Bike Networks Now!

This is a podcast trying to figure out how cities can produce complete bike networks, make bike riding a real transportation option. And true to form, this is a different kind of episode oriented around our work here in Denver to get the city to build a complete high-comfort bike network. We think it can be done in a short period of time for a budget that pales in comparison with the normal costs.Instead of me asking the questions, paradoxically, I've asked one of Denver's best reporters, Paul Karolyi from CityCast Denver, to come on the show and just hammer me with questions about VAMOS, our initiative. VAMOS is a plan that tries to draw on the most important lessons we have learned about what works and what doesn't in the creation of bike infrastructure — most significantly with VAMOS and the way that it is imagined. TranscriptAvi Stopper (00:02)This is a podcast trying to figure out how cities can produce complete bike networks, make bike riding a real transportation option. And true to form, this is a different kind of episode oriented around our work here in Denver to get the city to build a complete high-comfort bike network. We think it can be done in a short period of time for a budget that pales in comparison with the normal costs.Instead of me asking the questions, paradoxically, I've asked one of Denver's best reporters, Paul Karolyi from CityCast Denver, to come on the show and just hammer me with questions about VAMOS, our initiative. VAMOS is a plan that tries to draw on the most important lessons we have learned about what works and what doesn't in the creation of bike infrastructure — most significantly with VAMOS and the way that it is imagined.Paul (00:40)[Affirmative sound]Avi Stopper (00:57)We try to minimize the destructive effects of what I think of as the three main variables that undermine the rollout of complete bike networks. Number one, they cost too much. Number two, they take forever to build. And three, perhaps the most destructive, is that there is just endless conflict between a variety of different constituencies — various stakeholders.And we actually think that those different stakeholders have a tremendous amount of alignment. I'm talking about people like neighbors, business owners, and riders. In the status quo approach to thinking about bike infrastructure and bikeways, these groups are generally or often at odds with one another. And with VAMOS, one of the central elements is a significant attempt — and we think, based on precedent — a proven approach to align the interests of those different constituencies. So I'm going to turn the mic around proverbially, I guess, give it to Paul and he's going to ask me some questions that he has about VAMOS, almost as if it were a background conversation for an episode that maybe they'll do at some point on CityCast Denver. So Paul, with that preamble in place, what are your thoughts? What questions do you have?Paul (02:09)Well, first of all, I'm just very flattered. I think I'm developing kind of a reputation for hard questions. So always happy to be called in to drag someone's ass or rake someone over the coals. If that's my thing, I love it. That's a great brand to have. But yeah, VAMOS — I mean, explain what it is. You know, you want a million dollars from the city. What is it?Avi Stopper (02:28)Hit them hard, Paul.So the idea is that VAMOS is a complete bike network that anyone — irrespective of how old they are, how confident they are on a bike, or what their background is — can use to go to the places in Denver that they want to go to. We have a transportation system that really gives people no options other than to drive a car at the moment. There are transit options that kind of exist to a degree. There is walking, of course — there is decent walking in some places and not others. There is some biking, but there is not a complete bike network. So for the vast majority of folks, the idea of using a bike to go places is just not practical. And so VAMOS is an attempt to learn from that which has worked historically, both in the city and across the country, and to employ those lessons in what I think of as a modern entrepreneurial or innovative framework that allows us to move quickly, learn, create stuff that people really use and love, and that becomes a valued community asset. It's not just about riders — it's about neighbors, it's about business owners, and those people should become folks who feel empowered to move around their community on a bike.Paul (03:59)So practically, like on the street — I think that's what people are going to be most interested in. And that's kind of what's been most controversial about some of these bike lane projects, is like, they feel like they're in the way or they take a long time to build. Like practically, what are you proposing? Give me an example of a street and how it would look and feel.Avi Stopper (04:19)Yeah, so with VAMOS, we're not really creating anything new. In fact, using precedent is one of the cornerstones of the concept. And one of the most powerful precedents that we have seen in Denver was this program that the city rolled out during the early days of the pandemic. It was called the Temporary Shared Streets Program. And basically what they did — it looked kind of like there was construction on some quiet neighborhood streets — was place a set of these little barricades. Everyone knows what they look like. And they just said: road closed to through traffic. And they put those at intersections along these corridors, these quiet neighborhood streets. And the effect that it had was dramatic. People who lived on those streets were still able to drive to their houses and park in front of their houses. But it cut out the idea of rat running, which is high-speed cut-through traffic where people rip through neighborhoods to avoid driving on arterials. And the result of that is a street that is just so much better for neighbors. It is so much better for people who want to walk, people who want to ride bikes, and push strollers out in the street. So the Temporary Shared Streets Program was a set of these one-mile corridors, basically, during the early days of the pandemic. It was supposed to last two months; it ended up lasting two years. And when the city surveyed folks after the fact and asked them what they thought about them, more than 90% of people — 90%, think about the level of conflict that we typically have around bikeways — 90-plus percent of people said that they wanted these things to be made permanent and to have them on their streets. And why is it? It's because it makes the streets better. And what's so powerful about that is that if you start to propose these things to people and ask them to come to a public meeting and they see a drawing, it's very hard to imagine. Even listening to this podcast, it's hard to imagine what these things might be. And I think people have a tendency to freak out, to be really preoccupied. And when they see it, it is a dramatic difference because they're like, wow, this just made my street better.Paul (06:29)Yeah, that's what I'm asking you. What is it? On the street.Avi Stopper (06:45)In the most simple terms, it is a quiet residential street made even quieter. And the way that you do that is through a very simple civil engineering intervention that precludes high-speed cut-through traffic. We are just saying these are not through streets for people who are driving at high speeds. If you want to drive at a high speed — make sure you follow the speed limit — but you need to be on the arterial street. These are streets for local traffic and for people walking and biking.Paul (07:16)I'm sorry — did you say lowering speed limits on these specific side streets?Avi Stopper (07:21)It doesn't necessarily require lowering speed limits. In some other cities they have indeed lowered the speed limits, but what typically happens on a quiet side street is folks who live on those streets tend to just drive fairly slowly. They park in front of their houses. They come and go on occasion. The big problem — and this is something that a plurality of folks get behind — is having through traffic where people are trying to avoid arterial streets and they're ripping through neighborhoods at a high speed. And so what VAMOS contemplates is using this as an atomic unit that allows us to say we can actually create bikeways that are loved by a broad swath of the populace. The neighbors like them, business owners like them, people who want to ride bikes like them. And the way that we do this is by saying: this street is not for cut-through traffic.Paul (08:21)Hmm. Interesting. So I guess I'm still having trouble visualizing it because — I read your letter. You want a million dollars from the city to fund this VAMOS project. And that would go towards a short-term demonstration of prototypes built with temporary materials like cones and signs. If cones are the prototype, what's the physical thing that you're putting on the street in the long term? And like, why cones? Where are the cones?Avi Stopper (08:54)Yeah, where are the cones? So the idea is basically that the cones are a representation of a more permanent form of infrastructure. The cones create the geometry and prevent the high-speed cut-through traffic. And then what we do in an incremental way — the idea is to basically do this as a series of incremental prototypes where we're learning, we're talking to neighbors, people are actually seeing this so they understand what it looks like. They tell us what they like. They tell us what they don't like. We observe behavior, we quantify behavior, we see how people are doing this. And then with each incremental step, those demonstration projects get better. And we move towards a more formal, fixed version of these — and the fixed version can be very straightforward. It can be a set of signs. It can be a little bit of paint on the ground. In some cases it can use some preformed concrete to basically prohibit that sort of through-traffic movement. The key is again, in the interest of aligning those different constituencies, to make this have the general aesthetic of the neighborhood. So we are not proposing — and I want to be very clear about this, in fact we are very carefully avoiding — the volatile elements that often are used to build bikeways, most notably plastic flex posts. The interesting thing about plastic flex posts is that many neighbors respond very negatively to them. And the irony is that a lot of people who have been advocating for bike infrastructure are also very unhappy with them because we were promised things by the city that are more permanent. And also, amazingly, in many cases the city doesn't like them because they're a maintenance headache — they get destroyed very easily. So the million dollars, just back to your original question, is for a set of engineering templates, iterative design on those templates, a significant amount of community outreach, staffing to actually implement these designs, to observe, to collect feedback, to iterate on them, to run them again, to continue to collect feedback and data. And we think that through this modern approach to innovation, we can hone in on a set of designs through this pilot program that are going to be really compelling to a huge number of people, and that that will create the foundation for a broader, scalable rollout.Paul (11:45)Hmm. So what's your theory about why people who don't bike commute choose other ways to get around?Avi Stopper (11:55)I think there are a number of reasons. The most significant one is a perceived safety issue. A lot of people say that they want to ride bikes. In transportation planning, there's this idea of the "interested but concerned" cyclist. And surveys suggest that that's up to 60% of the population. I'm not suggesting that all of those people are going to start to replace car trips with bike trips. But a lot of folks want to be able to ride with their kids to get ice cream or take other short trips. I'm not expecting that people are going to radically change the way that they get around and take eight-mile trips across the city, but they might take two-mile trips that are actually more pleasant. You don't have to deal with parking. You can ride in the street with your friends and family. And so the key thing that needs to happen is the creation of a complete network — and that complete network allows you to go places, but that complete network needs to imbue you with a sense of confidence that this is a safe activity. And the problem with the conventional approach to bikeways is that there are some that are comfortable, that are safe, that are pleasant, but often you ride in one for a little bit and you get a mile down the road and it doesn't connect to anything. And so being able to develop a scalable tool that allows us to create a citywide network that gives people this sense of confidence — that makes them feel like, gosh, this is something I can do, and it's just going to be so much better, I'm going to get there in some cases faster, I'm not going to have to deal with parking, it doesn't cost much, it's good for me, I can ride with my kids — that is where we need to get. And the theory here is that that can only be accomplished if you have a complete network and that network is at a reasonable level of safety so people are actually going to use it.Paul (14:00)So it seems like you're — I mean, this is kind of what happened when we first met a few years ago; this was like an eye-opening moment for me, this whole approach that you take. Because it's so different from what most of the bike advocate people, bike safety people talk about. Most of those folks say the best thing to fight for is the big signature pieces of bike infrastructure. Like the North Broadway bike lane was such a big priority last year, the big fight over the municipal bond — that project was excluded. And I think you're just charting a totally different path. Do you worry that you're undercutting their efforts by saying, no, this thing over here — like we don't actually want money for those bike lanes, we want to just share the existing streets, we don't want to disturb people that much. Like, do you worry about undercutting the rest of the movement?Avi Stopper (15:03)I think that VAMOS actually creates a glide path into those future conditions. It is unbelievably difficult to get those projects built, and I'm not suggesting that we shouldn't engage in those discussions and fight those fights. What is challenging about them is that they might be five, seven, ten-year horizon types of projects, and it might be really good when it's done — but we still don't have a network. And if we don't have a network, we can't go places. And so we think that a network-first approach is essential here. We have to figure out how to create a complete connected network, because if you have these islands that are really good, it's going to be very, very difficult for people to actually use them in the way that we hope that they will use them.And when they don't get used in the way that we hope, a lot of naysayers point at them and say, this didn't work. How often have you heard, "I was driving down Broadway and there was no one in the bike lane"? And that is — we can't just discount those voices because the optics are bad. And again, I'm not suggesting at all that we should not have bike lanes on arterial streets.Paul (16:15)Didn't look like there was anyone using the bike lane to me.Yeah, hear that all the time.Avi Stopper (16:30)I am trying to figure out — and what VAMOS contemplates — is how can we create a level of alignment so that we can have a complete and connected network now, in a timeframe that is relevant to our lives, to those of us who live in this city today. And my theory is that if we can create that as a reality now, we can activate a huge number of people, transportation becomes better, the city becomes better for drivers because there's less stress on the roadways — and then it actually becomes easier to build those super-hard projects again. It's a glide path. It becomes easier to build those very complex arterial projects that the plans call for, and there will be a real groundswell of support for them. And this is not to say that those projects can't be under consideration now, that we can't be thinking about the designs — I think that they should be. I also don't think that they necessarily need to be built that far down the line. If we can create, as we think with VAMOS, a complete network that covers the city in three years, that can be a reality where we have a lot of these really high-end facilities, new bridges even in many places, protected crossings at some of the really difficult boundaries — rivers, interstate crossings, big arterials. Those are the kinds of things that I think can be built more quickly if there is a groundswell of support. And right now, the reality in the city is that there is not a groundswell of support for this. And so we're trying to figure out a way that we can really build a very broad coalition of folks who feel like it would be really cool —Paul (18:18)Hmm.Avi Stopper (18:24)— if bike transportation were practically possible. Some people will use it, others will not. But if we can start to shift some of the trips away from stressing the roadways to active transportation, people will be healthier and there will be less stress on the roadways. And through that newly activated audience, I think that there really is an argument to be made that we can work our way into the plans that we have codified through city council votes, etc., that we just can't right now because there's not enough support.Paul (19:02)Hmm. What makes you think that there's going to be a groundswell though? Like, you've been pitching this idea for a few years. Like I get that there's not a VAMOS network pilot anywhere specifically that people would be reacting to, but I'm not seeing that groundswell.Avi Stopper (19:19)When I talk about the groundswell, I'm talking about people who are activated by these facilities that we are talking about creating. And what the Temporary Shared Streets Program showed us — I'm not imagining this. This is something for which we have precedent, where the city has itself created a proof of concept. They created these facilities. They were loved, used heavily. That is the groundswell of support that I'm talking about that leads us in a direction of: wow, tons of people are using this, this really merits more investment, we make more investment, that gets more people riding. It's a virtuous circle in that set of circumstances. And so why has it been difficult to generate traction around this? I don't know that it necessarily has been. The mayor signed on to making VAMOS part of his campaign platform. A plurality of city council did as well.The challenge has been in the implementation, and that is what we are trying to solve with this pilot program.Paul (20:28)Wait, wait, wait, wait — so the mayor signed on, he supported this, and the majority of city council did as well. And they've been in office for a few years now and they've not done it.Avi Stopper (20:41)That's right.Paul (20:43)What happened?Avi Stopper (20:45)We have been trying different angles for quite some time, running into various brick walls in some cases, making slight progress here and there. And let's not name names, but...Paul (20:55)What are those brick walls' names? Who are these people? I mean, I want to know how it works. Who's saying no? Because I think they also would say — some of these people, like the mayor, you know, I've grilled them about this kind of stuff on our show, CityCast. And last time bike stuff came up, he was like, "Yeah, you know what? Here's the thing about bike stuff — there's only 2% of Denverites that commute by bike. So should I make all my decisions to cater to those people? Or should I think about 100% of Denverites?"Avi Stopper (21:26)Right, yeah. I can set that comment to the side for a moment and return to it if you want. I think that this is difficult because it is not the status quo. And I think this is frankly — for folks who have read the book Abundance — a type case for what Abundance is trying to address, which is to say: this is something people want. Why have we not been able to deliver it? And I think the reason we have not been able to deliver it is that the approach, holistically, is not the status quo. However, components of it — the entire approach is built on very status-quo components — which is to say that the sum is basically a collection of things for which there is precedent all over the city. We're just trying to say: let's look at this holistically. And so with this pilot — I mean, I think that my approach to trying to get this implemented has not been great at times. I've learned a heck of a lot about how things work and how they don't, and how you deal with things that are oriented around "this is the way that you do it." And so with this, what we're trying to say is: we think with a small pilot we can prove that there is a way to thread the needle — creating a broad coalition, not just making things in the right of way, but making things that people use. I've spent my life trying to make products that people use, and this is no exception to that. And so I think part of it is naivete on my part about how the process of getting something like this from a policy platform — conceptually in an election — to actually implementing it has evolved a lot. And this is the opportunity for us to demonstrate this in a way that really carefully manages the risk. I am by no means suggesting let's go tomorrow and build a VAMOS-style bike network. What I'm saying is let's start by putting some cones out on a street and seeing how neighbors respond, and letting them observe in the real world how their streets get better.Paul (23:53)Hmm. I do want to come back to that 2% because I've been thinking about it ever since the mayor said that. It's a very interesting argument. And I was looking for where he found the data, and I found this chart from a group called the Bike League. I wanted to talk to you about it, because they showed all these cities on the chart of how many people — what percent of people commute by bike — and way on the far left were cities like El Paso and Arlington, Texas, and way on the far right was like Boulder and Portland and Fort Collins at like 6% or so, I think. And then Denver's kind of in the middle with 2%. And I think the question is: do you think people bike in these places because there's infrastructure for biking? Or do you think that there's no infrastructure in other places because people who choose to live there don't want to bike?Avi Stopper (24:29)I think that objectively, if we look at Boulder, it has perhaps the best system of trails in the country. And so there is some element of a self-fulfilling prophecy there. The mayor's comment, I think, is an interesting one because I don't question the data — I don't question that number itself. I think that generally cities have been very bad at collecting data on actual ridership. Typically the data that I think you're citing and that he is citing comes from something called the American Community Survey, which is basically a qualitative survey where people are just asked, like, "Do you ride your bike ever?" and people are like, "Yes" — whereas contrast that with automobility: we have incredibly deep data sets about the number of trips, about where there is excessive usage and congestion, etc. The data around active transportation has just been elusive, I think, for a number of reasons. But let's set that aside for a moment. The 2% number — I think it's probably reasonably accurate depending on how you measure it. But the idea is not quite on point. It's basically saying no one is using this, no one is doing this. And we're saying: it's not because people don't want to, it's because they can't. It's because they don't feel safe. And if people don't feel safe, they're not going to do it. So you can't point at a number that's really low and say no one's into this. People aren't into it because they can't do it. I mean, if there were no mountain biking trails, people wouldn't mountain bike. You build mountain bike trails and people go ride. And so it's a misuse, I think, of that data point.And what we really need to be thinking about is from a constructive standpoint: if we were to make this a practical possibility, what could that unlock? And the mayor — I take him at his word — wants to make this a vibrant city. I think it's quite clear that a vibrant city is one in which people can go to the places that they want to go easily, pleasantly, joyfully, even healthfully. And it makes going downtown a lot more compelling if you don't have to park, you don't have to drive there. And at the essence of VAMOS is creating a sense of alignment — that this is something that collectively we care about, we look at the way that we have approached it, we are self-critical in terms of what's worked and what hasn't, we adopt that which has worked holistically, and we say: okay, maybe that which hasn't worked we should set aside, at least for the time being.Paul (27:29)Now you're speaking his language.Paul (27:58)I wonder about the safety thing. Because I see these surveys too — like, 60% of Denverites or of people would say I don't bike because I don't feel safe, I'm interested but I'm concerned. And I wonder about just like — is that about infrastructure? Is that about how we design our streets? Or is that just about the physical bike-riding experience itself? You know, like as I've gotten older, I've gotten less confident on my bike. I'm just not as good at it. My reflexes aren't as fast, I'm not as strong, my stamina is not as good. Like I think all those things do make me feel less safe, and that has nothing to do with bike lanes or shared streets or anything. Do you feel that way?Avi Stopper (28:43)Certainly. Yeah, I think that it is fair to question that particular framing. I don't know that the reality that that suggests — as latent demand — has actually been demonstrated. What I will say is what we're trying to do is create a pilot.Paul (29:09)Where has it been demonstrated?Avi Stopper (29:13)The idea that 60% of people want to ride their bikes more — I don't know that the validity of that particular number as something demonstrable exists in any particular location. People like the idea of riding bikes; we haven't really given them a way to do it practically. And so we think that this set of pilots that we're asking for will start to create a proof of concept. Not that this will definitively show that this has to be done, but rather that when people are presented with this as an option, they will start to think: yeah, maybe I'll go get ice cream with my kids and it'll be delightful because we're going to ride our bikes and it's going to be a mile and a half — let's do it. That's the kind of proof of concept that we are trying to establish here.Paul (30:07)We could talk longer if you want — I don't know how long you want to go, but I've got a couple more questions. I could talk to you about business stuff. Because the businesses — you claim to say that this VAMOS network is good for businesses. And I just wanted to share a quote from an article from Denver 7, when there was a big fight over a bike lane going in on West 29th Avenue a few years ago. One of the business owners, Seth Rubin, who owns the Rise and Shine Biscuit Kitchen — he was saying we're a grab-and-go spot, people stop here on their way to work and continue on their way. He said 90% of his customers come by car and that he was worried that the bike lane going in next to his business and eliminating parking spots would kill his business or affect it negatively. What would you say to Seth Rubin about your VAMOS network?Avi Stopper (31:10)The way that we have conceived of VAMOS and the designs that it borrows from existing precedent across the city is such that when people need to drive to a home or a business, they can still do it. They can park in front of that house. They can park in front of that business. What we are reducing is high-speed through traffic. And so that allows us to create this degree of alignment where those streets become substantially better for those folks. It's still easy to get there. They can still do their business as they see fit. And what we have just done is reduced the volume of high-speed through traffic on those streets.Paul (32:01)So he's saying this wouldn't affect him at all.Avi Stopper (32:04)I think it would actually benefit him in the long term, because this type of facility — and we're not talking about West 29th Ave, to be fair; primarily we're talking about quiet neighborhood streets rather than a collector or big arterials — when you look at Zillow, when you look at Redfin, you see that there is a walkability score. People want to know that they can access local businesses and patronize them from the place where they live. There's a Rise and Shine Bakery near my house. People want to be able to walk to those places, they want to be able to ride their bikes to those places. Part of what we're working to prove with this pilot is that this has an uplifting effect on local business — that because these businesses become far more accessible through different modes, it actually has an uplifting effect, and certainly not a detrimental effect.Paul (33:09)And the whole idea is getting the cars off of streets like West 29th and onto side streets.Avi Stopper (33:16)West 29th is not a good example here because that's more of a mid-sized street. Right — Lincoln. So Lincoln is an arterial street. Through traffic should be on Lincoln. It should not be on Sherman. If you're a neighbor living on Sherman, it drives you crazy that people cut the light at Alameda by going on Dakota and then on Sherman. And so through simple, aesthetically pleasing design tweaks to how the road is set up, we're just saying: this is not a cut-through street. If you are driving through this neighborhood, you need to use an arterial street — and Lincoln or Alameda are those streets.Paul (34:02)Okay, here's the last thing I wanted to ask you about. This is my last hard-hitting question.Avi Stopper (34:04)Yeah, please — keep hitting hard.Paul (34:11)Have you heard about this? Bike Fest, 2026, June 13th.Avi Stopper (34:12)I have heard about Bike Fest — yes. June 13th Bike Fest. We will be there. We are a sponsor — Bike Streets, my organization, not VAMOS — but we will be there and are happy to talk to folks. Yeah, it's a great event. I mean, I think that one of the things that it illustrates is — we talk about vibrancy, we use that somewhat flippantly — a city where people are free to go to the places they want to go and get there the way that they want to is just an amazing, vibrant community. And I think that lots of folks know that feeling of — I keep using the ice cream example — but it is just a glorious thing on a Sunday afternoon in Denver to hop on your bike and ride to an ice cream shop with your kids and sit out and just lazily enjoy one of Denver's great local businesses. That is an incredible picture of the future. And with VAMOS, we're saying that that is an attainable future. And what we're trying to do is create the specific implementation model to surmount the problems that have bedeviled this for decades now, and to make that the reality that we can all live with.Paul (35:37)I'm about it too. CityCast is also sponsoring. I went last year and I had a great time.Avi Stopper (35:42)What do you like about Bike Fest? Yeah.Paul (35:45)About Bike Fest? I mean, it's just people getting together, you know, the community of bikers. There's not a lot of — the time that people see each other is like in the comments section when they see someone angry about a bike lane, you know. There's no place that's like, yeah, this is something that we all like to do together. And it's like a celebration of just the hobby for some people, the recreation, the commuting. I heard there's going to be somebody who wants to do like a bike polo game on the tennis courts by York Street Yards this year.Avi Stopper (35:56)I've seen such things before.Paul (36:15)I've never seen it — I can't wait to see it.Avi Stopper (36:18)I think you might have to have a fixie so you can track stand and go backwards and forwards — or at least I don't know exactly how it works. But I think just to that point, one of the amazing joys of just moving through a community on your own human power is to do it in a social type of setting. And that can be with a group of friends or with an individual. I have some of the most meaningful conversations that I have while riding side by side on quiet residential streets. It is just a joyful experience. You encounter neighbors. There's this idea in planning called a serendipitous encounter. And in an era in which we are so isolated, it's just an incredible thing. I can't count the number of times where I'm on my bike and I cross paths with someone who is walking their dog and we stop and we have a chat for 10 minutes — and that is an invigorating experience. In addition to all the benefits from the affordability impact that this can have, to the way that this can uplift local business, to just the way that it can make us feel less isolated — I mean, it is no panacea, but in some respects, it could really dramatically improve the quality of life here.Paul (37:51)It is pretty good. I mean, I'm with you. I'm a believer. If you've done it, if you're in a position in your life that you can ride a bike all the time, it's great.Avi Stopper (38:01)With Bike Streets, one of the things that we have done since 2018 is lead group bike rides around the city and show people how they can navigate the city as it exists today. And there are few things that I enjoy quite as much as taking new folks out — people who don't use this as their primary way of getting around — and typically we go to get ice cream, of course. And just in conversation, it is so satisfying.How excited they are about that. And one of the things that I find so challenging is that when they are no longer in the group setting, and they don't have that sense of strength in numbers and they don't have that confidence by themselves, it becomes less of an option for them. Their freedom to choose how they get around is diminished simply because they don't have the level of confidence that some of us have developed over the years. And so with VAMOS, we want to make that a possibility so that in a group setting you feel great — and then you're like, you know what? I'm going to the gym today. I'm going to ride my bike. It's two miles and it's going to be glorious. And then afterwards, you know what? I'm going to treat myself. I'm going to stop at Devil's Food and have a croissant or something like that. Right? I mean, that is a truly enriched existence.Paul (39:28)Something I think you'd like — you asked me what I'm excited about with Bike Fest. So CityCast is going to be there. I think I'm going to do a survey — I'm going to call it a poll. I'm going to poll the bike community on issues related to bike stuff in Denver. This VAMOS thing seems like a really appropriate question to poll on.Avi Stopper (39:54)Let's see what they say. And what I would also say in addition to that is: don't just say "Do you think we should do VAMOS?" Say, in addition to that or in place of — do you think we should do some demonstration projects to show how streets can be better? Do you think it's worth a shot to just give this a try? And this is not something that is irrevocable. We don't have to totally commit to this. Do you think it's a good idea to just try ways to make the streets more accessible to more people, to make streets better for neighbors so that they feel safe having their kids running around outside? I think that when you start to present it to people as: are you open to just seeing for a couple days how it could be better — that opens the door to so many possibilities.It's important — and I would be remiss to not note the incredible transformation of Times Square in New York City. If you had gone around and asked people in New York City back in the early 2000s, "Do you think that we should close Broadway in Times Square to driving?" I think you can assume that people's response would have been, "That is the worst idea I've ever heard in my life." Or there would be a lot of people — the majority of people — who would be like, "That does not sound like a very good idea." And a very visionary, courageous team led by Janette Sadik-Khan, the Department of Transportation director at the time, changed — for a short period of time — the geometry of Times Square using orange barrels. And famously, actually, they put out the orange barrels — or were getting ready to put out the orange barrels — and they were like, what are we going to do with this space that is now not occupied by cars? And they went and they bought up all of the folding chairs in the tri-state area from hardware stores and this, that, and the other thing. And they put hundreds of folding chairs out into that new space in Times Square. And when people saw it, they embraced it. And there are these incredible photos from that time of tons of people sitting in what is the street in Times Square, because they just tried something. They attempted to see how things would change if they made what they imagined was a decent improvement. And that has now become formalized. It is a treasured public space. Times Square has returned to basically being a square — a public square where there are always tons of people, but they were crammed on sidewalks. Now there are plazas. And here's the kicker — what they found was it improved cross-town bus commute times. Traffic actually was snarled there. And by making these changes in the right of way, they actually made it easier in a car, a cab, or a bus to get across town. And so these are the kinds of things — getting back to the point that you made earlier where you were like, this is pretty different from the status quo — this actually is the status quo in some places. This has become an accepted approach to thinking about the right of way. We just need to employ it and see what the results look like.Paul (43:34)That is a really interesting story about Times Square. I didn't know that. I didn't know that's how that happened.Avi Stopper (43:41)It is an incredible, incredible success. And it shows what an innovator's mentality and mindset can produce. If you start to think about the tools that are at our disposal and using them in a way that allows you to evaluate whether an idea that you have about how we can improve a public space does indeed improve it — or, I mean, we're going to be honest with VAMOS: do the results merit deeper exploration, or do they not? This whole thing is a pilot to just evaluate whether this set of ideas that we think will work, based on a lot of precedent, will indeed bear out.Paul (44:28)Well, Avi, this would normally be the part where I thank you for coming on the show, but I guess I'll thank you for inviting me on your show. This has been fun.Avi Stopper (44:33)Yeah, right. Thank you for being on the show and thank you for the questions. I really do appreciate it. I think one of the central elements that I have learned over the course of my career trying to make stuff that people like is that being really candid about what you know and what you don't know is important — and using that to inform the way we think about the discovery process that we want to undertake is the way to go.Paul (45:10)Very cool. Well, good to see you today.Avi Stopper (45:13)Great job with your show. I appreciate it, Paul. You do such a good job. It is a true community asset.Paul (45:19)Thank you. We appreciate that. We try our best — the whole team: Bree, Olivia — Peyton left recently, you know, onward and upward, new people. Yeah.Avi Stopper (45:29)And you get it done. You get it done. We are in an era where local media needs leading voices and you are one of them. So I thank you for taking the time to do this with me.Paul (45:40)Thanks man, take care.Avi Stopper (45:43)Likewise.Paul (45:44)I'll leave for real, but this was fun.

TranscriptThis is Avi Stopper from Bike Streets and this is an audio snapshot of what the Vibrant Streets Pilot Program would be like.You’d step out your door, hop on your bike, and ride to the nearest demonstration project location. This would be on a weekend – that’s as long as the initial pilots would last. You would ride a mile or so down a quiet residential street made even quieter with no high speed cut-through traffic. And that would be because small sets of cones on the street placed in strategic locations would make it so these streets were for local drivers only. There would be other people out riding bikes – kids on small bikes, adults on trikes, folks on beach bikes cruising along comfortably. Occasionally, you might see a neighbor driving the last block or two to their house, and parking in front of their house. But that would basically be all the vehicle traffic on those streets. Otherwise there would be lots of people out riding bikes up and down the street, interacting with very few active vehicles. It would just be delightful. You would be able to experience on a small scale what this could look like if there were a complete network like this covering the city. You’d see the possibility.Over time, the demonstrations would last longer with cones and signs that lasted another week or so. You’d notice that the layout would be slightly different based on the feedback and observations we had from the first round of demonstrations. Those designs might even change bit by bit over the course of the demonstration week. Once the demonstration was over, the streets would return to their normal state. In the later months of the pilot program, we’d start to replace those temporary materials with more fixed materials like signs, paint, and pre-formed concrete that blends in with the surrounding neighborhood. The idea is that as our designs get better, we graduate from construction-like materials to the actual types of materials that these facilities would be built with. You’d be able to experience what these might look like longer term and we can observe how they work so these would be materials like signs that are permanent paint on the ground and in some places is preformed concrete. Throughout this process, there would not be any plastic flex posts. If we can avoid them, we will.What’s most important is not the materials, but the vibe you’d experience when you’re out there – a sense of safety, delight, and empowerment. You’d start to think about the possibilities if there were a full network of these types of streets and how incredible it would be because you could go anywhere comfortably. Your kids could go anywhere comfortably. As a family, you could hop on and ride ice cream, go to a museum, ride to a friend’s house or a baseball game.Even though these demonstrations would be on a small scale, through the Vibrant Streets Pilot Project you could start to see possibilities of a larger scale complete network.

Once we’ve created solid molecular units, which should take about six months, we graduate to small networks composed of multiple intersecting streets that make neighborhoods more connected, navigable, and delightful. There’s a clear progression from simple atomic units to complex clusters. If we don’t adequately refine our atomic and molecular units, our networks – big and small – will struggle to produce results. By now, we have earned the right to start to scale.

Once satisfied with our atomic units, we assemble atoms into molecules. These are corridors that prioritize bike transportation by linking multiple atomic units in sequence. For example, a series of diverters every 2-4 blocks, that connect to a sidewalk designated as a multi-use path, that, in turn, makes it possible to overcome a challenging boundary and connect to a regional trail.

We’ve now done 10 episodes of the podcast in our quest to understand why bike transportation still isn’t possible for most people in most cities. They’ve been pretty high-level conversations about the bike movement broadly. Over the next five episodes, we’re going local. We’re going to try to learn as many things as we can about how the bike movement is doing in cities across America by talking with the folks who know those cities best – the advocates who are trying to make bike transportation a practical reality. We’re starting in Denver, where Bike Streets is based, and my guests on this episode are two advocates whose work I have a lot of admiration for, Jill Locantore, Executive Director of the Denver Streets Partnership and Rob Toftness, co-founder of the Denver Bicycle Lobby.

Once we’ve deployed digital infrastructure and made it possible for people to find chill routes using the infrastructure that exists today, we turn our attention to upgrading on-the-ground reality.The place to start is with the creation of “atomic units,” design elements that have the potential to scale. These features must:Create safe, high-comfort riding environments.Be low-cost so network scale is a possibility despite our limited budget.Take very little time to build.Be loved by neighbors for how the change improves the neighborhood.Examples of low-cost atomic units include: Diverters built with signs and pre-formed concrete that prohibit “rat-running,” cut-through traffic on neighborhood streets.The conversion of underused sidewalks to multi-use paths.Pavement markings that make it easy to follow a route, especially when you have to make complex transitions, like riding from a street to a sidewalk to a park trail. <a href="https://bikestreets.com/book/the-atomic-unit" class="sqs-block-button-element--medium sqs-button-element--primary sqs-block-button-element" data-sqsp-button target="_blank" > READ THE CHAPTER <a href="https://bikestreets.com/book/the-atomic-unit" class="sqs-block-button-element--medium sqs-button-element--primary sqs-block-button-element" data-sqsp-button target="_blank" > READ THE CHAPTER

For a map to evolve, it needs a publishing mechanism that’s up to the task of illuminating a bike network years before it’s formalized. Once a city identifies its Best Available Network, the next step is to use digital infrastructure to light it up so people can go use it now. The ramifications are incredible: within six months, any city can have a complete, navigable bike network. <a href="https://bikestreets.com/book/digital-infrastructure" class="sqs-block-button-element--medium sqs-button-element--primary sqs-block-button-element" data-sqsp-button > Read the Chapter <a href="https://bikestreets.com/book/digital-infrastructure" class="sqs-block-button-element--medium sqs-button-element--primary sqs-block-button-element" data-sqsp-button > Read the Chapter

My guest is Carter Lavin, author of the book "If You Want to Win, You've Got to Fight" — a guide to effective transportation advocacy. Carter has worked on a wide range of transportation advocacy projects, from rail to bus service to bikeways. As co-founder of the TransBay Coalition, he helped secure a billion dollars in extra funding for transit. Rather than talking in the abstract, I'd like to explore Carter's ideas through the lens of a specific Bike Streets advocacy initiative we've been working on for years called VAMOS. So the arc of this conversation will orbit around that plan.

A map is a key to unlock the world around us. And as the world around us is imperfect, and there are no direct, human-sized pneumatic tubes from A-to-B, a map is the best representation of how to navigate imperfection.The first step cities need to take to create complete, connected high-comfort bike networks is to create a Low-Stress Bike Map. This is not a bike master plan of all the future awesomeness we’re going to build. This is a map that illuminates the ways to comfortably go places today.It includes existing trails, protected bike lanes, and bike boulevards. And then we fill the gaps with other existing assets in the right-of-way: quiet neighborhood streets, park trails, sidewalks, and desire paths. <a href="https://bikestreets.com/book/the-best-available-network" class="sqs-block-button-element--medium sqs-button-element--primary sqs-block-button-element" data-sqsp-button > Read the Chapter <a href="https://bikestreets.com/book/the-best-available-network" class="sqs-block-button-element--medium sqs-button-element--primary sqs-block-button-element" data-sqsp-button > Read the Chapter

The point of building bike infrastructure is to get people to ride bikes. So it seems obvious that we should set straightforward goals for every project: X daily riders and an increase of Y systemwide. This is the North Star we need to guide our work and challenge us to doggedly pursue meaningful results.But few projects have these kinds of goals. Even fewer projects are evaluated relative to goals like these after construction. And even fewer projects undergo iterative changes to make them perform better. <a href="https://bikestreets.com/book/the-north-star" class="sqs-block-button-element--medium sqs-button-element--primary sqs-block-button-element" data-sqsp-button target="_blank" > READ THE CHAPTER <a href="https://bikestreets.com/book/the-north-star" class="sqs-block-button-element--medium sqs-button-element--primary sqs-block-button-element" data-sqsp-button target="_blank" > READ THE CHAPTER

This is a conversation with August Ritter, Managing Director of Global Portfolio Management at The Nature Conservancy, where he oversees a 150 million dollar global conservation fund across 79 countries. In 2021, August brought me on as Entrepreneur in Residence to lead an early-stage team working on a new strategy and bring modern innovation strategies to the table. August is a leading light in bringing modern innovation practices into big, complex organizations. And this isn’t just a widget factory. TNC is the world’s largest environmental organization. August launched TNC’s India program – an experience that was eye-opening from an innovation standpoint; we’ll get to that in a moment – he managed TNC’s partnership with the startup incubator TechStars, and is a founder of The Agility Lab, a TNC initiative to make its conservation teams more entrepreneurial and more effective. As August has said, conversation needs to, “do more, a lot better, and a lot faster.”

One of the most surprising qualities in exceptional innovators is an ability to carefully manage risk, which comes in the form of time and money. This preoccupation with risk management is counterintuitive. In popular perception, entrepreneurship and innovation is about making big bets. That’s certainly one approach: OpenAI expects to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on data centers and hardware in the next five years and doesn’t expect to be profitable before 2030. In scenarios, however, where we’re constrained by reality and our time and money aren’t infinite, we need to carefully manage those precious resources. <a href="https://bikestreets.com/book/time-and-money-equal-risk" class="sqs-block-button-element--medium sqs-button-element--primary sqs-block-button-element" data-sqsp-button > Read the Chapter <a href="https://bikestreets.com/book/time-and-money-equal-risk" class="sqs-block-button-element--medium sqs-button-element--primary sqs-block-button-element" data-sqsp-button > Read the Chapter

Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson’s book “Abundance” calls out the inability of blue cities and states over recent decades to build the stuff that voters want: housing, high-speed rail, and the medical breakthroughs we desperately need. “Countless dollars,” they observe, “Were spent on health insurance, housing vouchers, and infrastructure without an equally energetic focus on what all that money was buying and building…It revealed a disinterest in the workings of government. Regulations were assumed to be wise. Policies were assumed to be effective. Cries that government was stifling production or innovation typically fell on deaf ears.” <a href="https://bikestreets.com/book/exhibit-a-for-abundance" class="sqs-block-button-element--medium sqs-button-element--primary sqs-block-button-element" data-sqsp-button > Read the Chapter <a href="https://bikestreets.com/book/exhibit-a-for-abundance" class="sqs-block-button-element--medium sqs-button-element--primary sqs-block-button-element" data-sqsp-button > Read the Chapter

In this conversation, we’re gonna flip the script. A few weeks ago, I got an email from two 8th graders, Cooper and Hugo, who were working on a school project about how they can help get better bike lanes in the area. I love it when young people care about civic issues – during the 2020 pandemic election, I co-led a project with some local high schoolers and Princeton students to recruit young people to be poll workers and we ended up with more than 30,000 people joining across the country. I suggested to Cooper and Hugo that we record our conversation as a podcast episode. They’ll ask me some questions. And I’ll ask them some as well. I think this is especially important because, at its essence, this is a conversation about young people who are the present and future – and who don’t have the right to vote and shape policy – looking at our city – the city they live in and will inherit – and saying this isn’t good enough. And I take responsibility that I and the other adults around me haven’t made it good enough for them. If you can’t bike because it’s not safe enough and you can’t drive because you’re not old enough, there are significant limitations on your freedom. It’s also fundamentally a question we should all be asking: what does it take to have the city, the country, and the world we want? So guys, Cooper and Hugo, thanks for having this conversation with me and thanks for being interested in big questions.

In 2011, Eric Ries published “The Lean Startup,” a thunderbolt in the startup community, that explores why so many innovation projects fail and how to increase the odds of success.Ries concludes, in essence, that innovation projects fail because they don’t use the scientific method. <a href="https://bikestreets.com/book/the-urban-bikeway-design-guide-revolution" class="sqs-block-button-element--medium sqs-button-element--primary sqs-block-button-element" data-sqsp-button > Read the Chapter <a href="https://bikestreets.com/book/the-urban-bikeway-design-guide-revolution" class="sqs-block-button-element--medium sqs-button-element--primary sqs-block-button-element" data-sqsp-button > Read the Chapter

The approach to innovation we propose on the following pages draws on three primary sources of inspiration. This book is a mashup of three texts from disparate fields that, in aggregate, can transform our hamfisted approach to innovation in the public right-of-way and make bike transportation a practical reality for millions of Americans. <a href="https://bikestreets.com/book/the-urban-bikeway-design-guide-revolution" class="sqs-block-button-element--medium sqs-button-element--primary sqs-block-button-element" data-sqsp-button > Read the Chapter <a href="https://bikestreets.com/book/the-urban-bikeway-design-guide-revolution" class="sqs-block-button-element--medium sqs-button-element--primary sqs-block-button-element" data-sqsp-button > Read the Chapter

Bike lanes have failed in America because they’re not safe enough and they don’t connect. The solution, at least in the abstract, is simple: build safe, complete bike networks. And not just at some theoretical point in the future. Now.Ezra Klein, the New York Times columnist and author of Abundance says it best “We should be able to deliver dramatic changes to public infrastructure quickly.” We have to reject the assumption that a complete bike network is a 30-year, multi-generational project. Every bike master plan must have a realistic plan of attack that answers the question: How are we going to build this in the next few years? <a href="https://bikestreets.com/book/network-first" class="sqs-block-button-element--medium sqs-button-element--primary sqs-block-button-element" data-sqsp-button > Read the Chapter <a href="https://bikestreets.com/book/network-first" class="sqs-block-button-element--medium sqs-button-element--primary sqs-block-button-element" data-sqsp-button > Read the Chapter

This is a conversation with a different type of guest. Tim Jackson spent 18 years as the main advocate for the car industry in Colorado. As the president and CEO of the Colorado Automobile Dealers Association, Tim lobbied for many laws that were passed in Colorado, including with such clever framing as "the freedom to drive." So yes, Car Guy on a Bike Podcast. This show is about how we can make bike transportation a reality for people of all ages and abilities. And one thing we can be sure of is that the car industry has figured out how to organize society around cars. As Kevin Mayne, our last guest and the top bike lobbyist in Europe, pointed out, there's a lot we can learn from the car industry. That's why I wanted to have this conversation. I should note that it's also my view that we need to talk to people with whom we disagree.

In “The Martian,” Matt Damon’s character Mark Watney, stranded on Mars, looks at the camera and says soberly, “In the face of overwhelming odds, I’m left with only one option. I’m going to have to science the shit out of this.”Bike infrastructure is a means to an end: making bike transportation a practical reality for millions of people. This is a complex behavior change problem, and to have a shot at being successful, we need an innovation methodology that’s up to the task.Empiricism and the scientific method embody the most powerful approach to innovation ever developed, but they’re collecting dust on the shelf. That needs to change. <a href="https://bikestreets.com/book/science-the-sht-out-of-this" class="sqs-block-button-element--medium sqs-button-element--primary sqs-block-button-element" data-sqsp-button > Read the Chapter <a href="https://bikestreets.com/book/science-the-sht-out-of-this" class="sqs-block-button-element--medium sqs-button-element--primary sqs-block-button-element" data-sqsp-button > Read the Chapter

This is a conversation with Kevin Mayne, who has been described as “the voice of the bicycle industry.” For 14 years, he was CEO of CyclingUK, the largest advocacy group in the UK. In 2012, he became the Director of Development at the European Cyclists’ Federation. And from 2019-2024, he was the Founding CEO of Cycling Industries Europe, CIE, an industry group that represents more than 50 bike companies in Europe. Before becoming the voice of the bike industry, Kevin held senior leadership roles at Cadbury Schweppes, Coca-Cola, and Kraft.

Over the last few decades, there has been a clarion call from voters to make American cities navigable by bike. But despite billions of dollars in investment, no American city has made biking go mainstream, let alone made it a dominant form of transportation. The bike transportation high-water mark in Portland was in 2014. According to the Census Bureau's American Community Survey – a deeply flawed count – 7.2% of Portland residents commuted to work by bike. Notably, this figure only represents people who commute to work, so it’s a subset of the population. It doesn’t mean they rode every day, and it certainly doesn’t mean that 7.2% of all trips were taken by bike. Since 2014, there’s been a precipitous and sustained decline in ridership. The 2024 edition reported more than a 40% decline since 2014.In correlation with growing investment, rates of bike transportation should be increasing. After all, riding a bike is affordable and convenient. More than half of trips in cities are less than three miles – an optimal distance for a bike ride. You can cover this distance in about as much time as it takes to drive a car, you don’t have to hunt for parking, it’s inexpensive, and it’s healthy. <a href="https://bikestreets.com/book/introduction" class="sqs-block-button-element--medium sqs-button-element--primary sqs-block-button-element" data-sqsp-button > Read the Chapter <a href="https://bikestreets.com/book/introduction" class="sqs-block-button-element--medium sqs-button-element--primary sqs-block-button-element" data-sqsp-button > Read the Chapter

Why is bike transportation still not possible for most people in American cities, and how can we make it a reality?Despite decades of voter support for candidates who’ve run on the promise of affordable, healthy active transportation and billions of dollars of investment, bike transportation is still not a practical reality in American cities. On the 2025 Copenhagenize Index, the global ranking of bike-friendly cities, the top American city was Portland, which ranked a paltry number 35 globally.America Thirty-Fifth!Why are we so low? Simple: our cities aren’t bike-friendly. <a href="https://bikestreets.com/book/the-organizing-question" class="sqs-block-button-element--medium sqs-button-element--primary sqs-block-button-element" data-sqsp-button target="_blank" > Read the Chapter <a href="https://bikestreets.com/book/the-organizing-question" class="sqs-block-button-element--medium sqs-button-element--primary sqs-block-button-element" data-sqsp-button target="_blank" > Read the Chapter

This is a conversation with Ruth Oldenziel, an emeritus professor at the Eindhoven University of Technology and an expert on the history of technology. Ruth is the program leader of the Cycling Cities Project, a research initiative to understand what has worked and what hasn't to make bike transportation a reality in cities across the globe. I wanted to talk to Ruth about that research, how some European cities have succeeded and others haven't, and to dispel the notion that the Dutch are genetically predisposed to create bike-friendly cities.

Elizabeth Adams is the Deputy Director of Public Affairs at Transportation Alternatives, the juggernaut advocacy powerhouse in New York City, where she's been involved in everything from bike transportation to bus rapid transit to congestion pricing. What we're here to talk about, however, is something almost absurdly specific: a specific bike facility that I am obsessed with. It's in Brooklyn on Berry Street near the Williamsburg Bridge. I don't know if a podcast episode has ever been devoted to a somewhat nondescript bike facility, but as you'll hear, this is amazing transformational bike infrastructure. It has potential to scale quickly and inexpensively beyond anything else that I have seen anywhere.

As much as anyone I know, Sara Studdard has cracked the nut on how to get cities to move fast in the construction of bike infrastructure. Sara is a partner at City Thread and developed the Accelerated Mobility Playbook, a roadmap that helps cities make big progress on bike and mobility projects in general in 24 to 36 months. Sara has worked with cities like Austin, Providence, Pittsburgh, and Denver to build bike infrastructure at a pace that previously was not imagined to be possible. I want to understand what Sara has learned, what the playbook is all about, and how they get cities to move quickly.

Avi Stopper chats with Mike Lydon, author of "Tactical Urbanism" and one of the 100 most influential urbanists of all time alongside, according to Planetizen. We go deep on tactical urbanism, where’s it’s worked and why it hasn’t become the dominant paradigm in planning. We dive into the challenges cities face implementing this approach from leadership turnover to fatigue, and how a new generation of transportation planners is embracing the promise and experimental spirit of tactical urbanism.

In this kickoff episode of Bike Networks Now, host Avi Stopper chats with Randy Neufeld, one of the founding fathers of bike advocacy in America and former executive director of the Chicagoland Bicycle Federation. Randy brings his trademark energy and unique perspective on why bike transportation remains impractical for most Americans. We talk about the cultural and practical barriers that prevent cycling from going mainstream, from the simple problem of bike locks to the complex challenge of creating comfort in a car-dominated world. Randy shares the inside story of the Green Lane Project, which helped institutionalize protected bike lanes across American cities, and discusses his current work developing "Good For Us"—an initiative to create alternative communities for people seeking to live more active lives. And we discuss conventional planning approaches and applying startup-style innovation and the scientific method to building bike infrastructure. This episode sets the stage for exploring the central question in these conversations: how can cities make bike transportation a practical reality for people of all ages and abilities?