From left to right: Professor Haixiao Pan, University of Tongji, Shanghai, China; me, Tim Blumenthal, President of Bikes Belong; Phillip Darnton, Chairman of Cycling England; and Mark Cridland, Assoc. Director General, Queensland Dept. of Transport and Main Roads.

View the full set of photos from the Sustainable Cities dinner here.

This year, in conjunction with their annual Family Night Celebration, the Packers invited Bikes Belong's Peopleforbikes.org to connect with this pre-season ritual.

On August 5-6, we staffed a booth outside the stadium, collected more than 1,000 pledges for our unifying campaign, and talked with thousands of Packers fans about bicycling.

On Friday night, Packers players walked up a ramp from the locker room and greeted an enthusiastic swarm of local children, all ready with their bikes.

Each player pointed to a kid, grabbed their bike, and rolled off with the kid on the back or alongside.

We're not sure that any of these bikes were built with 250-pound linebackers or massive 350-pound linemen in mind. But the rides unfolded beautifully with big smiles all around. Football stars are great "roll models" for young bike riders.

Thanks to long-time Bikes Belong member Saris Cycling and president Chris Fortune for making this event happen. Thanks, too, to the Packers and team president Mark Murphy for their enthusiastic support.

Seville, Spain is not in the Netherlands.

You won’t see old black & white photographs of grandmothers and grandfathers pushing bicycles past bakeries on charming canal-lined streets. No one you meet shares childhood memories of bicycling to school with friends. There is no deep-rooted habit of reaching for the bicycle for a short trip around town, simply because that’s how everyone gets around. While the Dutch have enjoyed safe, convenient bicycling for so long that it’s now seen as a mainstream, everyday mode of transportation, Seville, Spain’s fourth-largest city, has no such tradition.

Seville’s embrace of the bicycle is decidedly 21st century. As recently as 2004, bicycling in this city of 700,000 was seen as a fringe activity for elite athletes and people too poor to own a car. There was no bicycle infrastructure to speak of, and the few Sevillianos who did use bikes for utilitarian purposes (0.2% of all trips in 2000) were practically invisible on the streets and in public life. Cars and trucks dominated the transportation landscape. For the average person to ride a bike to work or school was unimaginable.

For people living in most American cities, this story feels awfully familiar.

That’s why Seville’s remarkable transformation is drawing excited attention on our side of the Atlantic. In just five years, bicycling has grown from a statistically non-existent mode of transportation to a significant — if not yet ordinary — part of daily life. Seville’s engineers built a network of comfortable separated bikeways connecting the city that now carries 7% of all city traffic. It has implemented a state-of-the-art bike sharing system, offering residents and visitors affordable access to more than 2,000 bicycles stationed throughout the city. And it has redesigned many plazas, squares, and streets to make them more inviting spaces for those traveling on foot and on two wheels.

The investments are paying dividends more quickly than anyone figured. Traffic congestion and pollution are declining for the first time in 30 years. Businesses are thriving along bike routes and around the newly improved public spaces that are breathing fresh life into the central city. The number of car trips into the historic city center has plummeted from 25,000 a day to 10,000, freeing valuable space for residents to park and visitors to linger. More than 70,000 bike trips are made every day, up from just 2,500 in 2002. Bicycling has given Sevillianos a healthy, speedy new way to get around.

Designing a better city

When it came to designing Seville’s bicycle infrastructure, the city looked north for inspiration. David Muñoz de la Torre, Director of Seville’s Bike Program, cites the Netherlands as a key influence in shaping the city’s bikeway system. “We wanted to create a complete network, not a piecemeal system,” he emphasized. Nothing discourages potential bike riders more than bike lanes that end abruptly, forcing them to mix with fast-moving cars. Seville’s bikeways continue through intersections, around roundabouts, and across zigzags, making navigation a breeze — just follow the impossible-to-miss bright green path and you’ll stay on route.

All the bikeways along major roads are physically separated from car and pedestrian traffic as much as possible. City leaders explain that protection from traffic is a key factor in making the system appealing to less experienced riders, particularly children, women, and older people. “Our design target is a 65-year old woman with groceries,” explained Muñoz de la Torre. He reasons that if bicycling is safe for her, it is safe for everyone.

The entire 87 miles network cost about $43 million to install between 2007 and 2009 — a bargain when you consider that a single mile of urban freeway in the U.S. easily costs twice as much. With the core bicycling network now in place, Muñoz de la Torre says the city is focused on improving difficult crossings and tight squeezes on the streets, installing more bike parking and launching public education campaigns as the next steps to boost bicycle use. The city expects 15% of all trips in Seville to be made by bike in 2015.

Change isn’t easy — but it can happen overnight

In order to build support for its rapid urban transformation, Seville’s leaders had to win the favor of a public that had little familiarity with bicycling and merchants skeptical that customers would continue to arrive on bike and foot instead of cars. The city hosted hundreds of public meetings and charrettes — design workshops involving the public— to incorporate ideas from neighborhoods into plans for newly configured public spaces and roadways.

Initial opposition to removing or relocating car parking was fierce, but business owners came to realize that streets filled with pedestrians and bicyclists create more opportunities for folks to spontaneously stop in a shop or café. Some controversy remains, but polls show both residents and businesses are predominately pleased with the changes. The rise in bicycling is a bright spot in tough economic times, as stores, restaurants and plazas of the central city are usually packed with residents and tourists.

If they can do it, why can’t we?

For U.S. cities just beginning to build bikeway networks, Seville is an inspiring example of how quickly results can be achieved with focused investments. This scorching hot, car-centered Spanish city is far different from the Dutch and Danish cities usually celebrated as bicycling Meccas. Seville’s story challenges the common assumption that biking and walking have always been a way of life in European cities. With families strolling and bikes rolling on avenues that just five years ago were filled with roaring cars and trucks, it’s impossible not to ask the question: if Seville can do it, why not Dallas, Atlanta or Los Angeles?

As we’re learning that sitting is extra bad for us, we’re also learning that bicycling for transportation is extra good. A study of 30,000 people found that even after adjusting for other risk factors, those who did not bicycle to work were 40% more likely to die prematurely. Regardless of how much you exercise, bike commuting reduces your risk of early death. Another study concluded that leisure time physical activity alone may not be sufficient enough to prevent obesity, and that additional movement like bicycling for transportation is needed. Again we see that jogging or going to the gym is not enough. Could bicycling for transportation be a way to counteract the effects of sitting?

The average U.S. commute is 46 minutes round trip. While that’s only a small portion of the other 13 hours we Americans spend on our butts outside of the office, replacing two 23-minute drives a day with a couple of bike rides seems like a great way to avoid the negative effects of sitting while reaping the positive effects of utilitarian bicycling.

So, sitting can actually be good for you—if you’re on a bike.

Bicycling for transportation has something special that makes it different than regular exercise. It is cheap to successfully promote, it’s easier to make into a habit due to its frequent association with a necessary trip (the work commute), and it’s vigorous enough to be effective without being too high-intensity. Now, research shows that it can help you live longer.

With these findings in hand, let’s make sure that transportation bicycling is a part of the growing discussion on the negative effects of sitting. For the cost of an adjustable stand-up desk, you can buy a lovely commuter bike—and the latter sure is a lot more fun to use.

Seville has drawn worldwide attention for its rapid growth as a bicycle friendly city. While PFB is focused on making the U.S. more bike friendly, many of the best and most inspiring examples come from abroad. Here are a few of Zach’s first impressions:

I'm visiting Seville, Spain, where bicycling has grown from an almost non-existent type of transportation (0.4% mode share) to a significant one (7%, about the same as Portland or parts of San Francisco) in five years. The key factors? A rapid buildout of a comprehensive infrastructure network and the implementation of a bike-sharing program. Bicycling has completely revitalized Seville’s central city. It’s an inspiring story for U.S. areas that are just beginning to work on their bicycling networks about how quickly results can be realized with focused investment.

Here are some the details about Seville’s transformation:

• Seville added 100 miles of new bike infrastructure in 36 months between 2007 and 2009.

• 85% of the space came from removal of car parking and travel lanes; 15% came from pedestrian space (which was compensated for by major, new additions to public space in other places).

• The improvements increased the number of trips taken by bicycle from 0.4% to ~ 7%.

• In 2005, a major public plaza was redesigned to be more accessible to bikes and pedestrians:
  • removed 200 parking spaces
  • held 100 public meetings, initial opposition to the plan was fierce from retailer organization and neighbors; now, 22% of customers arrive by bike and several new businesses have opened; retailers along the plaza are thriving.
  • incorporated a major stormwater management system into the design

• In 2006, Seville re-engineered a major four lane arterial road to be a shared plaza with streetcar, bike and pedestrian space. Initially opposed, the conversion is now very popular. “This defeats the myth that European streets have ‘always been this way.’ This amazing place is only five years old!” — Gil Peñalosa, Director of 8-80 Cities and Conference MC.

• City Council passed a law that limits auto access in the central city to residents only; the law reduced the daily number of cars in downtown from 25,000 to 10,000.

• “Great is the enemy of good.” The city’s infrastructure emphasizes network connectivity, not perfection. It’s far from the polished bikeways of Northern Europe, but the protected bikeways of Seville are safe, convenient and get you where you need to go without interruption.

• “This used to be a dangerous street for bicyclists and pedestrians. Now the biggest threat is getting hit by a falling orange.” Gil Peñalosa — on a redesigned street with protected bike lanes along a row of orange trees.

Bicycling in America has its issues, and we’ve learned that if we want to make it easier and safer to ride a bike, then we have to have a seat at the table in Washington. You don’t think of bicyclists as being politically savvy suit types—in March, many of us would rather be in a pair of baggies, sipping a beer and eating a fish taco after a luscious singletrack descent in coastal California—but when it’s go time at the National Bike Summit, the nation’s advocates are there.

We spandex warriors are out of our element for sure. But that doesn’t stop us from bucking up, preparing our talking points and pressing our suits, and marching into the offices of our representatives. The wonderful thing about it all is that we have an easy ask. Bicycling is clean, good, and fun. Its wide range of benefits, from climate change to job creation, means it appeals to both bleeding liberals and fiscal conservatives. It’s easy to talk about. What American doesn’t have a fond childhood memory involving a bike? All the senators and representatives we meet sure seem to have their own nostalgic tales of bicycle joy. Democrats and republicans alike have gushed excitedly to us about paper routes, cruiser rides, and their own children and grandchildren taking up bicycling.
While it’s hard for us to remain objective, every year the coverage of the National Bike Summit seems to multiply. You can read articles about this year’s summit in the Washington Post, the New York Times, ESPN, and the Wall Street Journal. Big names spoke to us from their posts as the Secretary of Transportation, Secretary of the Interior, and Commissioner of New York City’s Director of Transportation. And thanks to social media, you can read play-by-play announcements of our meetings on Capitol Hill.

Even if you aren’t a politically-minded person, it’s hard not to be inspired by seeing the democratic process in action. Talking to senators and their staffs face-to-face about bicycling is absolutely necessary to creating a better future for biking in this country. The more that we can expand their understanding of bicycling—that in addition to a nostalgic leisure time activity, it’s also a cost-effective, sensible form of transportation—the more allies we’ll have in creating a bike-friendly America.

However, the communication we have during the Summit is meaningless if it is bookended by silence. The message we got from lawmakers was loud and clear: in order to protect and promote bicycling, they need to hear from their constituents. “The single most effective lobbyists I come across are people from my own state,” Senator Tom Carper from Delaware told us on Wednesday. That’s why we created Peopleforbikes.org. It is a year-round bike summit, where, on any given day, the people of America can tell policy makers about the importance of bicycling to them. If we suffer through suits in March, will you promise to email your representatives from the comfort of home? You can even do it while in spandex—they won’t know.

Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood, President of the League of American Bicyclists Andy Clarke and President of Bikes Belong and Director of the Peopleforbikes.org movement Tim Blumenthal at the National Bike Summit (photo by Chris Elchler/League of American Bicyclists).

Here's a great example: Last Friday, the Cal Park Hill tunnel in San Rafael, California, reopened to bike and foot traffic. This 1,100-foot corridor, built in 1884 to support a railroad, crumbled in the late 1970s and remained closed and dilapidated for more than 30 years. Today, after a major reconstruction project, it again connects San Rafael with Larkspur Landing on San Francisco Bay. The tunnel shortens bike rides between the two towns by 10-20 minutes, makes bicycling faster than driving, and bypasses some of Bay Area's busiest, least-bike-friendly intersections.

In short, it's the fastest way to travel between Point A (San Rafael) to Point B (Larkspur)--two places where lots of Californians want to go. This simple, practical appeal guarantees the tunnel's success.

The tunnel path is basically flat, well-lit, and smooth. The west end flows seamlessy into the Larkspur bus station that serves San Francisco Airport. It also connects with a major ferry terminal that provides 30-minute boat service to downtown San Francisco. Now San Rafaeleans can bike to the boat instead of drive, and people all across Marin County can enjoy longer, uninterrupted bike rides on the almost-complete Marin County Bikeway.

The reopening ceremony was a great day for Marin County, and the satisfying culmination of more than a decade of hard work by advocates for bicycling, walking and trails. At least 300 people attended, and nearly half of them celebrated by pedaling through the tunnel and back.

One key player in making the project happen is Deb Hubsmith, the former chief of the Marin County Bicycle Coalition who now directs the Safe Routes to School National Partnership (which is  Bikes Belong). Hubsmith, who was recognized by the leaders of Marin County for her perseverance and dedication to the project, said, "This is one of the happiest days of my life."

You can watch two excellent videos of the event here:

Cal Park Tunnel Opens from Streefilms

On the panel with me were Rob Forbes, founder of the modern furniture store Design Within Reach and current CEO of PUBLIC Bikes, and Soraya Nasirian, whose experiences as a ex-pat mother living in The Netherlands inspired her to start My Dutch Bike, an importer of highly practical (and family friendly) Dutch utility and cargo bikes. Speaking in a posh modern art gallery surrounded by installations by Dutch artists set on impossibly white walls, the panel was challenged to explain why so many people ride bikes in the Netherlands compared to the United States. Twenty-seven percent of all trips in Holland are made on a bike, with numbers exceeding 50% in some city centers. In the U.S., less than 1% of trips overall are on two wheels, but bicycles comprise 5%-8% of trips in our best bicycling cities.

Upon hearing these statistics it’s tempting to casually dismiss the entire Dutch cycling experience as irrelevant to our own, as if some exotic alien technology beyond our comprehension were responsible. I’m no biologist, but I’m pretty sure there is no unique bicycling gene only present in Dutch nationals that compels them to ride bikes way more than anyone else.

On the contrary, most of the factors that enable high levels of bicycle use in the Netherlands can be traced to deliberate (and replicable) human decisions. Consistent investment in high-quality infrastructure over the past four decades, policies favoring compact and diverse land use, comprehensive traffic safety education, economic and legal incentives; all of these work together make bicycling the fastest, easiest, cheapest and most logical way move around for short trips.

You’d be crazy not to ride a bike.

A good design solution is one that is simple, practical, efficient, intuitive and above all, user-friendly. The key to mainstream bicycling, at least according to the Dutch experience, is to make it an irresistibly rational choice for the majority of the population. None of that happens by accident; it’s all part of a careful design.

Learn more about what we're doing to replicate the Dutch experience in the U.S. through our Bicycling Design Best Practices Project.