's some nuance there. I used to live in Minneapolis and now I live in St. Paul. Minneapolis is doing great. I think of things like the Bryant Avenue bikeway — a fully separated path, raised up from everything else, that you can ride for a long way. Now that I've moved to St. Paul — no offense to my St. Paul friends, but I think you're aware of this too — it's quite a bit behind on infrastructure. Something like Fairview Avenue or Hamline Avenue is terrifying on a bike. And even the much-praised Summit Avenue, which is a beautiful experience if you're a capable rider, can be terrifying for a five-year-old because people speed down it. It's just not the best. So St. Paul has quite a ways to go. Minneapolis offers a nice model for what's possible, and I hope it flows over here — I hope we get more of that good stuff. A lot more of the life you're describing is possible in Minneapolis than in St. Paul.

Avi Stopper (04:14)

Let's get back to that in a sec. But Laura, I'd love your perspective on the same question.

Laura Mitchell (04:19)

I'd say we're making really good progress, and we're not there yet. The experience of biking for transportation — for actual trips, as opposed to recreation — can vary significantly depending on which neighborhood you're in and where you're trying to get to. I think anyone of any age or ability can probably go for a pleasant bike ride in the city if they can say, "I'm going to ride around a lake" or "I'm going to take the Midtown Greenway." But if you're really using bikes for transportation, when we talk about all ages and abilities, there are some pretty significant gaps. When folks have scary experiences with drivers, or it just doesn't feel comfortable, it can turn them away from biking. So we have a ways to go.

PeopleForBikes ranks Minneapolis very highly — right now we're just behind Brooklyn. But that's compared to the rest of the US. When we compare ourselves to the rest of the world, we're certainly not doing great. Compared to similar-size US cities, and even some much bigger ones, we're far and above a lot of them.

Avi Stopper (05:15)

That dirty word in biking: gaps. Let us mind the gaps here. Describe one or two of the gaps that are really significant. Is there some semblance of consensus around where the significant deficiencies in the network exist?

Laura Mitchell (05:33)

Our current city council president, Elliott Payne, actually went on a bike ride last year, I think, where they were trying to point out these gaps. For the most part, we do agree on what the gaps are. Your ranking of them is going to vary — a gap I point out is very personal to me because it's one I have to deal with every single day. So we're not necessarily aligned on "this is the biggest gap and it needs to be addressed first." But depending on where you are in the city, anyone riding a bike knows where these gaps are.

A really easy example is the bikeway Patrick mentioned, the Bryant Avenue bikeway. It's a sidewalk-level, two-way separated bikeway next to a sidewalk, with just a one-lane street — totally reconstructed, world-class bike infrastructure, with raised crosswalks along a lot of the route. It's incredible. And it goes right up to the Midtown Greenway — but at Lake Street, which is one of the least safe streets in the entire city for bicyclists and walkers, there's a gap. There's a one-block gap from the end of Bryant until you can get to the Midtown Greenway. You have to cross Lake Street, and then there's a block with zero protection. The city knows about it — it's already on their plan to address, hopefully within the next couple of years.

That one is really painful because I've done a lot of Safe Routes to School work at my kids' school. We're pretty close to Bryant, and we've done fundraiser rides and family-friendly rides. The experience on Bryant is so good, so safe, so pleasant. And then you hit Lake Street and you're on edge, worried about drivers everywhere. You just have to get one block to reach the greenway and have safety again. But if you need to keep going north, it's a bike boulevard — just a stencil on the street saying bikes can be there, but zero infrastructure. So that's another gap: you want to keep going north on Bryant? Too bad — it turns into a street with no infrastructure.

Avi Stopper (07:17)

Do you have a read on how something like Bryant got built with that gap? It seems self-evident — if you're planning this thing out, what happens when you get to this gigantic street? Do you have a sense of how that came to pass?

Patrick Stephenson (07:24)

I remember when it was being built, and there was pushback from the neighborhood about emergency vehicles being able to get through and about the loss of parking. It's a similar battle every time you put something like that in — people push back, worried about all this stuff. So I don't know why that specific gap happened, but I suspect it was pushback from the community or from critics of the project.

Laura Mitchell (07:57)

I can add some context — Bryant went in while I was here. I moved back to Minneapolis in 2019, and Bryant was constructed after that. Everything Patrick said is spot-on for so much of our bike infrastructure. In this case, it was the constant issue of: okay, the parameters of the reconstruction are set to run from point A to point B, and we're not going to expand it even if extending it is the most sensible thing to actually make it connect.

When you cross Lake Street, things get a lot more dense, so parking is in higher demand, and it was trickier to navigate with the businesses along Lake Street. Would they, and would residents, be willing to give up or move the street parking and narrow the street the way we did south of Lake Street? I also heard — and this isn't confirmed, it's just a rumor — that the person working on the project had to leave it, so some things didn't end up getting done. Because for that one-block stretch, we could literally just add some flex posts, move the parking away from the curb, and have a bike lane. We just didn't get that. But again, it's on the city's radar, and I know they're working to solve it.

Patrick Stephenson (08:57)

The theme of the past 15 years of my life is parking. It's always about parking. That's what people are most concerned about.

Avi Stopper (09:03)

It's interesting, because at least in this case it's an instance of a city building a spectacular bike facility — but a facility is only as good as its weakest points. It sounds like there's one substantial Achilles' heel here. And yet, from what you're describing, Laura, the solution isn't that difficult. Do you get the sense there was a lot of community pushback against that gap specifically? Or is this a case of the city just punting on the more controversial or challenging component?

Laura Mitchell (09:36)

I think it was both. As Patrick said, there was a lot of pushback on the entire project when it was going in. Now people love it, for the most part — you don't hear people complaining about Bryant. But there was a lot of pushback to begin with, and advocates had to get involved at multiple points, because the city actually switched up some of the plans based on concerns they were hearing — about fire trucks, and about property owners being able to access driveways, since there are driveways that cross the bike lane and they were too narrow, all sorts of things. So advocates were really focused on making sure the entirety of the corridor was addressed, and weren't focused on that small gap being created. Then, after it was finished, the gap became even more obvious and painful. So there's more attention on it now.

Avi Stopper (10:24)

I'm curious — to pivot quickly to tactical urbanism. This sounds like one of those classic cases where there's a lot of community anxiety about a project before it's done, and then people love it. Have you seen examples, here or elsewhere in the city, where tactical urbanism has been used to bring the temperature down — to get people to chill out and experience how much better the street is actually going to be? There's so much fear of the future and of the unknown when it comes to conventional public meetings, which I'm not much of a fan of for that exact reason. Have you seen techniques from the city to allay those concerns, through tactical urbanism or otherwise? In the end, the Bryant project did get built to the highest specification, at least for the section that got built. How did they ultimately allay those concerns — or did they just say "this is what we're doing" and bring in the bulldozers?

Patrick Stephenson (11:33)

I can't speak to what the city did to allay those concerns, but I can speak to what the local community has done through tactical urbanism. I see it in the big social rides we do, where you bring cyclists of all experience levels together on this infrastructure, have them experience it, see how amazing it is — and also become aware of the gaps. We use the Bryant Avenue bikeway all the time, and the Hennepin Avenue bikeway all the time.

I think that increases appreciation for it, and creates a kind of public amnesia about the way it used to be. I don't even remember what Bryant used to be like anymore — that's gone. So social rides, just putting people on it, help. The St. Paul comparison is Summit Avenue. We did a social ride here on Summit, which is a great bikeway overall, but it passes through these incredibly busy intersections over and over. Leading hundreds of people through that is a nightmare — it was very difficult for our marshals. But pulling people from the neighborhood through it, maybe they see it needs work, and maybe they see how much nicer it is when we're on a great bike trail. So in terms of tactical urbanism, that's how I see it: put hundreds of people on it and watch how we navigate it as ride leaders, so people can better appreciate how it could improve.

Avi Stopper (12:55)

I'm glad you pivoted back over to Minneapolis a bit, because it strikes me — these are two cities that are really one metropolis. There are lots of multi-jurisdictional cities in the country, and here we have a real point and counterpoint. In some ways it's a helpful control group and experiment group. So how would you characterize what's gone well in Minneapolis, Patrick, and what's the contrast in St. Paul? Why is one so much more advanced than the other?

Patrick Stephenson (13:25)

I want Laura's perspective on this too, but my understanding is that in Minneapolis, when there's a redo of a street, the safe-streets infrastructure is just built in. It's a given that you add a nice bike path. In St. Paul, I feel like we have to push for it case by case. You'd see it on things like the Plymouth Avenue Bridge — when they redid that, they just put a nice bikeway on the side. It's a given. Culturally, that's what we expect now. I want the same thing for St. Paul. What's held it back is that everybody has to work each time for each little improvement, versus it just happening.

Avi Stopper (13:58)

Laura, do you know if there's a safe-streets mandate codified into the way the DOT does its work?

Laura Mitchell (14:05)

Yeah. In Minneapolis we have both a Complete Streets plan — which basically lays out that a complete street is one not built just for cars — and a transportation action plan with goals aligned to that, around the shifts in mode share we want to see. I can't remember the exact stats off the top of my head, but basically it's about shifting more transportation to walking, biking, and transit, and less to driving. So anytime a street reconstruction comes up, the city looks at the options and works to improve safety. We don't always get a bike lane on every street, but it's considered for every street — to figure out if it makes sense, if it could fit, if it aligns with the goals of that specific corridor. That's been huge.

What's been challenging for advocates in Minneapolis, at least since I moved here in 2019, is that now that we have that groundwork in place, some residents have come to think street reconstruction is done for bike lanes — which we very rarely do. For the most part, the bike infrastructure we get is because the street was crumbling and needed fixing, both underground and if the asphalt itself was falling apart. There's a huge battle right now for a really busy corridor called Lyndale, which has a lot of businesses on it and, in some parts, is about 90 years old. All the underground utilities need updating, and the street surface needs updating. So we're likely going to get a protected bike lane on Lyndale — but the people against it are trying to claim that the big bike lobby (I'm wearing my bike lobby shirt from Our Streets) has the funding and is pushing the reconstruction just to get a bike lane. That's not the case at all. The street needs to be reconstructed, period. And while we're doing that and spending the money, we might as well look at ways to improve the experience for all modes throughout that corridor.

So, to your earlier question — I actually don't know that there's a ton of city-led tactical urbanism, because we already have so many of these policies in place. I haven't seen the city do a ton of short-term projects. But I think there's a huge need for education for the general population around why we reconstruct streets, to bust that myth that it's being done just for bike lanes — and more education around the economic, safety, and climate components, so we can all be aligned with the existing city policy. In some ways the culture is really far ahead, and in some ways we need some education to bring folks along with us.

Avi Stopper (16:33)

Is keeping the lead pipes in the ground one of the points of contention? Is any of the pushback "we want the lead pipes to stay in the ground"?

Laura Mitchell (16:40)

It's so wild. Some business owners on Lyndale are fantastic, but some — I don't even know what they want. They're just saying we need to delay it. And it's like, delay it until when? We have the funding right now. Let's go ahead and do it. I totally feel for business owners about the potential impact on their businesses, and I think we should align around grants and low-interest loans, and the city should work to stimulate those areas and ensure business owners get the business they're used to throughout the challenging construction season. But we should not stop, delay, or change construction due to those concerns.

Avi Stopper (17:18)

There's a very provocative study the Chicago DOT did recently about the impact of bike lanes. I think it's one of the key case studies that needs to be propagated so more people come to appreciate this. I was hoping there'd be some overwhelming positive effect on local business. What they found was that there was no detrimental effect on business. So the status quo holds, which is encouraging. But where I think we ultimately want to get — the story advocates have told themselves for years, which logically makes sense but we really need to establish — is that this has a huge lifting effect on businesses. That scenario everyone describes: because you're on your bike, you don't have to deal with parking, you can just lock up real quick, hop in, and buy an ice cream right there, rather than thinking, "Gosh, next time I'll have to circle for parking three times to get to this ice cream shop." If we can find a series of definitive case studies, that would be really compelling. Maybe this is a fishing question — are you aware of any such studies in Minneapolis?

Laura Mitchell (18:20)

There's one that's about 15 years old from Minneapolis, and it did show positive results — I can't remember which corridor it looked at. And then there's the totally anecdotal stuff, because we get all the anecdotal stuff from people who are against bike lanes, so I try to share my anecdotal, not-scientifically-based stuff too. To Patrick's point, I live about half a mile from Bryant. I didn't spend any time on that street before, because it was a basic, overly wide two-lane street with parking on both sides and crumbling sidewalks. Why would I go over there? Once they built the bike lane, I'm on that street almost every single day. I'm buying donuts at Bogart's, going to Gigi's, getting my coffee at Canteen. Things are changing. It's way too complicated to take my one story and say "therefore we need to build bike lanes everywhere," but it's a compelling story to share with a friend: hey, this changed my spending habits, and these businesses are benefiting — and that's before you even look at safety and everything else.

Avi Stopper (19:15)

It'd be interesting to talk to those proprietors about before-and-after conditions. Obviously you're not holding every variable constant — any number of things can happen in a time series — but it'd be interesting to know whether, overall, they feel it's had a lifting effect. Because that anecdote is so compelling. One of the strongest ways to deal with pushback is to have a series of case studies you can share with business owners: "This is going to increase your revenue by 10%. Would you like that? Yes or no?" What they're preoccupied with — and one has to sympathize; if you've spent your entire life building a business — is that the potential for the status quo to change is scary. If the behavior you observe right now at the donut shop is that people drive up, park, and get their donuts, then when that parking spot is gone or moved, or things are slightly less convenient for drivers, how is that going to change the behaviors that, from the business owner's perspective, are just the way people operate?

Laura, I want to get back to one thing you mentioned a moment ago — the city's objectives to create this mode shift. I want to know if either of you is aware of really rigorous ways the city is measuring actual system-wide ridership. It seems to me that in most cities I've encountered, this is a pretty significant miss: we talk a lot about infrastructure, the number of miles built, the form factor of the facilities — but we rarely have rigorous data demonstrating that the investment produced that mode shift, that it reduced the need for vehicular travel, reduced congestion, and so on. Are either of you aware of rigorous efforts to quantify the return on investment for these facilities? Patrick, let's start with you.

Patrick Stephenson (21:21)

I remember there was a bike counter on the Franklin Avenue Bridge. That bridge used to be a nightmare to cross on a bike, and then they installed a separated bikeway where you could go across the entire thing without interacting with any traffic. It's amazing now. When it first came in, they had that bike counter to measure how many people crossed, and the numbers were astounding.

Laura Mitchell (21:44)

I know both the state and the city were previously doing regular bike counting, but it seemed to fall off when the pandemic hit. For Bryant in particular, I know they had counters, because I kept riding over the little strips on the bike lane last year. I've been pestering the city to see if we can get those results, but I haven't seen them yet. That's not perfect — it's not measuring network-wide, just one bike lane. And I have a hunch that a lot of people, myself included, were already biking and changed their routes to go to Bryant. So it would be helpful to have broader studying — to see how many more people increased or started riding as a result of the infrastructure.

I also know that in the city's transportation action plan, they cite a survey done at some point when that last plan was written, which found that 66% of Minneapolis residents ride a bike at least sometimes, for some trips. Again, it's not super quantifiable, but I pull that stat out a lot when people say "no one bikes." It's like, okay, apparently 66% of people bike at least sometimes — and if they're biking at least sometimes, then with more connected, safer infrastructure, those folks might bike more often, creating less traffic.

Avi Stopper (22:54)

We'll talk about winter in a sec, because winter is really just a question of whether you have the right clothing on. But we've been talking a lot about infrastructure — that tends to be the banner in a lot of this. Both of you: your main squeeze right now, the projects you seem most invested in, aren't really directly about infrastructure. Laura, you're leading the Minnesota Cargo Bike Library, and Patrick, you're working on 30 Days of Biking and the Joyful Riders Club. One of the assumptions we make is that if we just had a network in place, we'd get huge mode shift. I'm curious whether you buy that argument — and, more broadly, tell us about the projects you're working on, and why you've chosen to work on what I'd describe as more behavioral-level advocacy, as opposed to pounding on the door of City Hall to get more investment in bikeways.

Patrick Stephenson (23:53)

I've been working on this for 15 years now, and I think a lot about why I wanted to do it in the first place. I'll say, for this interview, I'm just a guy — my job is as a writer, so I don't have that professional background. But I have a lot of enthusiasm for this work, and the enthusiasm has gone into these social rides. I think about people being lonely, needing connection, needing community. Biking is a perfect way to bring people together and give them friends, connection, relationships. I met my wife through a ride I organized — and there have been so many stories like that over the years. So my big motivation is connection. I want to fight the atomization of humanity, where we're all these isolated little pods, and just get people out together doing stuff — because that creates a really amazing life. That's what drives me.

Avi Stopper (24:28)

That's great. With the Joyful Riders Club, where is that initiative now? What structure does it take? For folks listening who think, "I like that idea, I want to do something similar in my city" — what's the alchemy you've created? What combination of factors have you found is the best way to organize and orchestrate these rides?

Patrick Stephenson (25:09)

It's all about communication — communicating the speed you're going to go, the length, and the route, more or less. We allow a little room for improvisation, but we make sure people know up front what they're getting into. We go very slow, very short distances. My idea is to create a complete experience: enough of a ride that it feels right, and then we bring everyone together at the end at a bike shop or taproom, wherever it is, so they can be buddies. So it's about making the most inclusive atmosphere possible, so people feel welcome.

Avi Stopper (25:44)

If someone's new to the ride, how do you make it easy for them to converse with folks? Are they on their own, or are there little games, structures, intros you offer? What's the way to get new people to feel like, "I'm going to come back next week"?

Patrick Stephenson (25:59)

One of the most effective ways is to invite people to raise their hand if it's their first time on one of our rides. That points out that they're new, and it's nonverbal — you just raise your hand, and you're not calling yourself out too much. Then we invite the more regular riders to introduce themselves, make them feel welcome, and talk with them. One thing that's nice about a social ride is that if it's your first one, you can just be silent the whole ride. You don't have to talk to anybody — just ride. That's a sweet thing too. So you can come in and just be yourself, or you can meet people. It's your choice.

Avi Stopper (26:32)

How often do you do these, and do you feel like regularity or consistency is important? One of the hallmarks of modern urban life is that you meet someone, have a nice conversation, and then don't see them again for four months and barely remember what you talked about, let alone their name.

Patrick Stephenson (26:50)

Regularity is everything. You want a steady drumbeat of events, so people don't have to think about it. We always get together on the third Thursday of the month, and we have at least one DJ ride a month — so basically we get together twice a month. We have a calendar people can access, which takes the thought out of it, so they reflexively know when the ride is. The DJ rides are a bit more manual, so we have a flyer that I pin to the top of our Instagram account. People get the full calendar right at the start of summer, so they can get it all on their calendar. That helps a lot. The steady drumbeat of events really helps.

Avi Stopper (27:24)

I remember doing a Critical Mass ride in San Francisco on Halloween — everyone in costumes, some guy with a gigantic speaker blasting very loud EDM. I was just like, wow, this is the peak right here. Laura, over to you. You were the board chair of Our Streets, the main advocacy group in Minneapolis, and you made a choice to work on cargo bikes and to start a cargo bike library. One is pretty traditional, advocacy-focused work — a lot of work with the city, getting people fired up about infrastructure — and you decided to move over to cargo bikes. Why the change, and what have you found most compelling about the cargo bike transition?

Laura Mitchell (28:10)

Our Streets is one of several awesome nonprofits advocating for safe biking, walking, and transit here. That's part of the reason I felt I could step out of that space — I was just getting kind of burnt out. We have Our Streets, and we have Move Minnesota, and our sister organization in housing, because of course you can't separate a lot of this from density and smart zoning.

When I first moved to Minneapolis, I got involved as a volunteer with Our Streets, actively working on campaigns for one of the bike lanes close to my house. I'm so grateful for the opportunity to have done all that work. But selfishly, I was finding joy in this other space, and there are so many smart people around me who can take over. So I decided to step into the space where I feel I can make a difference.

And I want to give a public shout-out to Patrick — I'm partly here because of him. I lived in Colorado, in Denver, back in 2014, and saw people talking online about 30 Days of Biking. I started following along, started riding my bike — which I wasn't using for transportation; it was just my weekend-ride thing. That was a complete game changer for me. The infrastructure in Denver was good enough for me to get around, and it's a similar deal here — the infrastructure in Minneapolis is good enough. We still have a lot of battles to fight, but there are people, often younger than me, who have the energy to fight those battles in a way I don't right now. Once my family was growing, we found the benefit of cargo bikes, and I got so excited about them. I saw the steep learning curve, jumped right in with hours of internet research and help from my wife, who's really smart about bikes too, and thought: I want to help other people through this learning curve and find the joy of cargo bikes.

So the Minnesota Cargo Bike Library is now officially a program of the Bicycle Alliance of Minnesota — BikeMN — which is our statewide bike advocacy organization. It's been such a joy. Through the program, we require folks to take a one-hour in-person orientation that I run, where we cover all the basics: how to ride safely, how to fit a helmet, how to lock up a bike, how to fit a bike to your body — and then the logistics of how e-bikes work, especially cargo bikes, so folks understand the speed, the throttle if it has one, charging, all those considerations. I've found so much joy in that. Just this last week, one of our borrowers said, "We borrowed a bike last week, we're buying two e-bikes this week — can you help me talk through options?" And I'm like — those two! Borrowing one bike, and suddenly there are two more e-bikes on the road, with plans to replace car trips, and we have enough infrastructure to get them going.

So other folks are going to keep pushing on the infrastructure, and I'm going to stay in the lane I've chosen for myself, at least for now — education and access around cargo bikes. Everyone else, people working in housing, people working on all sorts of things — all our forces combined is what makes it a really good space. Similar to Patrick, running the cargo bike library isn't my day job; it's something I do on the side. So it's nice to pick and choose, given that we're volunteering our time, what brings us the most joy and what can make the most impact on our communities.

Avi Stopper (31:29)

Please tell me you do have 15 awesome cargo bikes in your garage.

Laura Mitchell (31:33)

I don't know if you follow me on social media, but we had a very funny situation where an opossum got into our garage and climbed on two of the Bunch bikes. We have a new logo and a t-shirt with it now — it was hilarious.

Avi Stopper (31:39)

Embrace the possum. I'm curious — so you lend people a cargo bike for a week, they go out, and they come back. Are they transformed? Is it as if they've been on some religious vision quest? What are some of the responses?

Laura Mitchell (31:49)

My favorite response — which makes me sound really mean — is when kids have tantrums at check-in. If it's a parent with kids, and then they have to drop off the bike, the kids get so upset, and those families usually end up buying an e-cargo bike. Then I see them out on the trails and in the bike lanes, and it's fantastic. The program is used not only by folks considering purchasing a cargo bike — which is great, and a use case we're solving for — but also by folks who may not be in a position to want or afford one, but have a specific use case. There was one person whose friend was a paraplegic and couldn't ride a bike because of an accident. She was able to borrow our Bunch bike, put her friend and her son in the front of it together, and they went and had a picnic down by the Stone Arch Bridge — a place they wouldn't have been able to get to with a car, and where his wheelchair had a hard time accessing. But they could be all together and have a joyful day. The folks going on to buy a cargo bike bring me so much joy — but so do the people who just have a really meaningful experience with bikes, with their friends and family.

Avi Stopper (33:06)

It reminds me of an organization called Cycling Without Age. They get these trishaws and take folks from assisted-living facilities out — bundled up in blankets, riding around, feeling the wind on their faces, having that joyful experience of riding a bike despite certain physical limitations.

I have to tell you one hilarious cargo bike story. Last week in Denver was Bike to Work Day. We had our little Bike Streets booth set up, people were coming by and chatting, and a local reporter comes up and says, "I'd like to interview you, and at the end of my live piece, do you mind if I get in your cargo bike and you ride off with me?" And I thought, okay, that sounds like something we can do — maybe a little high-stakes on live TV; you could easily see this showing up on TikTok. So she does her spiel, the cameraman zooms in on the box, she gets in — and she doesn't get in in a balanced way. She just sort of gets in on the side. At that moment I was like: core strength, core strength, core strength. Hold on — do not let this bike go down under any circumstances. We avoided disaster, which is probably why you didn't see us on TikTok. But it was a fun laugh.

Patrick Stephenson (34:18)

Live TV is scary for things like that. There's the runner who slips on the ice — I thought of that immediately.

Avi Stopper (34:25)

Just classic. We've been talking about checking out a cargo bike from the library. What do you tell folks about where to go and how to ride? You're doing this training session for them, and I'd imagine one of the discussions is about how to get to the places they want to go — which, for better or worse, brings us back to the gaps in the infrastructure. What's your advice? How do you tell folks they can indeed get where they want to go, notwithstanding these gigantic gaps?

Laura Mitchell (34:56)

The city just finally released an updated map of our bike infrastructure, so I find that helpful to share — folks can see what the infrastructure is and where it is, to help with routing. But that's a huge mental lift. I don't look at a map when I'm trying to figure out where to go in my car; I pull up my GPS and plug it in. We're very lucky in Minneapolis to have a number of folks who've volunteered their time to make sure our local mapping data — on OpenStreetMap and everywhere — is really well updated. So apps like Transit work really well for finding low-stress routes.

When the library first opened, we had a ton of people who were already very bikey — they just hadn't gotten into e-bikes or cargo bikes yet, so they didn't need much help. But as the months went on last year, and definitely big-time this year, we're getting a number of people who haven't been on bikes in decades. We even had one person who had never ridden a bike before, who borrowed an upright trike we have so he didn't have to worry about balance for his first rides. For those folks, I encourage them to download the Transit app and use it for routing, because it tends to be pretty reliable. I'm not with them the rest of the week while they're out riding, so I'm not giving super-specific directions — but if they ask about an area I know, I'll give recommendations, like "ride on the sidewalk for this half block to get around this terrible spot, and be really mindful of pedestrians and go slow," or "take this side street to get around this gap." Technology like the Transit app can be really helpful in these situations.

Avi Stopper (36:27)

There's a really interesting thing with group rides — the strength-in-numbers phenomenon. People feel comfortable in spaces where they might not otherwise. I find that to be one of the real challenges with Critical Mass-type rides: you're out there thinking, "This is amazing, why can't the world be like this all the time?" And then the moment the ride passes a location, it reverts to its normal state. There tends to be an absence of opportunities for people to learn the ways to get to the places they want to go when they're out by themselves. How do you deal with that tension?

Patrick Stephenson (37:05)

One thing we established with the social rides from the start is that we wanted an educational component — we want to teach people about the sneaks. One thing I've noticed is that when people start biking, they automatically default to the biggest thoroughfares, just like they would when driving: get on the busiest road, the most direct route. Something we can teach is that that's not always the best way, and not the way you have to go. You can take a parallel route that's a little quieter, and sometimes there's even better infrastructure. So I want to teach people about those routes — the secret sneaks to get around: the ways that go under the highway bridge, the two-way bikeway parallel to Washington Avenue that'll get you there much easier. We're equipping them to ride alone by teaching them about the environment around them and the alternative ways to get around. And I hope we're also giving them a community they can rely on — people they meet who have a bit more experience.

I remember when I was first bike commuting, what really helped was going to the bike shop and talking to a mechanic. I said, "This is my destination — how the heck should I do this route?" And that mechanic gave me a lot of advice. So by giving people that learning within the community, we're building the opportunity for them to do it on their own.

Avi Stopper (38:20)

It's amazing how universal so many of these trends are. In the early days of my life in Denver, I certainly had those conversations with local mechanics. By the same token, what we're doing with these crowdsourced low-stress bike maps in cities around the country — including Minneapolis, where I just checked, the current version has 523 bidirectional miles in the Twin Cities region — is trying to surface those local hacks and workarounds, the knowledge people carry in their minds about how to navigate the tricky spots. That knowledge isn't self-evident. The intuitive thing is that when you're going from one place to another, you assume the modality of driving, so the big arterial seems to make sense. And yet a street over there might be this chill route that, if you connect a couple of things and make a few extra turns, puts you in a much more comfortable setting. Do your rides, in some cases, avoid the bigger arterials and instead show the chill routes — so rather than riding in a painted bike lane, you're on a quiet residential street a block over?

Patrick Stephenson (39:40)

I think we've had to prioritize the better infrastructure, just from a safety standpoint — we want to maximize the safety of the ride and keep people feeling good. Every time there's a great new one, like Hennepin Avenue, which is amazing now, let's take people down it just to show it off. We have to prioritize that safe infrastructure to keep riders safe.

Avi Stopper (40:00)

To me, a group bike ride is one of the great joys in life — and if it ends with an ice cream shop, even better. There's this description of "interested but concerned" cyclists. So you're giving people ways to actualize their curiosity — to go out and ride in a group, or borrow a cargo bike for a week. Do you find there's a path from someone who rarely rides to someone who comes through this activation, gets into riding, and then becomes an advocate? One of the things I'm always very interested in is how we broaden the movement, so it's not the same 10 people shouting at the mayor over and over. Have you found that this is a path for folks to get more engaged on the policy side? Laura, Our Streets might be an interesting perspective here — is that a way you've seen volunteers cultivated, through curiosity about riding first?

Laura Mitchell (41:00)

Yeah — again, that's why I'm here. I got activated by 30 Days of Biking, and then went down the whole rabbit hole: some of these routes didn't feel so great when I was trying to bike downtown Denver at six months pregnant, and I thought, "Can anything be done about this?" That led me to realize yes, things can be done, and should be done. I started with some advocacy in Denver, and then definitely ramped up once I got here. So for sure, we see that happening at a lot of our local nonprofits.

Just this last weekend, my mother-in-law was in town and we went to Pride events. I saw a number of folks I knew, and she kept asking, "How do you know that person? How do you know that person?" My answer for everything was: bikes. I just know them from bikes. The volunteers become friends with each other, and that amps things up. At the cargo bike library, almost all of our volunteers are folks who came through the program as borrowers, had such a positive experience, loved it, wanted the community aspect, wanted to give back — and now they're volunteers. We also have a Discord, which is another community piece. We have a number of local Discord channels where folks organize around things, talking about bikes and infrastructure and everything under the sun. We have one for the cargo bike library, and many of my volunteers who were newer to biking for transportation are now talking about all the infrastructure stuff and starting to get involved. So there's a pretty natural path. Not everyone — some people just ride their bikes and call it good, and that's great too. But there's certainly a path for a lot of folks to become advocates.

Avi Stopper (42:24)

Patrick, how about on your end — both with that question, and I also want to talk about 30 Days of Biking, since we haven't touched on it. Have you seen people who were kind of nervous come in and really become activated bike folks?

Patrick Stephenson (42:39)

That's the story of the past 15 years. When you give people a safe entry point where they feel welcome and safe, they grow their experience. They learn how to navigate the streets, they get friends who also want bike adventures. I've watched people get this entry point and then go off in all these different directions. There are so many pathways with biking: you could get into the policy area, you could race your bike, you could be a messenger, you could go on long rides or bike camping. It's been amazing to see. It's not just about the connection they get — it's also about how they find their own pathway into the biking life and what comes of it. It's been really cool.

Avi Stopper (43:24)

Okay, so you call your riders' club the Joyful Riders Club, and as we've established, definitively and without question, group bike rides are awesome and filled with joy. Sometimes the bike infrastructure stuff is less joyful — it's more of a grind. Are there specific formal structures in the riders' club? Do you give a presentation, a little pitch at the beginning of each ride, about what's going on, so people have a formal entry point? Or do you find it's simply the act of participating that leads to further curiosity, and people find their own way?

Patrick Stephenson (44:00)

I think that comes to life through our partnerships. On the DJ rides, we partner with Perennial Cycle. They have an awesome network of marshals they've trained, who go through a program on how to do it in the specific Perennial Cycle approach to marshalling. That's been really helpful. We've also partnered with Bone Saw Cycling Collective [name unverified — please check against audio], who also have an awesome way of marshalling. So it's partnering with organizations that do such a good job controlling the pace of the ride. And I think it's all about just going on the ride, seeing how it works, seeing how the marshals keep us safe. That really helps.

Avi Stopper (44:34)

All right — tell us about 30 Days of Biking. What's the vision behind it? How does it work?

Patrick Stephenson (44:39)

Usually this comes at the start — that's nice. So, 30 Days of Biking. It started in 2010, because I was biking all through that winter. I started bike commuting in the winter, which is weird in retrospect — I really got passionate about it in the winter. Coming out of the winter of 2010, I had my hashtag, #WinterViking, that I was recording all my adventures under, and I put it out to the community on Twitter — now called X — asking what hashtag I should use next. I was brainstorming out loud, and somebody was naturally doing 30 days of yoga, and I said: how about 30 days of biking? We'll do it in April — April's a week away, it's coming right up, let's do it. Hundreds of people just jumped on and started doing it with me.

As someone in their late twenties who was just discovering themselves, it was terrifying to suddenly have this much exposure — and to do that first social ride. I remember the first one was about 70 people, and I was like, "What the heck is this? All these people are here to bike together? I don't know how to lead a ride." So that was brand new — there was a lot of learning involved. But that's what it's all about: this pledge to ride your bike every day in April and share your adventures online. You get this shared narrative around the whole month — photos, tweets, videos now that people are doing — all this content. It's a big story that we're all participating in.

And I want people to know they can jump in anytime. You can jump in at day 15 — it doesn't matter. You don't need to do all 30 days. Just join our big party and celebrate bikes for the month. The fact that it's in April is also really important, because here in Minnesota especially, we get pummeled by all kinds of weather — rain, snow, sunny days. It's that big lift out of winter, where it's brand new, so it's an exciting experience versus something like June, which might be a bit simpler.

Avi Stopper (46:33)

One last question to wrap up. Both of you get to be — for at least a moment — the director of your local DOT. Laura, you're in Minneapolis; Patrick, you're in St. Paul. What are the two or three things you'd do in your city that you think would have the biggest lift on making biking more accessible for more folks?

Laura Mitchell (46:55)

I'd continue to make progress on our bike network, and continue to push that we don't need to prioritize car parking over safety in the areas where we've done that. So: keep building out the network, make it connected, make it as protected as possible. I'm a huge fan of the sidewalk-level bike lanes — I'd love to see more of those — but whatever the protection is, we need more of it. And the second piece is hopefully already in the works: we had a really great bike share called Nice Ride, and it died. I want it to come back, and ideally I want it to include cargo bikes, because the cargo bike library isn't able to meet all the need. The demand is way, way higher than we'll ever be able to meet with our setup. So I'd love to see the city, or Met Council, or the county provide more actual bike share, including bikes of all types — not just regular bikes and e-bikes, but cargo bikes.

Avi Stopper (47:47)

Can you imagine, given their size, if the ubiquitous scooter- and bike-share operations had cargo bikes as well — or instead? That would be incredible. Do they really?

Laura Mitchell (47:56)

I think Lime actually does. I've seen some photos. One of our volunteers is in Italy right now for his honeymoon — from the Cargo Bike Library — and he shared a photo of a Lime bike with a passenger setup on the back for kids. So they apparently exist, but here in the US, with all our lawsuits and everything, who knows if we could get something like that. But that would be my dream.

Avi Stopper (48:12)

Coming soon, I hope. Patrick, over to you — the last word.

Patrick Stephenson (48:21)

I've got thoughts. I would extend the Midtown Greenway from Minneapolis into St. Paul, because having that nice separated, rails-to-trails atmosphere in St. Paul would improve everything around it — it would flow this beautiful bike infrastructure out into all the other streets. And I would make Summit Avenue a Bryant Avenue-type bikeway, with that raised sidewalk-level situation Laura is talking about, because Summit goes from the river all the way to downtown St. Paul. That would have a nice flow-out effect too — once you get more people biking on it, including kids and families, everything else is impacted. So those would be my top two: the Greenway and Summit. Let's make it happen.

Avi Stopper (48:59)

With my magic wand, we'll get it done. Thank you both so much for your time. Really appreciate it. Keep fighting the good fight.

Patrick Stephenson (49:01)

Thank you.

Laura Mitchell (49:06)

Thanks so much.

Avi Stopper (49:08)

Avi Stopper 6/29/26 Avi Stopper 6/29/26

Bike Networks Now! Audiobook: Chapter 19. Organizational Change

One of the strangest ironies is that cities already have many of the techniques described above. We have the tools to create complete networks, but we don’t use them. It’s also quite clear that we’re not getting enough people on bikes. Yet we persist with the status quo approach to building bike networks.

READ THE CHAPTER

Avi Stopper 6/23/26 Avi Stopper 6/23/26

Bike Networks Now! Audiobook: Chapter 18. Align the Venn Diagram

After a decade of observation and advocacy, I’ve become convinced that endless conflict to build bike networks is a failed strategy. It’s the bike equivalent of trench warfare: unacceptably limited progress and massive costs in time, money, and pain.

READ THE CHAPTER

Avi Stopper 6/20/26 Avi Stopper 6/20/26

David Meza & Adam Davies: Lessons from New Orleans

David Meza is the Community Programs Coordinator and Adam Davies is a Board Member at Bike Easy, the bike advocacy group in New Orleans. We’ve been collaborating on a low-stress bike map over the last few months and I’ve been fascinated by the challenges in New Orleans that are at once unique and quite familiar based on what I’ve seen in cities across the country. So we’re here today to discuss the state of biking in New Orleans.

Transcript

Avi Stopper (00:00)

We've now done a bunch of episodes of the podcast in our quest to understand why bike transportation still isn't possible for most people in most cities. So far, these conversations have been fairly high-level — about the bike movement broadly. Over the next set of episodes, we're going local. We're going to learn as much as we can about how the bike movement is doing in cities across America by talking with the folks who know those cities best: the advocates trying to make bike transportation a practical reality. We're calling these episodes "The State of Biking."

David Meza is the community programs coordinator and Adam Davies is a board member at Bike Easy, the bike advocacy group in New Orleans. We've been collaborating for a while now on a low-stress bike map, and I've been fascinated by the challenges in New Orleans — challenges that are at once unique and quite familiar based on what I've seen in cities across the country. So we're here today to discuss the state of biking in New Orleans. Guys, welcome to the show.

Adam Davies (01:03)

Great, thanks — happy to be here, Avi.

David Meza (01:03)

Thanks for having us.

Avi Stopper (01:04)

Let's start with what everyone knows best about New Orleans: Mardi Gras, of course. We're going to discuss the good, the bad, and the ugly. Let's start with the good. It seems like bikes really make Mardi Gras happen for a lot of local folks. You have a campaign, the Purple Way, that Bike Easy oversees. Describe what Mardi Gras is like from the perspective of someone using a bike to get around town. Adam, let's start with you.

Adam Davies (01:30)

Sure. For me it's a little different, because I get around by bicycle or e-bike all the time anyway, so during Mardi Gras nothing really changes — I just see a bunch more bikes, which is always great. It's funny: during things like Mardi Gras or festivals, I mostly notice more cars on the road that I'm riding past. But the city really does come alive in terms of cycling during Mardi Gras. It's amazing to see, and sometimes it's the only way to get around given how the geography works.

During Mardi Gras we have something we call "the box," which is basically the parade route. It boxes in a section of mostly uptown New Orleans. If you want to cross through the box, you can only do it at designated crossing points — and you can't do it in a car, because the roads are shut to cars. But a bike lets you get in and out of the box much more easily. That's why cycling becomes very popular. Obviously, if you close half the city, traffic goes crazy — it's the only time we really get bad traffic here. But for me, a bike is a great way to get around anytime, and for Mardi Gras it's the best.

Avi Stopper (02:37)

It's an interesting paradox. On the one hand, the world descends on New Orleans, so you have a ton of additional people. But on the other hand, a significant swath of the city is shut down to traffic. So what's the net effect? Is it total chaos on the streets, or is it actually calmer than under normal circumstances?

Adam Davies (02:57)

One of my favorite things to do is go out for dinner during some of the less interesting parades. If you go down Magazine Street, it's empty — you can ride up to any restaurant, even during Mardi Gras, without a reservation, and eat. That's really fun. Most of the visitors are concentrated around the French Quarter and CBD area, and they'll walk to where they need to go. A lot of people use rideshare or taxis too.

One thing I always found interesting: because the parade route runs along St. Charles Avenue, which is one of the streetcar lines, the streetcar doesn't run during Mardi Gras. So that's another reason it can be hard to get around. But people find a way. The CBD — the main downtown area — does get very busy, but we manage around it.

Avi Stopper (03:46)

It should be noted that for Mardi Gras this year, Adam dressed up as what I can only describe as "Bike Streets Man" — a costume that prominently featured a bike map. It was quite special. David, I want to kick it over to you. Describe the Purple Way campaign that Bike Easy runs during Mardi Gras. What's that all about?

David Meza (04:05)

Yeah. People in other cities are probably familiar with the concept of a greenway — we have one here, the Lafitte Greenway, that runs up and down the city and connects a lot of things. Purple, gold, and green are the colors of Mardi Gras, so we decided to start a Purple Way. Essentially, during Mardi Gras and festival season, it's a set of suggested routes — very similar to what Bike Streets does. Not necessarily physical infrastructure, though if that's there, great. It's really about low-stress connectors: ways to get to the greenway, ways to get to the different parades and navigate through them.

When you're on a bike and you need to get in or out of the box, or across the parade route, there are designated crossing areas that make it easier than fighting through the crowd. So we highlight those and recommend very specific routes.

Avi Stopper (05:09)

There's nothing like a good map to unlock a complex situation, right?

David Meza (05:13)

Absolutely. And we have one right now for Jazz Fest, as festival season is starting — not as large a version, but it's there.

Avi Stopper (05:21)

David, let's zoom out and talk more broadly about the state of the bike movement in New Orleans. Generally speaking, how would you describe the state of affairs?

David Meza (05:32)

It's a nuanced question. When you talk to people who bike and enjoy biking, there's a lot of love for it — it's easy in a lot of senses. Where it gets difficult is the lack of support from local politicians, the city, and the state, and dealing with cars — which I think every community is used to.

Here, it can feel like there's less progress, less willingness to install infrastructure. DC is battling to keep bike lanes from being removed, but for a long time I believe we were the only city actively removing protected bike lanes. Then Baltimore started, and I'm sure a few others around the country have since.

But the city is super flat. Everything is accessible by bike. We're landlocked in an interesting way by the waterways around us, so honestly the most difficult thing is getting over either the river or the Industrial Canal. For the most part, to live your life — groceries, errands, all those things — you really wouldn't have to leave the city limits. Geographically, it's very well set up for biking.

And one of the reasons I moved to New Orleans 13 years ago: when I came to visit, everybody on the street wants to interact with you — you smile and wave at your neighbors. That connection of being outside, riding your bike, actually seeing people and giving them a nod or a wave — I think it holds a very special significance here.

Avi Stopper (07:25)

That's one of the reasons so many of us love getting around by bike — you actually see and interact with folks. And I appreciate you acknowledging the unique geography of New Orleans. It's the first time we've ever added a ferry to the low-stress Bike Streets map. We actually had to do additional development work to allow a ferry route to be an allowable route type.

I want to talk about some specific setbacks. I gather that on MacArthur Boulevard and Newton Street, there were protected bike lanes that got ripped out. Can you describe the background for those conflicts and what went down? It's a tremendous amount of work to get those things built, and a huge setback to have them removed. What was the flashpoint, and how did we end up not prevailing there?

David Meza (08:23)

This was during a time when we were seeing a lot of investment — a lot of grants available at the federal level to install protected bikeways and push for complete streets. We had a good amount of momentum. And, as in too many of these stories, during one of our biggest Mardi Gras parades — Endymion — a drunk driver decided to go speeding down a bike lane that was just paint on the ground. He ended up killing two people and seriously injuring four or more. That rallied a lot of people.

We went to city council, got the Complete Streets ordinance passed, and did feasibility studies with the city — installing temporary bike lanes all over the city just to test things out: Do we want contraflow options? How do we feel about lanes alongside the neutral ground? All kinds of projects like that. All of that ended up changing the culture and culminating in the city and the Department of Public Works installing protected bike lanes on the West Bank — the side of the city across the Mississippi. That's why we have that ferry integral to the bike maps here.

But the West Bank is a part of the city that sees itself as a little separate from the rest. As we were arguing to city council and begging them not to remove these bike lanes, a lot of residents were saying: these are different over here, you shouldn't be bringing us things we don't already have.

We ended up going to several city council meetings. It got framed as if Bike Easy had installed the bike lanes ourselves. We didn't really have support from the previous administration, and the project spanned multiple administrations and council members. We had incumbent council members and brand-new members who hadn't been informed of the history — and they accused us of installing the lanes without talking to people about them.

It seemed to me that we were arguing the safety of our people — trying to protect lives — and they were arguing aesthetics, and not wanting to have to park in their driveways because chestnuts would fall on their cars. Those were arguments we actually heard. We heard people say, "Well, I rode there as a child and I didn't die." Ultimately they passed a resolution that removed those bike lanes and said the city could never again put protected bike lanes on four named streets. And it passed unanimously, which was very disheartening to see.

Avi Stopper (11:19)

Rough story. Am I mistaken that as part of this they also passed a permanent ban on bollards or flex posts?

David Meza (11:30)

I think just on those specific named streets, yeah.

Avi Stopper (11:33)

I see — so those streets basically have a weird conservation-easement type of restriction stating they can never be built on in any incremental way other than as car infrastructure.

David Meza (11:46)

Yeah, absolutely.

Avi Stopper (11:48)

So Adam, when you and the board members are sitting around licking your wounds over these painful losses — and we certainly don't give up; these setbacks are part of it — how are you thinking about strategy and ways to circumvent that kind of intense bikelash?

Adam Davies (12:16)

The West Bank example is one of the things you've written about on your blog — the classic question of political capital. The decision to start the whole bike lane project over there was more practical than political. There was a lot of FEMA road work still going on in the city on the East Bank, but not as much on the West Bank, so the thinking was: okay, we'll start there as a pilot project. You had the classic public meetings, and then a couple of years later, the posts actually start going into the road — and by then people have either forgotten or never heard about it.

Think about it: when was the last time you went to, or even heard about, a public meeting on something happening on your street? Most people don't hear about these things, and then they only notice when it's actually on the ground. So that was part of what happened there.

In terms of strategy going forward — that was a setback on the West Bank, but there's been some pretty great stuff happening on the East Bank. The Lafitte Greenway is actually a recent development — it only opened in 2017 — and it's spawned other projects. A couple of my favorite bike lanes have come in since. You can see them all on Bike Streets. A.P. Tureaud Avenue, for example, has a lane aligned along the neutral ground side.

We currently have federal grants in progress, though we've just had a change in administration, so some departments have been restructured. But there are good things happening. There's an RFP out from the city right now to build a protected bike lane downtown, in the French Quarter and CBD. Hopefully we'll get a proper protected lane on one of those corridors that runs all the way across; there are designs and questions being worked out around that right now. At the same time, we have a Safe Streets for All initiative — again, federally funded — happening concurrently.

Bike Easy is the organization that's there to represent all the cyclists in the city. I personally can't go to a transportation committee meeting at 10 o'clock on a Tuesday. But our executive director and David can be there. That's the whole point — we chip in every month so they have a salary to show up and represent us. At the transportation committee meeting a couple of weeks ago, we had a full docket of items. Not just protected infrastructure — we also had a Safe Streets for All resolution unanimously approved by the city council, which is amazing. That involved a couple of years of study to identify particular streets that are dangerous and need additional infrastructure for everyone: cyclists, pedestrians, and drivers alike.

Avi Stopper (14:54)

David, on a couple of occasions we've referenced the federal government's involvement in these projects. To what degree is this still related to Katrina? You mentioned FEMA a moment ago. Katrina was 21 years ago now — does it still loom large in the redevelopment of New Orleans? Are some of these projects still holdovers from that?

David Meza (15:17)

There's still lots of work to be done, that's for certain. You still see blight carried over from Hurricane Katrina, and so much infrastructure that still needs to be rebuilt has been on the docket since then.

You mentioned it was 21 years ago. I'm pretty sure the vast majority of our FEMA grants were meant to last 20 years. So what came up in the news was all the millions of dollars in federal funding we lost last year because it wasn't used within that 20-year window. There's certainly lots of work to be done, and we did lose a lot of money simply for not getting it done in time.

Avi Stopper (16:05)

So the city had 20 years to use Hurricane Katrina relief funds — millions of dollars already earmarked for New Orleans — and ultimately some of it didn't get used because the city wasn't able to move quickly enough to develop plans, run community engagement, and so on. Is that why those funds were burned?

David Meza (16:27)

Yeah, and we're seeing that with a lot of city projects. At the end of the last mayoral term, our city was running at such a significant deficit that for a few months they didn't think they could pay city employees through the end of the year. So it's an ongoing thing here. It's the common notion of bureaucracy everywhere — I was listening to one of your podcasts: if they wanted to get something done, they could, but there are so many mechanisms where they can just drag their feet. The fact that we lose out on so much money, for projects we know we desperately need, is painful.

Avi Stopper (16:57)

As I said at the top, the projects we're working on in cities across the country have both nuances and universalities. Some things unique to New Orleans are certainly the Katrina funding dynamics. And I can honestly say that, as a reason to push back on a protected bike lane, I have never actually heard anyone cite chestnuts falling on their cars. So that's new. I'm not sure I have a solution to that one.

But Adam, I want to get back to this issue of public meetings, which it sounds like you've identified as a real vulnerability in the process — and I feel the same way. That's one of those universal challenges. Have you developed any mechanisms in your work for improving how you approach public meetings, to mitigate the reality that only a tiny percentage of the population actually shows up? This is a gigantic existential risk to a project: a project might be a go, and then a few years later it's not a go because some people are angry they didn't know about the meetings. We've all heard that a million times. Any techniques or methodologies you've developed to manage that risk?

Adam Davies (18:29)

Some of Bike Easy's work has been around leafleting. Sometimes the city has effectively passed the buck to us — saying that we, as an advocacy organization, should go knock on doors. And we have done that. For these projects, we've gone around the community to say: here's what the city is putting in, and here's how it's going to help protect cyclists and keep everyone safe.

That road I mentioned, A.P. Tureaud Avenue, was one of those examples. We got in there, told everyone what was happening, made sure the communication was very clear, and heard people's concerns.

From the city's point of view, A.P. Tureaud was an interesting case because they wanted a road diet — it was a two-lane road and they wanted to reduce it to one lane to slow speeding. Often the bike infrastructure comes about precisely because people are speeding down two-way roads and the city wants to calm traffic. So that was the real goal, and a protected bike lane was the means. I'm never going to turn down a bike lane.

When the city went out to residents, they heard worries — mostly about parking. "Can I still park next to my driveway?" Some people don't have a driveway and wouldn't be able to park next to their house. So the city's solution was to make it a left-aligned bike lane down the middle, alongside what we call the neutral ground — the median. I think that's great. I don't have statistics to back it up, only my anecdotal riding experience, but especially on an e-bike going 20-plus miles an hour, I'm constantly worried about the door zone in a painted bike lane. A flex-post lane alongside the neutral ground avoids that. I think it's a good example of working with a community to iterate on a design and arrive at something good.

Beyond that, it's really about getting more community engagement at the start of the process and getting everyone to agree early. Once you've done that, it's quite hard for anyone else to come along later and change people's minds.

Avi Stopper (20:28)

And what does that look like in practical terms? Crews of folks going out, flyering neighborhoods, QR codes pointing people to websites — that kind of thing?

David Meza (20:39)

Yeah. I'll say, it's been a while since the city has given us a heads-up with ample time — A.P. Tureaud was the last big one. But typically, here's how it works: we work with the city, they tell us where something is going to be installed, and we come up with our own materials. We try to get approval, which often comes back with a quick edit since they have to route it through so many departments. They give us the final design, and by that point we've already put out a call to volunteers. We pull up Google Maps and outline the blocks the project is adjacent to — and if we have enough volunteers, we'll canvass a wider radius around it.

We have people knock on doors and walk residents through the whole rundown, with answers to common questions and city contacts for any concerns. And some interactions need more — so I'll be on site, or our executive director will, for the tough questions. If parking spots are going to be removed, I try to sign up for that part. I'll go canvass those blocks myself so I can have those harder conversations.

Then, separately, we're trying to get the word out about the community meetings — and we do. But the people who hear from us are people already invested and interested in improving biking in the city, so we tend to get a good turnout from them. The backlash, though, comes from people saying, "We never heard about this." And it's like — yeah, because our comms only reach people who already know about us. We'd love it if everybody signed up for our email list, but we're only getting to the people already in the loop.

Avi Stopper (22:47)

That's always been one of the big challenges with advocacy — getting beyond that inner circle of folks who are already tuned in. The door-knocking is fascinating. David, I'm inclined to role-play this a little, but you can just describe how it goes. You knock on someone's door, and a parking spot is going to be removed in front of their house. How does that conversation go? How do you approach it?

David Meza (23:16)

The last time I did it, I volunteered for exactly that — the folks losing their parking spots. This was on a street called Miró, a one-way street that adjoins Galvez, which has a bike lane heading downriver. This project would head upriver. Anybody who's seen it knows the two lanes are so narrow that everybody basically parks up on the sidewalk — fully pulled over — because the parking spots aren't large enough, and even with no cars parked, you can't really drive two cars side by side down those narrow lanes.

I know that area well because I frequent it, so when I went down there, I was able to tell people: you don't want to park on your lawn anymore, right? Aren't you getting tired of that? You see so many cars with their side mirrors knocked off because of exactly this. The street had parking on one side but not the other, and this treatment was going to move parking from one side to the other.

So I'd say: "You've gotten to park in front of your house this whole time. Wouldn't it be nice for your neighbors to get a turn?" Not everyone loved that framing — but honestly, I got a lot of people saying, "Yeah, we want to see the cars slow down. Our cars are getting hit out here. If this is going to slow down traffic, we want to see it. We know it's not safe on this street."

Avi Stopper (24:58)

My eyes light up at that — I'm so glad you mentioned it. I think this is one of the biggest opportunities for advocacy to find alignment with people who aren't already in the tent with us. There's a tremendous amount of mutual agreement about high-speed through traffic on streets like that. So it sounds like that framing is really compelling.

David Meza (25:02)

Yeah.

Avi Stopper (25:24)

I want to set this up as a kind of point and counterpoint. When you think about the setbacks on MacArthur and Newton, where protected bike lanes were removed — and Adam, you referenced the greenway earlier — why would you say the Lafitte Greenway has been such a successful project, an asset that's really embraced and loved by the community, in contrast with some of these projects that have been less well received? Some reasons might be self-evident, but I'm curious why that particular project succeeded, and whether there are lessons we can apply to the next versions of MacArthur and Newton — in New Orleans and in cities across the country.

Adam Davies (26:07)

The Greenway was built on top of disused train tracks. It's a very easy sell: here's this empty space just sitting around — would you like to turn it into a park? That's a popular thing. There was a really cool movement behind it: a group originally got together and started hiking the disused tracks every year to raise awareness — "let's turn this into something beautiful."

We had things like special economic zones around the Greenway to encourage businesses to develop, with more mixed-use zoning. Coffee shops, bagel shops, brew pubs have popped up. So it's a really exciting piece of mixed-use infrastructure that's actually led to economic gains. It connects the French Quarter up to Mid-City and beyond. I'd say it's now the backbone of cycling in New Orleans.

There's always more to do — the crossings could be better. We unfortunately had someone killed at one of the crossings just a couple of weeks ago. It was the classic case: a four-lane road, one car stops and waves them across, and the other car doesn't stop. The lights there haven't been working for years. I went into the 311 records and pulled numerous tickets showing people had reported it. So there's definitely work to do to make it safe for everyone — but it's a piece of infrastructure that enables so much connectivity through the side streets. It's been really great.

Avi Stopper (27:40)

That's so compelling from an economic development standpoint: because of this new thing created in an underused location, you now have local commerce. There are always concerns — particularly in a city as socioeconomically polarized as New Orleans — about bike infrastructure and gentrification. David, I'm curious how Bike Easy has approached this in communities where making inexpensive, self-propelled transportation possible could be transformative, while staying sensitive to the needs of the people in those communities and recognizing the baggage that often comes with this type of advocacy.

David Meza (28:25)

I'm glad you brought that up — it's something I wanted to make sure to fold in when we were talking about Katrina. When Hurricane Katrina came through, it displaced so many families and residents who still haven't returned. So many long-term residents are watching their city change, not take the shape it used to, not have the same neighbors. So alongside fighting for bike lanes and complete streets — especially watching protected bike lanes come down — there's a lot of discussion about gentrification.

One of the reasons we were excited for that infrastructure coming to the West Bank first is that it's an underserved community. It's not a place that tends to get the nice, shiny infrastructure first. That's something we really try to highlight. We try to uplift everybody's stories, and we try not to use the term "cyclist." When people are being contentious about somebody riding a bike in a bike lane in New Orleans, they're not thinking about their uncle who rides his bike everywhere — because he's not a "cyclist." He's just their uncle who rides his bike everywhere.

It's something we have to be sensitive about. This is a city where we see a lot of residents leaving, a lot of turnover. But it's also very appealing, so we see a lot of people moving here for the first time — people from cities like Denver or Portland, places where they're used to biking, who say, "I love biking, I want to bike here. I knew about bike nonprofits, so I signed up to volunteer with y'all." And in those cases we want to sit down and do a good prep before we send people out to knock on doors. Ideally we have people who are local or steeped in the city. If not, we talk about the history of New Orleans a bit — why it's culturally sensitive to knock on somebody's door and say, "Hey, the city is going to change your street."

That's important. As I said, the discussion at city council had drifted toward "Bike Easy did this thing, we're never doing that again." So when we do pop-up demonstrations, we hold meetings on that strip and try to be as respectful as possible. More often than not, we're just trying to uplift what the city is going to be doing, inform people, and explain how it benefits them.

Avi Stopper (31:24)

I want to zero in on one thing you mentioned: you don't use the term "cyclist." That's interesting. I think there's a real language gap in how we talk about this movement. I find myself constantly wrestling with which terms to use. Cyclist? Biker? Bicyclist? Person who uses active transportation? What's the lexicon you've landed on — the terms you find least antagonistic, that cause the least reflexive conflict and actually bring people into a conversation?

David Meza (32:05)

I've been in this work a little while, and the general best practice I've learned — probably from PeopleForBikes, if I'm being honest — is to say "a person on a bike was killed," putting the person at the forefront. When you read a headline like "Cyclist killed in crash," it often humanizes the driver more than the person who was killed. And when people hear "cyclist," they often picture someone on a thousand-dollar bike — that's what they imagine. So especially when you're talking about someone losing their life, it's worth asking: was that person a "cyclist," or were they just riding their bike? There are definitely people who identify as cyclists, and that's absolutely valid. But when communicating, I'll go with "person on a bike."

Avi Stopper (33:11)

Adam, I want to jump over to you. One of the fascinating, unique challenges of making a low-stress bike map in New Orleans has been the condition of the streets themselves — the quality, or lack thereof. "Disrepair" is maybe a gentle term for it. Describe what it's like to ride a random street in New Orleans, and what you've done to help us identify what we call in the Bike Streets vernacular the "best available network" — those chill, quiet streets that let you make the network connections you need. There's a very interesting layer to this in New Orleans: the roughness of the actual riding surface.

Adam Davies (33:54)

It depends where you are in the city. Uptown is a good example. Say you're trying to get from the French Quarter, or even further down in the Bywater, up toward uptown — we navigate by the river here, so we say "upriver" and "downriver," and uptown is upriver. From that area, you've got a couple of nice main thoroughfares: St. Charles, which is mostly smooth for the most part — though there's a big stretch where it gets really bumpy and you actually lose the old painted-on bike lane. Resurfacing that road has been on the docket for years. And you've got Magazine Street, which is also quite smooth. So the main streets are okay most of the time.

But if you're trying to take a quiet street, it gets tricky. You can ride down a perfectly smooth block, then hit the next block and the road is — hard to describe — just patchwork: potholes, partially filled patches, some scattered gravel. So when I'm building out the route for Bike Streets uptown, two roads — Baronne and Carondelet, which are higher up, further from the river — cover it pretty well and stay smooth throughout.

But if you're lower down in the city trying to get from point A to point B, how do you find a route on side streets? We have great narrow roads in New Orleans — parked cars on both sides, very little space — where most cars couldn't really go more than 15 or 20 miles an hour. How do we find those roads, and specifically the smoother ones, so you're not constantly jittering around?

So I built a little tool to help with that. I've wanted to for a couple of years. There's prior academic research on it: using your phone's accelerometer to measure how bumpy a road is — potholes, general roughness. You mount your phone on your handlebar and collect that data as you ride. Previously, the math was always a bit intimidating — the raw data alone doesn't tell the picture, because things like your pedaling cadence introduce noise into the accelerometer signal. But with the advent of AI coding, I was able to take algorithms straight from research papers and turn them into working code that builds out the actual algorithm.

It's live now for multiple users. Anyone can log on to bumpyroads.org and start tracking their rides to produce roughness data. You'll also get a lovely view of New Orleans. Shout-out to Scott, my first beta user — we've started tracking some of the roads uptown. We've used that data to go back to Bike Streets and say, "That's a great side street, but it's just too bumpy — we'll have to find a different route around it." It's been an exciting development.

Avi Stopper (36:59)

So — bumpyroads.org. I didn't realize you'd actually published this. I was riding on a bumpy road in Denver yesterday, thinking: this is a road they recently resurfaced, and they did it very poorly. I submitted a 311 request, they went out and checked it, and said it's totally fine — but it's objectively very shoddy work. This is going to equip me with the data to actually demonstrate that.

I've been referring to it as the "bump-o-meter." Just so folks can visualize what this produces: as Adam rides around New Orleans with the bump-o-meter active, it produces a map with little pings where the accelerometer evaluates the smoothness of the surface. If it's good, it shows up as a green box on the map; if it's decent, yellow; if it's bad, red. In the construction of a low-stress map, this has created a lot of interesting new challenges — compounded by the fact that so many of these chill, community-style low-stress routes in New Orleans are on one-way streets with no provision for contraflow bicycle traffic. So we have to pair them: one street going one direction, another going the other. And sometimes the street going one direction is in good shape while the one going the other direction is not. It's a set of compounding challenges, but I think we're making a lot of progress.

So, you mentioned Claude Code — and this is a pretty clumsy transition — but I want to talk about St. Claude Street. David, as I understand it, we've looked at St. Claude on a number of occasions: challenging crossings and so on. It's a pretty notorious street, and I know Bike Easy is doing a lot of work there. Describe the street, the setting, its challenges, and the vision Bike Easy has for it — plus some context on the fights you've fought, what you've won and lost, the lessons learned, and how that's informing the advocacy around St. Claude.

David Meza (39:14)

St. Claude here is a thoroughfare that starts at Elysian Fields, and it's one of the only viable options to get over the Industrial Canal that I referenced. Once you get east of Elysian Fields — though we don't really use cardinal directions here — you're splitting toward either the Lower Ninth Ward or New Orleans East. You have to make your decision there, and there are really two ways to get across. On the bike maps, we do not recommend riding the bridge to cross via St. Claude, but there is signage — from a very early grassroots campaign to get "Bikes May Use Full Lane" signs, since it's legal there. Still, it's heavily trafficked, with lots of people driving up and down it.

There's a painted bike lane, but at the very start of it — where Elysian Fields and St. Claude meet — there's a large monument. There have been numerous iterations of ghost-bike monuments there because there have been so many deaths at that intersection: semi-trucks taking out bikers, people just getting hit. It's a very poorly designed street. And right at the start of that bike lane, there are constantly cars parked in front of one of the businesses, blocking the transition. They recently put in some flex posts and those were almost immediately knocked over — I think they just replaced them.

All of this is part of our Safer St. Claude campaign. One of our previous employees, who was also a designer, made mocking up the dream of St. Claude one of her last efforts — this vision of what it could look like. We've gotten a bunch of the businesses on St. Claude on board, and a lot of city agencies involved, and done a lot of work to get people excited. But it's also a state highway, so we're hearing a lot of "the state needs to do this." And then the state says they're going to do a study. It was over a year before we even heard when the traffic study would happen. Very slow going — now we're not just dealing with one city agency, we're dealing with multiple agencies across the city and the state.

It's actually the example I use all the time when I promote Bike Streets. If you use Google Maps, it'll tell you to take St. Claude. But if you go one block over to Rampart Street, heading upriver, it's so smooth — so much calmer and easier. There are multiple music and other venues on St. Claude, so you're constantly dealing with cars pulled into the bike lane, dropping people off.

For a little more context: for a long time the saying was, if you're visiting and a local wants you to know what's really going on, "don't go to Bourbon Street, that's where the tourists are — go to Frenchmen Street." In the last 10 years or so that's shifted; now more tourists know about Frenchmen Street, so the locals are on St. Claude. You can walk between all of them, which is really nice. It's a strip that's sometimes dead but very often packed — so much activity, so many people out. And being a four-lane highway, it's hard to cross from literally one venue to another. You're kind of taking your safety into your own hands.

Avi Stopper (43:08)

I should note that in creating our low-stress New Orleans map, we've looked at that bridge over the Industrial Canal on numerous occasions. It's marked properly in OpenStreetMap because it's technically a formal bike facility — there's bike infrastructure nominally there — but we haven't made it part of the low-stress map, as you noted. We looked at ways to get over it. There's a pedestrian component to the bridge, but when you reach the west side, there's a staircase — I believe about 20 stairs — up to the bridge surface. That's not exactly optimal for someone on a cargo bike, or really any e-bike, let alone a normal acoustic bike.

Adam, one last question. I'm curious from the board perspective. A lot of advocacy involves volunteers contributing their time and skills — as you both have, in the creation of the low-stress map and bumpyroads.org. (I need to start calling it bumpyroads.org and not the bump-o-meter.) One of the things that strikes me as really promising — and as a great model for other communities — is that Bike Easy has full-time staff. There are people dedicating their professional time to this, in addition to that phalanx of volunteers. How has that been made possible? What are the funding sources behind it, and how is the board thinking about sustaining these important roles?

Adam Davies (45:04)

That's a really good question, especially in the current environment. Historically, Bike Easy has been fortunate to have good corporate sponsorship and good grants — from PeopleForBikes, for example. Around that peak time we mentioned, pre-COVID, around 2019, Bike Easy was doing quite well from those sources. We're now at a stage where we really do need more involvement from our community in terms of membership. There's no way around it: more and more, we're relying on grassroots members chipping in monthly to keep the organization represented.

Avi Stopper (45:39)

That seems to be a pretty standard theme across advocacy. What strikes me is the feast years and the famine years. For a moment in Denver, transportation advocacy funding was in great supply — I won't say everyone was flush with cash, but things were getting funded. Then funding priorities changed, and over the last year or two the availability of funding has shifted quite dramatically. So the picture keeps evolving.

Let me end, guys, with one question — one that should highlight your favorite thing about riding a bike in New Orleans. David, you first. What's your favorite thing to do on a bike here?

David Meza (46:31)

That's so hard. My answer is just: ride a bike. I try to make everything revolve around it. I started in community work — the advocacy and education side — and eventually decided I needed to become a bike mechanic, because I knew everything else about bikes. I've been a mechanic for eight years now. We have so many social rides here, like lit-up night rides, and I've had so many great times on those. But then sometimes I'm just like, "This bike is broken and I want to fix it." Starting during the pandemic, we ran a mutual aid effort to give out free bikes; it ran out of funding a while ago, but I personally gave out over a hundred bikes that I helped fix up and get to people. It's not really an answer to your question, because there are too many elements and it all just revolves around the bicycle for me.

Avi Stopper (47:23)

It's kind of a leading question, because if I'm not mistaken, you work a lot of the Bike Easy bike valets around town. Is that right?

David Meza (47:31)

Yeah, absolutely. That's my favorite. I love festivals, but at any party I'm so much happier if I have something to do and feel useful. Being set up at a festival, answering anyone's bike-related question, geeking out on their bike — that's the best.

Avi Stopper (47:51)

So the party's out back, but David's in the front yard lubing up someone's chain. You're doing the Lord's work. Adam, over to you to wrap us up. What's your favorite place to go on a bike in New Orleans?

Adam Davies (48:04)

For me, it's date night with my wife. I have an e-cargo bike, and she's not quite as confident a rider as me, so often she'd rather hop on the back and go out. We love going out — Freret Street, uptown, Mid-City, anywhere, as long as we can go by bike. If we take some nice quiet streets to get there, it changes the whole experience. We slow down, chat, look at things, wave at neighbors, point at stuff, and have a great time. So: date night with my wife on the bike — I'm happy.

Avi Stopper (48:36)

That's a great image to end on. That's the future we're trying to create for so many folks. Guys, thanks for all your work in New Orleans, and thanks for all your work on the low-stress map. It's been a pleasure to chat.

David Meza (48:47)

Yeah, thanks so much for having us, Avi.

Adam Davies (48:49)

Thanks for having us, Avi. It's been great.

Avi Stopper (48:51)

Avi Stopper 6/15/26 Avi Stopper 6/15/26

Bike Networks Now! Audiobook: Chapter 17. The Affordability Argument

The bike movement’s struggle is rooted in two problems:

Inadequate Political Support – We need broad coalitions that impel mayors and city councils to give local departments of transportation mandates to build and activate complete bike networks.
Inability to Execute – We need incentives designed to produce actual ridership and an entrepreneurial innovation model to actually make it happen. Policy alone isn’t enough. Implementation matters.

READ THE CHAPTER

Avi Stopper 6/8/26 Avi Stopper 6/8/26

Bike Networks Now! Audiobook: Chapter 16. Network 4.0 and Beyond

Any battle-hardened entrepreneur will tell you there’s no such thing as a complete or finished product. Rather, a product is always imperfect and there are always opportunities to refine and optimize.

Throughout the process of creating a complete network, we should have our ear to the ground, observing what’s working well and what needs improvement.

Quantitative insights come from digital infrastructure, permanent fixed bike counters, ephemeral tube counters, and volunteer-led bike counts.

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Avi Stopper 6/6/26 Avi Stopper 6/6/26

Bill Nesper: Going Mainstream with the Good Life

Bill Nesper is the Executive Director of the League of American Bicyclists, the voice of bike advocacy at the federal level. We talk with Bill about where bike advocacy needs to grow, getting people on bikes to experience “the good life,” and building a more mainstream movement.

Transcript

Avi Stopper (00:00)

Welcome to Bike Networks Now. I'm Avi Stopper, the founder of Bike Streets. Through a series of conversations with leaders in bike transportation and beyond, we're trying to answer a question: Why is bike transportation still not possible for most people in American cities, and how can we make it a reality? Despite voter support and billions of dollars of investment, there's no city in America where biking is a practical reality for people of all ages and abilities. Why is that? And how can we fix it so anyone can ride to the places they want to go today? These aren't just freewheeling conversations. We're in search of an answer. And that answer — a modern approach to innovation — is the topic of a book we're writing on how cities can make bike transportation possible today.

Avi Stopper (00:49)

My guest is Bill Nesper, executive director of the League of American Bicyclists, the most august of bike organizations in the United States. I started Bike Streets in 2018. Get this: the League has been around since May 30th, 1880, when it opened its doors as the League of American Wheelmen. That name is just so 1880s, by the way. Bill has led the organization since 2017, and as I understand it, he's been there since 2002, when he started as a membership assistant. So yes, he basically started in the mail room and now he runs the place. He and the League are the voice of biking in Washington, DC. He spent years building support for the bipartisan infrastructure law, which, if you didn't know, included a lot of funding for biking and walking. Those were the good times.

One of Bill's priorities is to make it so more Americans live in what the League calls bicycle-friendly communities. For a guy advocating for a resurgent form of transportation rooted in the 1880s, he also has an expansive view of both the present and the future. He has partnered with Waymo to advance street safety initiatives and has a pretty broad view of what's currently going on. So Bill, welcome. Happy Bike Month. How did I do with that intro?

Bill Nesper (02:09)

That was awesome. Happy Bike Month, and thanks for that intro. What is this newfangled thing we're doing here, this podcasting? We're from the 1880s. We don't do very many of these.

Avi Stopper (02:21)

I think there's supposed to be a hand-crank radio associated with this.

Bill Nesper (02:24)

We're trying to have a bicycle-friendly America, see? Yeah, absolutely. It's really great to talk to you today. I appreciate the intro and the opportunity.

Avi Stopper (02:34)

Let's jump into it. This is a podcast oriented around the question of why it's not possible for most people to ride a bike to the places they want to go in their cities. First off, I want to ask if you agree with that premise. And second, if you do, why do you think that — it being 2026, about 145 years after the League started — why is that the case? So first, do you agree with the premise that bike transportation is not a practical reality for most folks in their cities? And why do you think that's the case?

Bill Nesper (03:09)

Yeah, so you changed what you said, right? You said "not possible" first, and then "not a practical reality." When you said "not possible," I immediately thought, well, a lot of folks don't know that biking is possible. That's different from what you said the second time — a practical reality.

Most Americans live in suburban land use, which, for the last 80 years or so since after World War II, means a lot of the places where people live — our streets and our lives — are really built around car mobility. In that reality of large arterial streets with fast-moving traffic, the perception of safety and actual safety are both hampered by fast-moving vehicles and communities that don't really feel like they're built for our type of transportation and recreation, which is on a bike.

So for most Americans, biking is a nice thing you get to do on vacation, or maybe something you do in your neighborhood. Lots of Americans bike. PeopleForBikes, the industry organization in the United States, measures bicycle participation, and I think it was around 112 million people who rode a bike last year. Lots of people ride bikes. But do they ride them regularly? That's the question. Can they ride them as just part of everyday life?

That's something we believe in at the League — we want people to have the joy of bicycling in their lives. We like to say it's the best vehicle ever made. You know the smile that comes when you feel that feeling of flight, traveling under your own power, by yourself or with friends, wherever, for whatever reason. Bicycling can be an extremely joyful activity, a very practical way to get around, a very environmentally sustainable way to get around, a healthy way — all those great things we know about biking. But the reality that it can be part of everyday life might not be so attainable for folks. So the barriers to that everyday cycling are something we're dedicated to removing.

Avi Stopper (05:29)

That's a great frame of reference, to think about it as an everyday activity. It's so interesting how, when people go on vacation, they go to the beach and have a glorious experience riding along the boardwalk. I'm thinking of Newport Beach in California. There's this incredible path, and people ride so happily on beach bikes — no helmets, wearing flip-flops, bathing suits.

Given that American cities are the way they are, what do you see as the way we get to a point where everyday cycling is something people can actually do? What's the way to fill the gap between where we are, with the built environment being what it is today, and where a lot of us hope to get, where that joy you experience riding on vacation is actually part of your daily life?

Bill Nesper (06:21)

That's a great question, and it's something we think about all the time. People have these great experiences biking on vacation and feel like, wow, this is a really practical way for me to do X, Y, or Z — like the scene you described in Newport Beach. What we call bicycle-friendly communities are the answer to this. We have examples across the country, from small towns all the way up to the biggest cities in America, of the kinds of things communities can do to make more things bike-possible.

So in practice, it is being done in a lot of places, and those things are infrastructure, like you said. Giving people places to ride that are safe, that feel safe, and that are connected to the rest of the transportation system. You need connected bike networks, and that means they need to be based on context. That arterial street that's in your mind — if you have traffic going 45 miles an hour on it, you need more separation from that traffic to feel comfortable and to be safe. But you also need to know there's a connection to get to that place. So the streets in between your house and that destination — that arterial street needs context-appropriate bike facilities, all the way down to neighborhood streets that need very little extra infrastructure.

There are places around the country building infrastructure that really welcomes people to ride their bikes and feels comfortable for all ages and abilities. There's a way to do it, but you need those connections, and it needs to be legible in the minds of the people thinking about making that bike trip — to go see friends, to go to the store, to go for a fun ride. You're always thinking, how am I going to get there? And there's all sorts of other infrastructure that supports that decision too. Will there be bike parking where I'm going? Are there wayfinding signs that help me figure out where I'm going? Things like that.

The Bicycle Friendly Community program is an evaluation tool we've been using for over 20 years in the US. It measures not just the infrastructure, but also whether there's bicycling education in every school for people who don't feel confident riding and for young people. There are good examples in communities of every shape and size where this has been done. So it's not really rocket science.

But it's important to note that, as bike advocates, sometimes we might decide to choose Bike to Work Day as the main thing — the city's main event of the year. I love Bike to Work Day, and I think it's a great celebration of biking. But for a lot of people, riding to work is a really long trip. A commute might be 11 or 12 miles. Now, for you and me, I love it — let's do it, both there and back.

Avi Stopper (09:37)

Yeah, can we double that, actually?

Bill Nesper (09:54)

Exactly. But for the average American — and actually the average Dutch person, and we're talking about one of the best places to ride in the world — once you get past about five miles, the percentage of people riding their bikes for those trips goes down precipitously. And it's the same with walking. The natural human walkshed, the area a human will walk, is about a half mile. It takes about 10 minutes. It's the same with biking. So understanding that there's a lot of biking that can be done near your house, even in a more suburban land-use situation — we know 50 percent of all trips in the United States are three miles or less. So making those trips more possible by bike is probably one of the biggest ways we can help the person who doesn't necessarily think of themselves as a cyclist get out and go by bike.

Avi Stopper (10:38)

I'd like to return to the point about what I interpret as complete networks being the foundational element. Do you believe that complete, high-comfort networks — so that people of all ages, abilities, and backgrounds can use them to go where they want to go — are indeed the foundational component?

I'll contrast that with education. I think education is really beneficial and valuable, and the League has for years trained people how to ride in cities. It's a great program. But you can only educate so many people to such a degree before they confront the cold, hard reality that they're going to be riding in sketchy locations unless you have a complete network. Do you agree with the argument that the component that enables this as an everyday activity is a complete network?

Bill Nesper (11:34)

Yeah, absolutely. Building that complete network is what we should all be striving for. If we're going to reach the 60 percent of the US population that we call "interested but concerned" — they're very interested in cycling, but they're concerned about their safety — then yes, I think it is foundational. That said, I think everyone should have bicycling education. Every person in America should have on-bike education by the time they're through primary school. Knowing how to navigate places where there aren't great networks is really going to open up what's comfortable for you as somebody who rides a bike. But yes, absolutely foundational.

Avi Stopper (12:16)

I remember an educational experience I had maybe 10 years ago. A guy who ran the kids' bike camps in Denver was describing all the incredible destinations around town they were taking grade-school kids to, and I asked him, how on earth do you accomplish that with tricky spots like X, Y, and Z? His answer was simple: we teach them to get off and become a pedestrian. For a block, they become a pedestrian.

Now, I'm not suggesting that's the optimal end state for bike transportation. But it is an enabling condition to overcome certain boundaries today. I just thought that was a counterintuitive educational idea, and it's informed a lot of our Bike Streets work — that sometimes, for people at a certain level of comfort, a particular spot is best navigated as a pedestrian.

But coming back to the complete network idea: it seems to me that a truly connected, complete, high-comfort bike network is a bit of an elusive target in most American cities. There are certainly some cities that have done it better than others, but in most places, this is something that doesn't exist.

I'd like your take on something that's been elemental to the work we're trying to do with Bike Streets. It's based on the observation that the conventional way advocacy and infrastructure have been done involves an overarching bike master plan document describing what the network will be at some point in the future. The way we go about building those networks, however, is very much facility by facility. One bikeway at a time — we're going to go to war over this protected bike lane, then we're going to do this bike boulevard, and at some point in the future, they're all going to connect and it's going to be awesome.

Our work, as I think you know, has been oriented around the question of how you can create a complete network — a version 1.0 network that isn't completely optimized, but is complete. And how do you do that quickly, instead of this somewhat Sisyphean experience of doing one disconnected thing at a time? I'm curious to get your reflections on the way conventional advocacy and departments of transportation have approached this, and whether you feel there's a need for a new paradigm — or if you reject the premise.

Bill Nesper (14:50)

I think you're right that in most American cities, with incrementalism, bicycling access isn't a priority. That's probably not shocking to any of your listeners. In the places that take this most seriously, you see network development happening faster. A lot of times it does depend on paving schedules and things like that, but it can happen much, much faster than it's happening in most places. There are some places — Cambridge, Massachusetts, for example — that require the bike plan to get implemented. So when you're building a street, you're going to do the thing you said you were going to do. It's going to happen.

So there are ways to accelerate that, and here's a full-throated call for it: let's build the public support for decision-makers. Let's make sure this is on the agenda, because it's going to open up the joy of biking — the good life — quicker in those places.

I do think there's a lot of knowledge shared among people who bike every day. I live right outside of Washington, DC, and I work in DC. Development has been going great in Washington. I have to applaud our local advocacy organization here, the Washington Area Bicyclist Association, WABA. We're the federal group; they're the local group. They just had a huge win when the federal government tried to remove a protected bike lane from a vital artery that goes right by the Washington Monument, the Jefferson Memorial, and all sorts of other nationally significant landmarks.

So bike lane development has been going great here in DC, but there are still parts that aren't so easy to get through. I think having people in the bike community help others navigate — to make that minimum viable network by weaving people through, kind of like what you said about getting off your bike and becoming a pedestrian — sure, that's a reality in some places in the US. But it's a version of that: how do we help each other get from here to there? That's something folks in the biking community can really help with for others they're trying to welcome along.

I don't think we're going to get the big group of people riding in US cities until you have a legible network, where you go, "Wow, yeah, I can definitely get from here to there this way. And there's a bike-share bike right here, and I can just go." In a lot of places, we're still far off from that. But there is something we can do to weave us through the more safe and safe-feeling places in a network.

I want to go back to the point you made about the education component, in particular showing people how to do things. The League is made up of local changemakers. That's our bread-and-butter member — the people who are part of our organization, working for people they don't even know, so we can make bicycling accessible for them. The people who do this work in communities, who go to meetings and show up and speak up for these things, are our core members, and those folks have a real part to play in helping bring new people into this movement and adding biking into their lives.

One of the cool stories I've heard recently was in Eugene, Oregon. They're a gold-level Bicycle Friendly Community. There's a program there for young people: how do you get to the amenities you need to get to as a kid — or as anybody, actually? How do I get from my neighborhood to this pool, this recreation center, this other destination? There are people who help them do that. They take young people out on rides and connect them from their neighborhoods to destinations. That kind of thing is part of creating truly bicycle-friendly communities. Eugene is gold-level; it's great to bike in almost all of it. But even there, you still want the kind of bike culture that brings other people along and helps them see what's bike-possible.

Avi Stopper (19:24)

I've been leading group bike rides in Denver since 2018, and they're just glorious experiences — one of my favorite things in the world to do. One of the things that's so powerful about it is that it's a group of folks, many of whom don't ride regularly, and you ride side by side, two by two, on quiet residential streets that are on one of our low-stress bike maps — the Denver Bike Map, in this case. You have conversations with people, and, like you said, they use the term "the good life." When people actually experience it, and it's not in the abstract, they recognize what an incredible way to live this is.

Not that you have to replace every single car trip — especially the longer ones — but for trips that are reasonably short distances, easy to cover on a bike, where the bike is actually the most efficient device, it's an incredible change. And there's an interesting nexus between complete bike networks — I love that you used the "minimum viable network" framing, which is drawn from a book called The Lean Startup that introduces the idea of a minimum viable product. I completely agree that cities need to be thinking about networks as their minimum viable high-comfort network. That's completely what our advocacy work is about: how do we create version 1.0 quickly, then iterate on it to make it better and better?

The nexus I see is that if you can create that and really activate people on it — with programming and education like you're describing, so people improve their understanding of how to use it — then through that experiential component, because it's not just abstract, it's so much easier to turn people into supporters of further investment. That way you have the resources to go from 1.0 to 2.0, and from 2.0 to 4.0 and 6.0.

One of the interesting challenges we as a movement need to figure out is how to just get to that first network so people can actually start to use it, and as a result activate that many more people around it. Practically, it does need to be a network. But even small things that are big things — like the bike bus phenomenon — are just incredible. As I talk to people who are leading and participating in bike buses, it's amazing how easy it is, through that experiential form of community engagement, to actually say, "Whoa, this is an elevated way of living."

Bill Nesper (22:12)

I love it. You brought up "the good life" in my comment, and also "an elevated way of living." I think it's really important for those of us in the bike movement to paint the picture that this isn't taking things away from you. It isn't removing the freedoms, the good life, the things you've worked really hard for. This is actually delivering on those things. And it does take — even in the best bicycling places in the world — you still have group rides happening, bicycling education happening, because people need to learn how to navigate the system. But what a joy it is to be able to share that with folks.

And then, like you said, for them to see it and become part of the movement. Like I said early on, this is not rocket science, what we need to do. Gosh, I was just in Portland, Oregon, two weeks ago at the Oregon Active Transportation Summit, which is put on by the statewide group there called The Street Trust. So many great folks working on so many great things. But it's funny — to me, Portland's neighborhood greenway system remains the most fun part of riding there. I love this new bridge they did, and these connections they've made, and this really cool signalization, and you're like, my gosh, look at all this stuff. And I got to ride with Sam Balto's Alameda Elementary bike bus out there.

Avi Stopper (23:32)

Yeah, I've been on that bridge.

Bill Nesper (23:43)

It was just what you said. It's this beautiful, human, disarming thing that's happening — not just for the kids. They're having a blast, right? The parents are all looking at each other like, how great is this? Look at what we're doing here. This is amazing. And then you've got the people driving by in cars who are just waving people along. You're having a real community, human moment and experience together that isn't just a one-off. It's become part of the fabric of the bike culture there. And that can happen anywhere.

Avi Stopper (24:23)

What you're describing is poetic. And yet so much of this conversation and debate is about, to your point from before, taking things away — a scarcity mindset. It seems to me that something about the way we make our arguments is falling flat. Because if something as simple as an elementary school bike bus can give people the kind of transformative, joyful view of what the world can be that you were describing, why are we mired in these endless debates about scarcity?

That scarcity mindset is very interesting to me, because I've been thinking about the bike movement increasingly from the perspective of abundance. For those not familiar with the concept, there's a worthwhile read from Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson called Abundance. The basic idea is that cities and states are not getting the job done when it comes to building things. So first, do you like the abundance framing? And second, what's your take on the way we seem to constantly be mired in the muck, when what we're trying to create is something radically additive and beneficial to people's lives — and yet the popular conception is, "This is going to take away my parking. This is going to take away a lane." What's your view on that?

Bill Nesper (25:55)

Yeah, I think abundance is a great starting point, and it's coming from a place of strength, really welcoming people into what you're doing. We're human beings, and it's easy to fall into a combative, scarcity mindset when you think things are being taken away from you. I also think it gets real when you're fighting for a particular street or project that does save lives. So it's hard at times not to get dragged into — maybe when somebody else is controlling the narrative — just a necessary stating of the facts.

I think the most effective arguments are the ones made, for example, around the 15th Street bike lane here, where you talk about how this is a community. Number one, it's public space — streets are public space. And this project has made it better for everyone. I believe commute times for drivers have actually gone down. Safety has gone up for all users. And overwhelmingly, people who live in the neighborhood say it's a bonus that we have this in our community. I think we have to really lean into that. That's the way to be thinking about this: how does this help everybody?

It gets real when you're talking about a particular project, or when you're really trying to save lives and stand up for people who a lot of times don't have a voice in this — people who are biking, walking, using transit. It can be really difficult. I don't want to oversimplify it, but yeah, I do think having the abundance mindset is the way to go, and talking about how this is additive.

A lot of times, when we talk about trying to build bicycle-friendly communities, people who might be skeptical are thinking, "Oh, they're trying to turn my town into Portland," or "into Amsterdam," or whatever.

Avi Stopper (28:07)

That old canard.

Bill Nesper (28:21)

Exactly. That's really not what it is. The best definition of culture I've ever heard, the one that really resonates with me, was from the anthropologist Clifford Geertz. He said culture is the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves. Your community has its own history, its own people, its own thing. It is authentically itself. And what we're trying to do when we build an authentic bike culture is: it's your authentic place, plus bikes. The story we tell ourselves about ourselves is that we're a place where biking and walking and getting around under our own power is fun and safe, and it's something we do here.

Getting there isn't so easy, but it needs to be about that additive good — adding value to everyone's lives. It's not just some special thing that a special group of people do, where they get this special lane. It's about, "Wow, this makes our community better. This makes it possible for our kids to have more freedom and to be safe, so I'm not having to cart them around everywhere." I feel that as a parent. There are ways to make these arguments that build on what the community values deeply, showing how making biking safe is part of those larger values you're really after as a community.

Avi Stopper (29:50)

One of my most enduring lessons — I went to business school at the University of Chicago — is this idea of the learning organization. The guy who coined the term described it this way: learning organizations are places where people continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free, and where people are continually learning to see the whole together.

Do you think that describes the way bike advocacy has unfolded? I see a lot of unforced errors and static thinking. An example of an unforced error is the determination to use plastic flex posts all over the place, when business owners and neighbors respond very negatively to them — at least in Denver they do. Bike advocates actually dislike them, because we were promised fixed concrete protection. And the cities themselves don't like them because they're a maintenance headache.

I also think about this argument we're constantly fighting: "Yeah, well, you took a lane away and I don't see any people riding bikes in that lane." More broadly, I'm curious whether you feel we're learning from the hard lessons that have made it difficult to create complete networks, and what some of those lessons are. You have a fairly longitudinal view of this that I don't have — you have it over multiple decades. I'm wondering if you feel we're advancing, developing our messages and approaches based on observation of what works and what doesn't, and not just bashing our heads against the wall because that's "how it's done."

Bill Nesper (31:50)

I think we have been learning as a movement. I think we are more organized and better at speaking up for our priorities than we have been in the past. That said, I'm not satisfied. I don't think it's happening fast enough. Sure, there are folks who might not be coming from that mindset or approaching this in the most effective way. But overall, in my time doing this work, I do think we've gotten better at making the case.

In places that — I mean, Denver. If you look at Denver, it's not perfect, right? It's gone through ebbs and flows, but overall it's trending up; it's gotten better. The thing is, it's not good enough. So I believe we have to have a much more mainstream movement. We need to be welcoming people in better to help speak for the quality of life, safety, and community goals that bicycling is part of the solution to deliver. We still have a lot of work to do there.

As an organization, we're dedicated to helping people be more effective as advocates wherever they have influence. It takes groups like Bicycle Colorado, in Colorado where you are. It takes people all the way down to the neighborhood level who are willing to make the case and then welcome more people in, so we have a much more mainstream movement. It still does feel like a "nice to have" and not a "must have" for people to be able to bike in their everyday lives. We're not moving fast enough. We need a bigger, broad-based movement — the things we want aligned with what the American people want. Study after study, national survey after national survey, says the same thing over and over: people in all regions, of both political parties, in every demographic, believe that building for bicycling in their communities is good for their community.

Avi Stopper (34:16)

Which brings us back to abundance. Derek Thompson, one of the co-authors of Abundance, said something in a recent interview along the lines of: we need to be in the business of producing outcomes. And those outcomes, I think, are the mainstreaming of what you're describing.

In Denver, as a case study, things have gotten better for people who ride bikes, for sure. At the same time, at least as long as I've been tuned into this, I've never heard more grumbling, more complaining, more antipathy toward this — from what I would, I don't know if I'd currently call it the mainstream, but from a large number of people, there's significant dissatisfaction. So what better way to create a mainstream movement than to actually activate those people, so the ones who are upset about it now are converted into the people who use it? Maybe it's a green-eggs-and-ham kind of thing — they try it, and they'll see that it's incredibly powerful.

One of the learning-organization misses I see is what Derek Thompson describes there about being outcomes-oriented. The Bicycle Friendly Community approach, as I understand it, has the five E's, right, which is how you do your evaluations: equity and accessibility — meaning people of all ages and abilities; engineering — is there good infrastructure; education — we discussed that; encouragement — active programming available to folks; and evaluation and planning. Maybe the missing E-word is "effectuation" or something. But do you feel that, as a movement, we are outcomes-oriented? I want to distinguish between outputs and outcomes. I'd consider the creation of bike infrastructure an output. An outcome is a kid riding their bike to school without their parents. An outcome is tons of those previous naysayers, plus a new mainstream, saying, "This is amazing, let's do more of it." Do you think we are outcomes-oriented?

Bill Nesper (36:38)

The places that are doing this best are, and they're thinking about ridership, safety, and the perception of safety. When they're thinking about how many people are riding regularly, that E of evaluation is really important. It's important for places to measure themselves.

The primary way bicycling is measured in the United States is a national measure: every census-designated place has a number for the percentage of workers who use a given mode of transportation to get to work. It's called the American Community Survey. So that's how we measure journeys to work — that's the primary way we measure this. As a nation, no, we're not outcomes-driven, because if that's the way we're measuring bicycling in the United States, that's not really being truly outcomes-driven.

But places like DC, or Denver, or up the road in Boulder, or Seattle — a number of the places we talked about — they're surveying, they're asking, "Hey, how often are you riding? Is the infrastructure comfortable?" That's what the best places in the world do. Copenhagen has done that every two years for, I don't know, maybe the last 30 years. They have a thing called a bicycle account where they measure those outcomes, and outputs too: here are the things we've done, here's the bridge connection we made, here's the programming we've done. Being outcomes-driven is what's happening in the best places, and we need more places to do it. When you're data-driven, actually asking people, helping them get around this way, and tracking how they want to get around, I think it's a good way to bring more people in and build a more mainstream movement. It's just part of the way we do business here in X city.

Avi Stopper (38:43)

The Portland bike count, I think, is the gold standard — I'm curious if you agree. They have a group of volunteers go out every year and actually count. But systematizing that, much less tying it to a return on investment, is a pretty significant gap, as far as I can tell. For example, a city spends X million dollars on new bike facilities; there should be a population-level lift, I would think, because that's how you justify it.

One of my all-time favorite quotes is from Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett's investment partner. He said, "Show me the incentive and I'll show you the outcome." The way I interpret that for our work is that when we're focused on the number of miles of bike lanes created, that's going to be the outcome — the incentive is "create miles of bike lanes," so you're going to create miles of bike lanes. It's subtle, but if the incentive is "get another 10,000 people to ride their bike to replace a car trip at least once a week," that's a very different incentive. You have to think about design. You have to think about comfort. In the former scenario, if you're just talking about miles created, you could put a painted bike lane on an interstate and say, "Great, we got another 10 miles of bike lanes." That's a bit of an obscene example, but you get the point.

Whereas if you design the incentive around the outcome we seek — we want parents to be untethered from schlepping their kids around, and that manifests as hundreds more kids in a city riding their bikes to school every day — that informs the way we think about design. It obviates the designer's ability to put in these crappy things like mixing zones at big arterial streets. The protected bike lane needs to go all the way to and from the intersection. The way the incentives are oriented has a real, significant impact on the outcomes. Gaps become far less acceptable if you're like, "Yikes, we've got these gaps — what's that going to do to our ridership numbers?"

Are there places in this country where a city has said, "We want to invest this much money, and we want to see 10,000 more people riding their bikes by this time next year," or "100,000 people in five years riding their bikes once a week"?

Bill Nesper (41:15)

Yeah, there are places doing this. Portland is a good example of a place that has goals like that. But what they've learned with these bike counts is that there are also other factors in play. Right now, people aren't moving the same way they were. People aren't going to the center city in Portland as much as they used to; people are working from home. There are also lots of people moving into that wonderful city who've heard it's a biking city but haven't really been invited in. And it still isn't like there's excellent bike infrastructure everywhere, even in platinum-level Portland.

So do I think there's a concrete example in the United States where this has really worked? No, I don't. Back to the best places — Portland, DC, even Minneapolis — they have goals. But even in the best places, it's still not the forethought of the decision-maker, the mayor. Right now, I can't think of a major city where this is the thing. Maybe it can't be the thing everywhere.

Avi Stopper (42:34)

Well, I agree that I don't observe any major American city where the mayor has made it the priority. But I think there's an argument to be made that it can and should be considered the priority, because when framed as an affordability opportunity — if a mayor creates, for a relatively low cost, a complete, high-comfort, all-ages-and-abilities network — that's the kind of scenario that gives people true freedom of choice to decide how many vehicles they want to own. If you can practically reduce vehicle ownership by one car, that could be a $10,000-to-$15,000-a-year savings. That's a pretty strong economic argument.

Balancing the supply and demand of housing in big cities is a decades-long project — Austin has done very well with it in a relatively short period, to be fair. But if cities can figure out how to create these complete networks and give people that optionality — not that everyone's going to do it; I'm not so naive as to suggest that — then market drivers kick in, where people are like, "Gosh, I could plausibly reduce vehicle ownership by one." That does seem to bring it to the center of the current American political discussion.

Bill Nesper (43:58)

Yeah, for sure. Engineers — let's say the people who build things — a lot of times they're the ones who end up not signing off on this or that project, saying, "This isn't going to work." But engineers, in their profession, are problem-solvers. One of the biggest challenges, or calls to action, we have is: how do we get engineers to see this as the problem they're trying to solve, and get the political support and the money to build these things?

Right now there's a highway project in Portland, in the Rose Quarter, and it's like a $2 billion project. If you took $2 billion — I use Portland as an example because years ago, the mayor said something like, they were redoing a mile of Interstate 5, and that one mile would have cost enough to build all of Portland's biking infrastructure. Think about $2 billion: you could give the entire state of Oregon, probably the whole Northwest, great bicycling — build out those networks. But we're still in a state where we're not getting the investment we need.

So we need the problem-solvers in our communities, the chief problem-solvers. They're there to solve this problem for us; they need the direction and the funding to do it. And as a movement, as the people who elect these folks, we need to do our best to make sure our leaders see this as a priority, because it will unlock it in the way you described.

Avi Stopper (45:50)

The mainstreaming of that does seem to be central. It's such an interesting divide between stated preference — people say almost universally that they want this to be possible — and the actual practical reality of getting it done. That delta is just a strange gap.

So to wrap up: you've been at the League for coming on a quarter of a century in short order. I don't know if that's rubbing salt in the wound —

Bill Nesper (46:08)

Oh, god.

Avi Stopper (46:19)

— but in a year or so, I think you'll celebrate 25 years there. I hope they'll give you some sort of pin or bike wheel or something.

Bill Nesper (46:20)

From the mail room. I love how you said that. It's funny.

Avi Stopper (46:22)

From the mail room to the boardroom. So, you get up in front of a room of advocates from across the country — and I use that term broadly, to describe not just people working in formal advocacy nonprofits, but also advocates internal to cities. What are the two or three lessons or recommendations you impart on them that you'd like to see everyone orient their work around? Not to suggest this is a monolith, but what do you see as the priorities for how people should orient their work to make this a reality?

Bill Nesper (47:12)

Great question. As I imagine looking at that group of people — we just had our National Bike Summit here in March, the annual gathering of bike advocates in Washington, DC — the first thing I want to share is that the room looks so much different now. It's all of those groups of people you just mentioned, and it didn't used to be. You have the bike industry, practitioners, city staff, decision-makers, people from other countries, young people under 25, regional diversity, ethnic diversity. You have people talking about adaptive bikes and reaching all sorts of new groups. There's so much energy in that room, and the people who are part of our movement are amazing. Like you were saying, when you take people out on rides and they see what's possible — the people at the National Bike Summit are doing such amazing work, and they really represent their communities so much better.

So my main recommendation is that we need to do more of this, and do it faster. What we're trying to do is great for communities, and we need a mainstream in order to push back against the kind of narrow thinking that will keep us on a trajectory of things not being bike-possible — where walking and biking remain activities that seem impractical and impossible. So we need to keep bringing more people in.

We had a speaker a year ago at the National Bike Summit who said you have to create belonging before belief. People have to feel like they belong as part of a movement that's fighting, even before they fully believe in the whole manifesto, the whole shebang. They need to be welcomed in. So I think taking people out on bike rides, and showing your member of Congress that this bike project in your community matters to you, and trying to build bridges with folks in the health community or the school system — we need to build a mainstream movement, and it can't just be about the bike. It has to be about the things that building for bikes delivers for the community as a whole. We've been talking about this almost the whole time, but building that mainstream movement is the thing. We've been doing it, but we need to double down.

In addition to that, one of the overlooked things — I guess I've kind of talked about this — is the simplicity of just taking people on a bike ride. I think it's something we maybe don't think will be that transformative.

Avi Stopper (50:08)

Mmm.

Bill Nesper (50:14)

Back to that welcoming thing. People need to be welcomed in, and they need to just be part of a community. We need ways to escape the doom-scrolling. We need to reconnect with each other — as my kids say, IRL, in real life. They're craving that. It's easy not to see yourself in the biking community, so we have to do our best to not just say, "We're open, we have a ride that's open for anybody," but to reach into parts of our community and say, "Hey, you, come on this ride. You want to go on this ride? Let's go do this. It's not 20 miles long, it's not 40, it's not 60 — we're going to do a 10-mile ride, and we're going to end up at this new restaurant or this new park in our community." Things like that really go a long way toward building that more mainstream community.

And lastly — I'm sure I've got to have three —

Avi Stopper (51:10)

Those are pretty strong.

Bill Nesper (51:11)

Thanks, man. Yeah, maybe that's enough — I'll leave it there. I think we have a lot more power than we realize in what we're trying to accomplish. I think a lot of people would actually see more of this, as a movement, as really additive to their lives, not taking things away. Really leaning into that abundance mindset, as you say, is going to go a long way toward accomplishing what the people in our country desire and deserve.

Avi Stopper (51:42)

Let's not lose sight of that. Bill Nesper, thank you so much for being our fearless leader. I'm just going to sit back and watch while you make it happen. No, I'm kidding — we'll be in the trenches with you. Thanks so much for your time. It's been a great conversation.

Bill Nesper (51:52)

No, we need you. We need you. It was so great to talk to you. Thanks so much for what you're doing. I really appreciate you inviting me. Keep up the good work.

Avi Stopper (52:06)

Avi Stopper 5/25/26 Avi Stopper 5/25/26

Bike Networks Now! Audiobook: Chapter 15. Network 3.0: Removing Workarounds

Having resolved many of the low-hanging fruit upgrades to our complete bike network, we turn our attention to the big, chunky projects – many of which exist in a city’s bike master plan.

Some of these are projects that the status quo approach would address first: protected bike lanes on big, gnarly arterial streets, dedicated signals, new trails, etc. The Network First approach is quite different. Rather than building these projects in isolation with a promise of future connectivity, they are instead upgrades to an existing, complete network.

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Avi Stopper 5/18/26 Avi Stopper 5/18/26

Bike Networks Now! Audiobook: Chapter 14. Network 2.0: Low-Hanging Fruit

The creation of network version 1.0 is a huge milestone. It’s a dramatic departure from the status quo approach to networks that theoretically take 25 years and hundreds of millions of dollars to complete – but never really happen.

Nonetheless, our work is far from over. Entrepreneurs are their own worst critics and recognize that their products are never fully optimized. Network version 2.0, which unfolds over the following 1-2 years, is about improving point locations on the map.

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