A Lego Kid Becomes The Cycling Professor – Podcast

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.

TRANSCRIPT

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]

Listen here…

https://www.howresearchers.com/episodes/episode-8/

It’s About A Better City

It’s about a better city, not about riding bikes or walking, or certainly not a “war on cars”.  Many people (or most) who ride bikes and walk also drive a vehicle.  We’re all in this together. Asbury Park is finalizing  the Asbury Park Bike and Walk Master Plan which will create a network for safe walking and bicycling .

“…a few separated routes through a large, still car-dominated city and region don’t create a viable choice in how to get around for people aged 8-80. For people of both genders and all ages to choose a mode of movement a system or network is needed – complete, connected, efficient, predictable, and safe in both perception and reality.”

It’s Not About The Bike Or Car —It’s About Better Cities

“I don’t consider myself a ‘cyclist.’ Calling myself that would seem as odd as calling myself a walker, a transit-rider, or a driver. I’m someone who loves living in cities, who has studied how cities work all of my adult life. Really, I’m a citizen.”

Read more…

http://spacing.ca/vancouver/2012/10/08/its-not-about-the-bike-or-car-its-about-better-cities/