Wow, Brussels! Our 𝐖𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐧 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐂𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐞𝐬 event on 𝐀𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐥 24𝐭𝐡 is already at 75% sold! We’re also happy to share after some changes to his schedule, Chris will also be joining. Thank you to those already signed up! For those still deciding, you still have 11 days to register here 👉 lnkd.in/gB987yRD

The Dutch blueprint for urban vitality goes far beyond the bicycle. It begins by reclaiming public space and reducing the dominance of private cars to make room for cities that are accessible, attractive and alive with possibility. Bikes aren’t the end goal, they’re just the means to get us there.

Seven years without a driving license, and we’re still waiting to find the limits of the bike-train combination in the Netherlands. The latest: 100 km by rail from Delft to Tilburg, followed by a 20 km pedal through the Brabant countryside for a car-free weekend escape in the woods outside Diessen.

The DCE is proud to be attending the NL-EU-India Urban Mobility Conference! The NL-EU-India Urban Mobility Summit is a premier bilateral exchange designed to reimagine the future of Indian cityscapes. Scheduled for April 16-17, 2026 in Mumbai. Learn more: buff.ly/m49FTgU

Did you miss our 1st URBAN TRUTH STARTER PACK? These are accounts with unusually good communications or marketing/branding of issues and ideas for better city-building. Sharing the truth more persausively, and calling out disinformation & lies! Please follow & SHARE! #UrbanTruth go.bsky.app/47w5jKk

If designed inclusively, cycling infrastructure offers independent mobility to those with physical impairments who are left behind by car dependence. For many people housebound or reliant on others for transport, two—or three—wheeled travel isn’t just a form of movement, it’s a form of empowerment.

Paris’ hostile streets have found new life as Mayor Anne Hidalgo bravely transformed it from a city for passing through to a city for passing time. She faced fierce criticism but ultimately found broad support for her ambitious introduction of cycle lanes, pedestrian streets, and public transport. 🧵

In the polders of South Holland, joy is found on smooth ribbons of red asphalt, and the freedom to access nature on your own two wheels. With every silent pedal stroke, the landscape opens up: waterways, wetlands and wide open skies. More than just a ride, it’s a reset for the mind, body and soul.

On 25 March, the Consulate General of the Netherlands in Guangzhou, NBSO China, the Dutch Cycling Embassy, and Shenzhen Lay-Out Planning Consultants organized the Sino-Dutch Urban Cycling Forum in Shenzhen. Stakeholders were brought together to share knowledge on cycling policy and infrastructure.

We're proud to share that Melissa is now an 𝗔𝗺𝗯𝗮𝘀𝘀𝗮𝗱𝗼𝗿 𝗳𝗼𝗿 #𝗗𝗶𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗶𝘁𝘆𝗜𝗻𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗻𝘀𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁, a network supporting the EU Commission’s agenda on promoting diveristy, equity and inclusion in the transport sector. Watch the full webinar for International Women's Day on March 11 here: ec.europa.eu/assets/move/...

Due to myriad reasons, women move through the city much differently than men. Care trips, access to public transport, perceived safety, and vibrant public spaces all impact where and how women travel. We can take a more proactive approach to creating gender equal mobility, where everyone benefits!

We're excited to share that Melissa is bringing the book tour for 𝐖𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐧 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐂𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐞𝐬 to Brussels for an evening co-hosted with our friends at the @ecf.com and featuring two amazing women highlighted in the book! Event detail and registration here: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/women-chan...

Chris had an incredible @dutchcycling.nl tour of Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Xiamen and Chengdu. What stood out most was the consistency of the message. In every city, there was a strategic pivot: away from decades of car-driven hyper-growth, and toward a future centred on health, happiness, and humanity.

"To women around the world on women’s month Those who are thriving and those who are merely surviving Those who are tired and those who run carefree You are seen." Melissa takes one last moment to honour the visibile and invisible actions of women everywhere. modacitycreative.com/2026/03/31/y...

Chongqing is a visually arresting megacity where trains glide through buildings, streets stack on top of each other, and skyscrapers are built into cliffs. Some call it “5D,” but even that doesn’t do it justice. It’s an immersive experience that reveals a new layer with every step, turn, and climb.

Encircling one of China’s fastest-growing megacities, Chengdu’s Tianfu Greenway threads together 121 ecological parks and 78 beautiful bridges into one seamless 109 kilometre ribbon of active mobility; striving to reconcile rapid urbanisation with access to nature, opportunity, and quality of life.🧵

Chengdu’s Tianfu Greenway threads together 121 ecological parks and 78 beautifully design bridges into one seamless 109 kilometre-long ribbon of active mobility encircling the megacity of 21 million people. It attracts more than 100 million users each year; on foot, bike, and everything in between.

A short ferry ride from the high-rises of Xiamen, Gulangyu Island is one of China’s most unusual urban environments. A vibrant, historic settlement that has, quite deliberately, chosen to function without cars. A place where the soundtrack is birdsong, conversation, and the ringing of church bells.🧵

Forming what has been described as one of the world’s longest continuous treetop walkways, Xiamen’s Mountain-to-Sea Trail is a 23-kilometre spine of elevated pathways and architecturally ambitious bridges binding together the region's neighbourhoods with its mountains, forests, lakes and coastline.🧵

Xiamen's Bicycle Skyway stretches 7.6 kilometres across the city, making it the longest elevated cycling route in the world. Built in just a matter of months, the project represents a bold response to a familiar urban dilemma: how to restore space for cycling in environments long dominated by cars.🧵

China’s high-speed rail is the largest and most intensely used system on the planet; boasting over 50,000 km of track linking 97% of cities above 500,000 people at speeds of 350 km/h. Today’s proof: comfortably gliding from Shenzhen to Xiamen, a distance of nearly 600 km, in just under three hours.

Few cities have built greenways as quickly or as comprehensively as Shenzhen. Launched as part of the broader Pearl River Delta ecological and recreational initiative in 2010, their network now stretches over 2,300 kilometres, organised into a hierarchy of regional, urban, and neighbourhood routes.🧵

In just two decades, the Shenzhen Metro has grown from a modest, two-line system into one of the world's most expansive urban rail networks. But its story is not merely one of scale. It is also one of design: stations that increasingly resemble civic landmarks instead of utilitarian infrastructure.🧵

No traffic lights or stop signs. Just eye contact and social trust. This Guangzhou intersection moves at a human pace: pedestrians, (e-)cyclists, bus and car drivers collaborate with each other, rather than compete against each other. When speeds and spaces are scaled for people, harmony emerges.

Every city journey towards better walking and cycling is their own. Nordic cities may have challenges to become more human scale. How they get there is irrelevant when they have the ambition to do it! Thank you to the people and places in Norway and Denmark for an inspiring and joyful ten days!

For decades, the bicycle—once synonymous with Chinese urban life—has been pushed to the margins in Guangzhou. As car ownership surged, bike infrastructure was neglected or erased entirely. But today the city is staging an assertive return to two wheels, this time with policy and planning behind it.🧵

Guangzhou isn’t just building bike lanes. It's building a healthier, more liveable city. With over 6,000 km. of greenways, it quietly boasts one of the world's largest cycling networks. What was once overlooked is now impossible to ignore: a vital link in their modern, multimodal transport system.

Pedaling through the colours, textures, and layers of Guangzhou; where ancestral halls, wet markets, greenways, and glass towers collide. From old streets to new skylines, Cycle Canton’s “Hidden Gems” tour reveals a city best seen on two wheels: slow, social, and full of stories not in a guidebook.

Trams on grass, Guangzhou edition.

In Guangzhou’s Dongshankou, it doesn’t take perfect infrastructure to prove a simple fact: people will cycle if it works for their daily lives. Umbrellas balanced. Raincoats flapping. Groceries, kids, whatever. Even when the city steps back, the people don’t. The rain falls, and wheels keep turning.

As we enter the spring of our 15th anniversary year, it is the perfect moment to look back at the many highlights of the past year. We are pleased to share our 2025 Annual Report, which presents our key achievements and activities from the past year. Take a look: buff.ly/4gqbgG3

"Caring for each other is a constant in all our lives… a prerequisite for us all being here, even in periods when we're healthy and self-sufficient. No one can exist without, at some point, being taken care of and treated as valuable by others. Caring is the work that makes all other work possible."

Day 2 of the Planning and Designing for a Cycle Friendly City workshop had participants reimagining the cycling network in Stavanger. Thank you to all our participants for their enthusiasm and creativity! See you next time! A collaboration between Modacity Creative, Mobycon and Sykkelambassaden

A doorfietsroute (high-quality cycling route) is designed to enable fast, safe, and comfortable cycling over longer distances. Per CROW, five essential characteristics define such routes. Together, these elements ensure cycling becomes a competitive alternative to the car, especially for commuting.🧵

Cities don’t fail women by accident, they're designed that way. And unless we plan mobility through an intersectional lens, we’ll keep reproducing the same inequities. @eiturbanmobility.eu teaches a more inclusive approach to mobility planning combining heart, head, and hand. READ: bit.ly/4bqXBYY

This past November, Maastricht quietly introduced the Netherlands' first “fietszone” or bicycle-priority zone, which takes the concept of “fietsstraten”—streets where cars are treated as guests—and applies it across the entire city centre (within the ring roads) rather than along a single corridor.🧵

For decades, Aarhus’ Graven functioned as a mixed-traffic street that tried to serve everyone but satisfied no one particularly well. And then, in 2019, a seasonal experiment helped realise its true identity and potential as the social, cultural, and economic backbone of the historic Latin Quarter.🧵

In this webinar, women leaders in city transformation join Chris Bruntlett to discuss how planning with women in mind can create streets that work better for everyone. Sign up for the webinar on April 7 at 17:00 (Amsterdam time) buff.ly/nt6VLbg

Like many European cities swept up in the promise of the automobile, in the 1930s Aarhus paved over its namesake river to accommodate rising motor traffic. In the 1990s, this mistake was reversed, and today the restored waterway boasts one of the most vibrant pedestrian environments in Scandinavia.🧵

From March 10–13, the Dutch Cycling Embassy attended Intertraffic International Relations Manager Chris Bruntlett curated a session titled “Safer Streets, Smoother Traffic: Linking Cycling Investment to Congestion Reduction.” Experts from the DCE network shared their insights. buff.ly/KWRwYKr

“Spatial justice demands that all residents have substantive access to essential goods and services: Clean air, affordable housing, public transport, green spaces, and safe infrastructures. It insists these rights be pursued in ways that preserve ecological integrity and intergenerational equity.”

This week, researchers, policymakers, and mobility experts from China joined the Dutch Cycling Embassy for a three-day study visit. Together we explored the Netherlands through a cycling and active travel lens. The study visit highlights the growing international interest in Dutch cycling.

Cycling side-by-side isn’t bad behaviour—it’s human behaviour. It’s how parents talk to their kids. How friends catch up. How communities form. If bicycle infrastructure is too narrow for people to ride and talk together, the problem isn’t the people. It’s the infrastructure. Nørrebro, Copenhagen.

Tips til event neste uke! (Torsdag 19. mars) Melissa, @modacitylife.com, snakker om sin nyeste bok, "Women Changing Cities: Global stories of urban transformation". I panelet sitter kjenningene @aninehartmann.bsky.social og @ajjabajja.bsky.social. www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/women-chan...

ANNOUNCING OUR FIRST STARTER PACK! These are accounts with unusually effective communications or marketing/branding of issues and ideas for better city-building. Sharing the truth more persausively, and calling out disinformation & lies! Please follow & SHARE WIDELY! #UrbanTruth go.bsky.app/47w5jKk

This week, Chris and @dutchcycling.nl hosted a high-level delegation from the China Academy of Transport Sciences, a research institute of the national Ministry of Transport. For three days, they explored the Netherlands the best way possible: on two wheels through Amsterdam, Utrecht and The Hague.

From grassroots action to creative public space development, the first edition of 𝗧𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗖𝗶𝘁𝘆'𝘀 𝗦𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆 highlights some cool projects from Berlin that are must see's for mobility and urbanism enthusiasts. Read the full story here 👉 modacitycreative.com/2026/03/09/t...

Hvordan ville byene våre vært om kvinner fikk bestemme? Om halvannen uke arrangerer vi boksamtale med @modacitylife.com i Oslo ⬇️

"When cities are built with women in mind, they become more liveable for everyone." 🙌 💜 #InternationalWomensDay #WomensHistoryMonth #HousingPolicy #ClimateJustice #Transportation #Sustainability

"Urban planning’s prevalent perspectives and narratives have long been male. When the people shaping cities fail to reflect those using them, blind spots become built form. Men helped create these systems. Men benefit from them. Men therefore have a responsibility to help fix them.” bit.ly/3Nr5KEG