Melissa summarizes her week of learning in Delhi for @zagdaily.com examining how #populartransport is providing access for millions in emerging economies and could be the solution needed in European rural communities. Read more: zagdaily.com/featured/fro... Full video: youtu.be/6hxOKCiI9zo?

Just another day at the office… This week, Chris was proudly representing the @dutchcycling.nl Embassy, and putting the humble bicycle on a global stage during a special “Dutch Cycling Culture” diplomatic event hosted by the Netherlands Pavilion at the Osaka Kansai World Expo in Japan.

Building on the Netherlands Pavilion theme of “Common Ground”, yesterday we co-hosted a day of cycling-themed activities at the Osaka World Expo. Through a series of conversations with Japanese counterparts, we celebrated two leading cycling nations and explored areas of learning and collaboration.

With 29% of all trips made by bike and 64% of bike trips made by women, Osaka is a cycling city beyond compare. What makes it even more remarkable is these gains were made in spite of very little dedicated infrastructure. So what can we learn from a place that didn't build it, and they came anyway?🧵

“Kon'nichiwa” from the Netherlands Pavilion at the Osaka Kansai World Expo, where we’re preparing to host a very special cycling-themed event with Dutch and Japanese partners tomorrow!

Osaka’s showpiece streetscape Midosuji Boulevard has undergone major changes. In the build-up to hosting the 2025 World Expo, the city began experimenting with reallocating parts of the road space: widening sidewalks, limiting car traffic, and creating continuous protected infrastructure for bikes.🧵

Today, the DCE’s Chris Bruntlett keynoted the Urban and Rural Slow Mobility Forum held in Beijing during the annual China Comprehensive Transportation Development Conference. We are keen to build on this bilateral cooperation, as China continues to put cycling infrastructure on the national agenda.

Wandering through the narrow alleys and courtyards of Beijing’s hutongs is like stepping into a time machine. With 90% of trips on foot or bike, the pace slows to something more human. Amid the city’s dizzying scale, they offer a quiet respite and glimpse at what life was like before the automobile.

Chris is elated to be back in Beijing to kick off the most ambitious @dutchcycling.nl diplomatic mission to date! From here, he will travel to Osaka and Matsuyama (Japan), Shanghai and Kunshan (China), Seoul and Siheung (Korea), with a week-long stop in Vancouver on the way home. Watch this space!

Cities Thrive When Women Lead — a new book highlights 19 women transforming how the world’s cities move, connect, and grow. www.forbes.com/sites/carlto... @elkevandenbrandt.bsky.social @modacitylife.com @jskstreet.bsky.social

After two years of obsessing over every word and photograph, the first physical copies of “Women Changing Cities” landed on our doorstep today. We couldn’t be prouder of these eleven stories of transformational leadership, and sincerely hope they find the global audience and attention they deserve.

The day has arrived! After two years of planning, interviewing, writing and editing, we finally held a physical copy of our third book, “Women Changing Cities: Global Stories of Urban Transformation” in our hands. Available wherever you buy books on October 1st: www.modacitylife.com/women-changi...

We are headed to EXPO 2025 Osaka! Together with the Netherlands Enterprise Agency and the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management, we will be hosting a series of cycling related events in Osaka. Find out more: buff.ly/95871B1

Chris and Melissa from @modacitylife.com will be visiting Vancouver Oct 6-11th and have a number of fun activities planned including a social bike ride with the @hubnorthshore.bsky.social committee on Oct 11! Get your tickets today! www.eventbrite.com/cc/a-week-of...

The week of October 6th, we're returning to our beloved Vancouver for a week of learning about active transportation planning including a workshop, lecture and book launch for our latest "Women Changing Cities: Global Stories of Urban Transformation". Program and tickets: modacitylife.com/vancouver

With 12,500 bike parking spaces, Utrecht Centraal Station is one of the best examples the Dutch have to offer of the seamless way they’ve chained the bicycle and the train into a single form of mobility that connects people to all of their daily needs: housing, employment, education, and healthcare.

This week, Chris keynoted Polska na dwóch kółkach (“Poland on Two Wheels”) in Warsaw—an event organised by a national newspaper. It was refreshing to see a media outlet use its platform not to sow division and doubt, but elevate the conversation on the possibilities that come with promoting cycling.

Warsaw has added a striking new landmark to its riverfront: the Kładka Bridge, a walking and cycling crossing that links the historic Old Town and revitalised Praga district. Opened in 2024, it embodies their ongoing effort to reconnect with the Vistula River, and expand its active travel networks.🧵

After six years we remain amazed by the mindset of constant improvement in The Netherlands. At Nieuwe Plantage in Delft a slip lane was removed, the road narrowed, safety and priority for pedestrians and cyclists improved, with 60 new trees to be added to help cool in the summer and absorb water.

Following in the footsteps of Polish cities embracing adaptions of the Dutch woonerf ("living street"; see also Kraków, Łódź, and Sopot), Warsaw's Chmielna is undergoing a people-, planet-, and profit-friendly makeover that restores its function as a lively spine running through the capital’s core.🧵

Aiming to reverse the damage inflicted on the city by post-war traffic engineers, the Nowe Centrum Warszawy project is urban renewal for the 21st century: rebalancing public space, reducing car dominance, and making Warsaw’s centre more welcoming to pedestrians, cyclists and public transport users.🧵

"It's galling that the benefits of our roadway system accrue so disproportionately to higher-income, able-bodied, nonminority adult drivers, while the risks and harms fall especially on nondriving children, older people, those with disabilities, and lower-income communities." @uminnpress.bsky.social

Storytelling is vital in building support for sustainable mobility. From the Netherlands, to the UK, to the Philippines, strong stories have helped communities embrace cycling infrastructure by showing its human impact. Read the full article: buff.ly/EvLAcs9

“The transport revolution isn’t coming from engineers in Detroit or techies in Silicon Valley, but women taking action. Discover the personal, political, inspiring stories of streetfighters transforming neighbourhoods through sheer determination.” -J. Sadik-Khan www.modacitylife.com/women-changi...

Melissa has just arrived home again after a magical week in Delhi. There are so many photos and thoughts to filter through in the coming days and weeks, but in the meantime, here’s just a quick highlight!

When it comes to seamlessly integrating the bike and train, proximity of parking to the platform is everything, with Dutch railways dictating the walk not exceed four minutes. Which is why Tilburg Station has built two bike parking facilities totalling 7,500 spaces—one on either side of the tracks.🧵

There is currently a debate in the transport equity world about the efficacy of women-only carriages on metro systems such as in Delhi (see also Dubai, Tokyo, Mexico City, and several others).🧵

Despite the heavy rain yesterday, Melissa ventured on the Sanath Road Redevelopment Project with Sarika Panda Bhatt and the Raahgiri Foundation team in Gurgaon to see how the space has been transformed from an "Anath" or forgotten road to a safe, welcoming, and attractive walking and cycling route.🧵

No fewer than half of all trips in Delft are made by bike, a success replicated in cities and towns across the country. But the Dutch blueprint for urban vitality was forged on these streets decades ago, when the strategic decision was made to build a network and to build it as quickly as possible.🧵

How are bicycles changing cities, lifestyles and urban spaces around the world? Join the DCE's Chris Bruntlett at the POLSKA NA DWÓCH KÓŁKACH (POLAND ON TWO WHEELS) conference in Warsaw on the 9th of September to find out! Learn more: buff.ly/RyRaWsN

Join Melissa for a pedal-powered ride into the non-motorised zone of Chandni Chowk (Moonlight Square).

Melissa has arrived in Delhi for a week of learning. To take advantage of her only free day she was guided through New and Old Delhi by Mr. Keashar Singh including an adventurous rickshaw ride in Chandni Chowk and a wander through the Red Fort. A perfect introduction India’s largest metropolis.

The Hague’s Prins Hendrikstraat is a typical Dutch shopping street, where bicycles outnumber cars by a factor of ten. But five decades ago, it was the site of one of the country’s first and worst instances of ‘bikelash’; culminating in shop owners digging up a cycle path in the middle of the night.🧵

Pedal through any Dutch city, and it feels like it’s always been filled with red cycle paths. But the fact is urban cycling infrastructure didn’t exist anywhere until 1975, when a trial project in Tilburg laid the basis of a national standard for legibility, comfort, and status for people on bikes.🧵

Chris and Melissa Bruntlett @modacitylife.com are returning to Vancouver for a week of inspiring events around active transportation produced by Voor Urban Labs from Oct 6-11. Find out more: www.eventbrite.com/cc/a-week-of...

The week of October 6th, we're returning to our beloved Vancouver for a week of learning about active transportation planning including a workshop, lecture and book launch for our latest "Women Changing Cities: Global Stories of Urban Transformation". Program and tickets: modacitylife.com/vancouver

In our new book, we highlight the groundbreaking work of female mayors, planners, and policymakers in reshaping cities for the better. From Paris to Montreal, these leaders are reclaiming streets, reimagining mobility, and redesigning public spaces. PRE-ORDER: www.modacitylife.com/women-changi...

How do the Dutch use bikes to supercharge the train system? By using bikes at the beginning and end of train journeys you greatly increase the system's catchment area. Nic Laporte breaks it down nicely in his latest video. Check out the full version here: buff.ly/VZyYP6L

The sustainable mobility revolution needs storytellers to show there is more than one way to move. When the narrative is missing,misinformation takes hold, fueling claims like cycling kills local businesses or that traffic-calming is anti-car. The latest for Zag Daily 👉 zagdaily.com/featured/the...

Melissa Bruntlett, Sustainable Mobility Advisor and author, explores how storytelling can shift minds, build empathy, and drive the sustainable mobility revolution in our cities. Read more: zagdaily.com/featured/the...

The global phenomenon of “bikelash” has become one of the biggest barriers to implementing interventions that make our streets more livable, accessible and sustainable. So how do we best manage it as advocates for change? Here are some ideas, from @modacitylife.com

Neighbourhoods built after the advent of the car don't need to be designed around the car. Consider the Weespergilde development in Weesp—a suburb 20km outside of Amsterdam—which consists of seven car-free blocks and 42 homes including single family, starter apartments, maisonettes and townhouses.🧵

What happens when you ask residents what they want from the space outside their front door? It would probably look a lot like the Maijweg in 's-Hertogenbosch, which in 2020 was turned into a woonerf ("living street"); going from car-heavy to car-lite, from conflict to peace, and from gray to green.🧵

Walk anywhere in Amsterdam and you’ll sense a calm coherence: bricks, curbs, fixtures, benches, bollards and drains that look related. This isn’t accidental. It’s a product of the Puccini Method, the city’s standards—part design language, part technical playbook—for shaping every street and square.🧵

Another day of filming the @eiturbanmobility.eu Explained series, this time in Brussels to interview Agathe Daudibon, @eurovelo.com and Cycling Tourism Director at @ecf.com about how EuroVelo routes support the growth and development for cycling across Europe. Stay tuned for this and future videos!

China’s comeback as the Kingdom of Bicycles is happening at a momentous scale and pace. WATCH the DCE's Chris Bruntlett's appearance on the Active Towns podcast with John Simmerman: buff.ly/LbM7ktw

Knowing it needed to adapt to survive the challenges of the 21st century, Alkmaar’s main shopping street of De Laat has undergone an extraordinary revitalisation; engaging the community in a reimagining process that introduced lush vegetation, water features, pedestrian priority, and ample seating.🧵

For decades, Dutch authorities have recognised the problem of noise pollution, making its mitigation a specific policy outcome of their spatial and transport planning. The result in Delft: a rich soundscape shaped by humans not machines, punctuated by a regular performance from the town carillonist.

The Trekvaartbrug ("Tow Path Bridge") is a new cycling bridge over the Haarlemmertrekvaart canal in the Municipality of Teylingen. The elegant but understated structure creates a connection between Voorhout, Noordwijk and Noordwijkerhout, making it an important link in the regional cycling network.🧵

The bike is not a perfect replacement for the car, as it lacks the required range. Likewise, the train lacks the door-to-door convenience. But combine these two modes into a single system, and a seamless mobility option is unlocked—capable of reducing congestion by replacing thousands of car trips.🧵