This Lego-maniac kid has become an authority in planning, and in particular in cycling. If you’re a podcast lover check it out.

Marco te Brömmelstroet is Associate Professor in Urban Planning at University of Amsterdam and founding academic director of the Urban Cycling Institute. His research focuses on transportation, urban cycling, and social mobility, with a particular focus on policy change and improving city planning.

MtB: I’ve always been fascinated with how cities evolve, as a young kid already and especially fascinated throughout my educational career in how cities evolve, regions evolve in relation to their mobility system. So, I studied urban planning and then I was very interested in how mobility played its part there.

I blame Lego for that. When I was I think seven or eight, I was already building my own cities out of Lego and playing with them in terms of my own narratives, my own fantasises but I always built Lego cities that were realistic as far as you can call it realistic. So, they were always real cities.

KR: As well as being a Dutch Lego Master, Marco te Brömmelstroet is a keen cyclist and known in certain circles as the Cycling Professor. It’s a title he wears with pride. His interest in urban planning and love of cycling led him to some interesting discoveries about how cycling can influence our behaviors while navigating transport infrastructure.

In this episode of How Researchers, we’re getting into the saddle, and travelling by bicycle, a vehicle of social, political and environmental change.

[How Researchers Changed the World introductory music]