How to Improve Cyclists' Safety from Dangerous Non-Cyclists' Behavior

Summary

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Podcast Summary: "How to Improve Cyclists' Safety from Dangerous Non-Cyclists' Behavior"

Podcast: How To!
Host: Mike Pesca
Guest Experts: Wendy (amateur cyclist and professor), Meredith Glaser (CEO, Urban Cycling Institute; Professor of Cycling, Ghent University)
Date: August 11, 2026

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Overview

This episode explores the ongoing struggle for cyclist safety on American roads, zooming in on how to shift cultures, laws, and communities so cycling becomes safe and normalized. Listener Wendy, an Indiana-based academic and dedicated amateur cyclist, describes her concerns and experiences with aggressive drivers and insufficient infrastructure. She joins Mike and, later, cycling policy expert Meredith Glaser, to dissect what actually works in making roads safer for cyclists and how to rally communities for lasting change. The episode draws heavily on European models—especially the Netherlands and Barcelona—while rooting the advice in achievable community advocacy.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Wendy's Story: Challenges and Realities for Cyclists

• Experiences: Wendy cycles both individually and with her young son, and with local groups, in an Indiana college town surrounded by rural roads. She and her friends have endured dangerous encounters, including aggressive drivers, unsafe passing, and even accidents resulting in permanent cycling injuries.

  • Quote, Wendy [02:06]: “Sometimes I don't think it's necessarily intentional they're driving too close, or... overtly aggressive, like shouting out the window...”

• Local Landscape: The town features a mix of student drivers and rural commuters, producing cultural clashes and inconsistent compliance or understanding of cycling laws.

• Group Safety Practices:

  • Helmet-wearing is compulsory in her group.
  • Visible clothing and lights are strongly encouraged, sometimes legally required.
  • Group communication and adherence to traffic laws is stressed (riding two abreast, signaling, yielding space to cars).

Community and Institutional Responses

• Police Involvement:

  • Some cycling group members are local police; generally supportive but acknowledge lack of real consequences for motorists who endanger cyclists.
  • Quote, Wendy [06:20]: “Car drivers that have hit a cyclist...there really hasn't been any penalty.”

• Potential Solutions Discussed:

  • Adding cycling laws to driver’s tests (but challenging due to state-level regulation).
  • Using signage akin to UK “Think Bike” campaigns.
  • Public messaging campaigns to assert cyclists’ right to the road.

Models of Action: Buckets of Change

Mike proposes three main avenues for change:

1. Changing Laws: Reforming driver education/tests or legal consequences for endangering cyclists—seen as the hardest route.
2. Changing Messaging: Improved signage, public awareness, leveraging authorities for positive messaging and visibility.
3. Sociological Change: Altering perceptions and norms so cyclists are accepted as part of daily street life; building “presence” through events and collective activities.

• Quote, Mike [09:41]: “Norm theory...if you do some of the messaging and if you do some of the laws, maybe some of the hearts and minds will change.”

European Insights with Meredith Glaser

Cultural and Policy Transferability

• Meredith, both an American (from California) and a European cycling expert, emphasizes that while culture and history differ, the fundamental problems and solutions are remarkably similar worldwide.
  • Quote, Meredith [17:58]: “European cities are experiencing the exact same issues that U.S. Cities are experiencing as well.”

Infrastructure Change and Funding

• Infrastructure upgrades typically coincide with routine street renewal, offering ideal moments to push for improved cycling facilities with relatively little extra cost.
• Quote, Meredith [20:19]: “Those are opportune moments when the street is being dug up to rethink how this space is arranged...to incorporate protected bike lanes or different arrangements of the streetscape.”

De-Mythologizing Cycling

• Cycling in the Netherlands is not about “cycling culture”—it's simply ordinary transportation, akin to using a vacuum cleaner. No special clothes or gear needed.
  • Quote, Meredith [22:27]: “We don't want a cycling culture because cycling should be just like vacuum cleaning. We don’t need fancy vacuum cleaning clothes...”

Motonormativity and Trade-offs

• The biggest challenge is societal “motonormativity”—the belief that cars deserve road priority and parking by default.

  • Quote, Meredith [25:16]: “Parking is the trade off for all of these other benefits...we get stuck in what’s called motonormativity. We get stuck in the notion that cars have a special place in society.”

• Removing or reducing parking shouldn’t be seen as a loss, but as an opportunity for broader community benefit—more greenery, playgrounds, and quieter, friendlier streets.

Fresh Tactics: Experiments and Child-Focused Advocacy

Temporary Street Experiments

• “Street experiments” (installing temporary barriers, play areas, pop-up bike lanes) help residents and officials visualize alternative uses for roads.

  • Quote, Meredith [28:10]: “Probably one of the most popular or trending ways to do this is through...temporary adjustments to streets, segments of streets that allow people to reimagine...what it would feel like if it was set up in a different way.”

• Paris, Amsterdam, and Barcelona’s “superblocks” are cited as successful examples—often initiated as temporary trials and then made permanent after positive response.

Child-Led Community Initiatives

• Engage children in advocacy, e.g., via “bike buses”—organized, supervised cycling groups commuting to school, which become local fixtures and help normalize cycling.

• Messaging should sometimes focus less on “cycling” than on healthy kids, vibrant communities, and physical activity, making it less politically fraught.

  • Quote, Meredith [34:18]: “Maybe it’s not around cycling...What if kids rallied around the idea that they should just be able to walk or bike to school?”

• Quote, Meredith [36:23]: “If we could learn lessons from other similar advocacy organizations. For example, in Paris, the main advocacy organization is now hired by the city to vet its designs, and it is a crucial partner in street design.”

Building Inclusive Language

• Avoid “cyclist” as a label; substitute with “people who ride bikes”—the majority of adult cyclists also drive, reinforcing that safe streets benefit everyone.
  • Quote, Wendy [41:29]: “I'm paying a lot of attention to the language that Meredith is using, like people who ride bikes rather than cyclists and just kind of being more inclusive.”

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Mike [09:41]: “Norm theory...maybe some of the hearts and minds will change.”
• Meredith [22:27]: “We don’t need fancy vacuum cleaning clothes…It should just be something, an appliance that you throw into the closet and you take it out when you need it.”
• Wendy [06:20]: “There really hasn’t been any penalty. That’s the general feeling of what’s going on in the community.”
• Meredith [25:16]: “Parking is the trade off for all these other benefits...This sense of motonormativity...is infected in society and we need to confront it and intervene in this system.”
• Meredith [28:10]: “The human imagination is quite weak...if you ask someone how about I take away your parking in front of your house, you’re not going to get a positive response. But if you ask them, what do you miss ... maybe people will say, my kid would really love a playground ...”
• Meredith [41:29]: “We're not closing streets, we're opening streets.”

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Actionable Advice & Next Steps

For Local Advocacy (Wendy’s Context)

• Start small: Reach out to other parents for joint school rides; scale up as interest builds (“bike bus”/“kidical mass”).
• Create events that prioritize inclusivity—walking, scooting, skating, not just cycling.
• Leverage relationships (e.g. police in the cycling group) for safety and legitimacy.
• Use positive, cross-cutting messages: health, freedom, opportunity—not “cycling” per se.
• Video and document your efforts for social media, amplifying impact without legacy media.
• Watch for moments when streets are being rebuilt/renewed—prime opportunities for infrastructure advocacy.
• Avoid or minimize “us vs. them” language; emphasize shared road rights and responsibilities.
• Look into local zoning and land use planning processes—densification enables active transport.

Larger Takeaways

• Massive change is possible with temporary pilots and sustained community buy-in.
• Break out of “cycling culture” stereotypes; make cycling mundane and broadly accessible.
• Political leadership (often female- and parent-led) is powerful in effecting safer, accessible infrastructure for all.
• Cycling policy can (and must) work for car drivers too—most adults do both.

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:30–01:21: The origins of the “cycling shouldn’t be a culture” idea
• 02:06–04:27: Wendy’s account of local dangers and cycling group culture
• 06:11–07:08: Policing, accountability, and lack of driver penalties
• 07:41–09:41: Proposals: driver tests, signage, and public messaging
• 14:45–17:58: Introduction of Meredith Glaser, cycling policy transfer between Europe and America
• 20:19–21:24: Funding and the politics of infrastructure change
• 22:27–27:49: Normalizing cycling, motonormativity, and cultural obstacles
• 28:10–31:23: Street experiments and child-centric advocacy in action
• 33:23–39:49: Coaching Wendy: school drop-off, leveraging partners, impactful messaging
• 41:29–43:44: Steps forward: inclusive events, creative language, “kidical mass,” video/social media strategies
• 43:50–44:49: Framing active transport as freedom and opportunity across the political spectrum

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Final Reflections

The episode emphasizes that making cycling safer is more than a technical or legal challenge—it’s a community, cultural, and political project. Solutions require a shift in mindset, language, and street design, with a special role for parent and child-led advocacy, inclusive outreach, and pragmatic temporary experiments. The road to safer streets starts small but has momentum when strategies are grounded in local realities and universal desires for freedom, health, and connectedness.

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Transcript

[Mike Pesca]

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[Meredith Glaser]

You know that thing that you love? You'll find others geeking out about it on Facebook. Whether you're looking for community or inspiration, Facebook helps turn passion into action. Obsessed with running a marathon? Discover a neighborhood run club group. Start training and meet your new neighbor. Thinking about cooking more at home? Connect with meal prep groups to discover recipes in a new community. And as you're scrolling the feed, you may even find reels showing you top running shoes or the best tools for your culinary journey. Summer. Find more on Facebook we don't want a cycling culture because cycling should be just like vacuum cleaning. We don't need fancy vacuum cleaning clothes. We don't need to wave at other vacuum cleaning people. And it should just be something, an appliance that you throw into the closet and you take it out when you need it.

[Mike Pesca]

Here on how to we sometimes cover life's big huge issues. Who to love, where to work, how to dress. Today an equally huge issue, how to cycle. Do we signal with our left hand when we're going to turn? And we do that thing where we lower our left hand to say we're turning right, even though no one behind us seems to know it? Actually, those aren't the issues. We have other gigantic issues dealing with cycling, the sport of the past, the transportation of the future. So joining me now is the person who put this on my radar.

[Wendy]

Hi, I'm Wendy. I'm an associate professor at a big university now nearby, and I'm an amateur cyclist.

[Mike Pesca]

Wendy, what is your particular cycling, shall we say, issue? Problem? Problatunity?

[Wendy]

So over the last year or two, I've been cycling more and more on the road and also with my young son. And over that time I've also been cycling with a community group as well. And in all of those settings, I've experienced some discomfort on the road with car drivers. Basically. Sometimes I don't think it's necessarily intentional they're driving too close, or sometimes it's overtly aggressive, like shouting out of the window. For me and my Son to get off the road. And in other cases, I've had friends who have had really severe accidents that have actually completely ended their cycling for life. You know, I fear even worse could happen in the future. So there's a lot of things that we can do to make better bikes and cycling safer on the road. But how do we change the culture? How do we make it so that we don't feel this animosity between drivers and cyclists? Especially in where I am, it's in a, a small college town. So we have areas where we have quite heavy.

[Mike Pesca]

If I could just interrupt a small college town because this is exactly what the listeners will be thinking. They hear your accent. Where UK us.

[Wendy]

So I'm in a small college town in the Midwest in the US this

[Mike Pesca]

explains a lot of the aggression, but go ahead.

[Wendy]

Yeah, perhaps we've got the college community. We have students driving, we have people who've learned to drive in different areas of the States or the world driving in a small area. And then we very quickly get out into rural communities. We have single lane country roads and trucks driving and rural communities. We have different cultures in our small area. There are definitely situations out on the roads which are scary and dangerous, people driving very fast and very close. But the situations that have been really dangerous have been, for example, people turning left and a car trying to overtake as a group is turning left. Bearing in mind that we're driving on the right, so we're trying to cross a lane of traffic and then the car behind is trying to swerve around the group as they're turning and actually, and you know, hitting people and things like that.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah. And so your quest for knowledge here, the question of how to is not based on personal safety, it's more based on changing the culture. But that could also be changing the law. But first, let's address the personal safety question. I'm sure you all, you all wear helmets, obey the laws of cycling. What else do you do? And I say this mostly to anticipate the questions that people will have. Well, are they doing everything they can to be safe?

[Wendy]

Are you right? I mean, I think that's a really good point. And we've done some self reflection and you know, a lot of us talk about this as well, especially engaging with like the local police and things as well. So of course all cyclists are different. Right. And we have students cycling around, we have people who are, you know, doing 10,000 miles a year cycling on the road. We have everything in between commuters. So I definitely can't Speak for all of them. But I know the culture within my local road cycling group is absolutely. Helmets are required. Lights and visible clothing like luminous yellow jackets and things are strongly encouraged. I think there's local laws requiring lights at night, from dusk anyway, but even during the day or in rain, lights are encouraged. And then obviously following obeying all the, the traffic laws that apply to bikes on the road. I'd say that. And signaling, communicating with each other as a group, trying to ride closely together as a group. In Indiana, we're allowed to ride two abreast on the road. So trying to keep to that and give space to cars when it's safe to do so.

[Mike Pesca]

So when you talk to the police, maybe they even. Does the police department have bicycle cops? That would be interesting. What do they say?

[Wendy]

So we actually have members of our road cycling club who are police. Some of us kind of have had some informal meetings and invited some of these contacts along. Obviously it's a really small community. Right. So everyone kind of knows each other and I think those individuals are very supportive and, you know, they have to, they support cyclists doing what they can to keep themselves safe and also support, you know, trying to improve road safety. But I feel like that there is an issue in that, in a real life scenario, car drivers that have hit a cyclist or caused an accident, there really hasn't been any penalty. That's the general feeling of what's going on in the community.

[Mike Pesca]

So that's one of the things that you'd like to change. Some actual consequences for dangerous driving. But what else? Repainting roads or establishing bike lanes or some sort of public communication where the drivers can be told that it's not your right of way all the time. And well, don't yell at the cyclist to get off the fucking road. It's their road too. But some other messages to the drivers. Is this what you'd like to see? Or maybe you don't even know what you'd like to see, you just like to see it get better.

[Wendy]

Yeah. So I feel like there's a lot of ideas that come up and it's like, where do you begin? So, for example, some people have brought up the idea that there could be included on the driver's test about laws relating to cyclists on the road.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah, that would seem to be a state level change. Right. So that might be hard. And outside the community.

[Wendy]

Yeah, exactly. I definitely feel like signage. So when I was growing up in England in the kind of 90s, there was a campaign to improve safety on some roads where Motorcyclists had been killed frequently and there were big painted signs on the road that said think bike that pass, you know, under your wheels quickly as you are driving over it. And then big signs saying how many fatalities have been on this road? And again, I feel like some visibility, some kind of backed kind of campaign could be good. But at the same time, I wonder if I don't know what works when there's this animosity, like other things that could actually increase the animosity versus like building bridges and educating people. And that's one question I have, is like, what's an effective approach and how do you choose who you're kind of working with?

[Mike Pesca]

Hopefully two lane bridges with a bike lane. But yeah, it would. It strikes me that it would be a good and convenient thing if there were a model of towns your size. Or it could be towns of maybe any size other than, you know, huge urban centers where you could say, let's take what Shelbyville did and put it here. But do you know of any models like that?

[Wendy]

So I, I do not know about a story about an individual town that would be really great. Like, I've come across a lot of different groups doing amazing things, but none of them are doing it specifically here. Like the, the bike bus movement I think is great. And I think cycling to school is a whole area that I'm also interested in.

[Mike Pesca]

All right, so I'm thinking of a model if there are maybe three buckets. But you tell me if there are other buckets or what do they call them, side saddles that your efforts can go into. One is changing law. That might be the hardest one, like a driver's test two. Or prosecutions. Two is changing messaging with some buy in from the localities, including the police or whatever municipal organizations that you can deal with to put up signs and have the correct messaging. And then three is sociological changing the hearts and minds of motorists. And this may seem impossible, especially if you start with the angriest motorist who yells at you to get off the road. But I think that there is a lot going on with norm theory. And if you do some of the messaging and if you do some of the laws, maybe some of the hearts and minds will change. Is that a decent conceptualization of what you're looking to accomplish?

[Wendy]

I think that is really spot on. The only thing that I. That maybe comes alongside that is building a sense of presence on the road that people feel like cyclists belong. Like the thing of that with the bike bus, like when you see 50 kids cycling on the. So then the community itself is just kind of like being visible and showing itself as like a valid way to travel, a valid way to exist on, on the road. In a way maybe that comes into the social change.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah, it's, it's a little like just general norm theory. And as the norm gets more accepted, the average experience will be that motorists are apt to see bicyclists more often than they did before the norm started taking effect. I think it's all doable, but I'm not exactly sure how to do it. And if I were you, I'd feel a little stranded in my small Indiana town. So coming up next, we go from, well, I like to call it the Indiana of Europe. We go to Amsterdam because if you're going to talk cycling, you got to go to Amsterdam. That's coming up next on how to. I love my Leesa mattress. It is just take a second on it. Just take a second on a Leesa lie down, possibly lay down, depending on your grammar, and you will see the difference of the Leesa mattress. It's the reset button. It's the part that gets you up for a very, very busy day. Genuine rest. Every single night, they have a lineup of beautifully crafted mattresses tailored to how you sleep. I didn't know I did all the math on my Lisa Reserve king size, but it worked out. Maybe I just hoped a little bit or took it from a guy like me talking in an ad, but man, it is luxurious.

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[Meredith Glaser]

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[Mike Pesca]

That's now crispy and McCrispy strips meeting. Creamy Caesar sauce sounds extra crispy. Caesar sauce at McDonald's for a limited time. We're back with how to and we've been talking with Wendy. She and her son love to cycle. She cycles with a group of women who have this crazy desire. These crazy lady cyclists, they don't want to get hit and killed. They also would like not to be yelled at that I might hit and kill you. But, you know, both those things could go together. Or can they? Is this just a pipe dream? Well, joining us now is someone with answers, practical answers.

[Meredith Glaser]

I'm Meredith Glaser. I'm CEO of Urban Cycling Institute, a nonprofit based in Amsterdam. And I'm also professor of cycling at Ghent University.

[Mike Pesca]

So first I got to start off with this. You're a professor of cycling. Is there such a position in the United States and does it include chafing of the thighs?

[Meredith Glaser]

There is not, to my knowledge, the same exact title. However, there are many very high ranking esteemed scholars who are also studying cycling and the built environment and mobility in the U.S. and of course, beyond.

[Mike Pesca]

Is it more the case that in the Netherlands you could just come out and say professor of cycling, and no one's going to question your grant or position?

[Meredith Glaser]

Well, funny enough, I actually have two appointments. I am a professor at University of Amsterdam, but I also have an appointment and the professorship of cycling is at Ghent University in Belgium. And this is in Flanders, where there is a very, very high rates of cycling in Flem cities. And the Ministry of Mobility and Public Works actually installed this chair of cycling to activate channels of interdisciplinary research and advice to the ministry about how to increase cycling even more. And we're not talking about recreation. We're talking about as a daily mode of transportation. Exactly what Wendy is talking about. Going with your kids to cycle school, going to the grocery store.

[Mike Pesca]

Is it the Eddie Merckx Chair of Cycling, the greatest Belgian cyclist of all time?

[Meredith Glaser]

I do not consider myself a cyclist. I do not consider myself a pedestrian. I consider myself a person who rides a bike and walks and takes transit and sometimes rents a car.

[Mike Pesca]

That's right. Some days you might see Meredith walking and you might think she has legs. And some days you might see her biking. You might say she has wheels.

[Meredith Glaser]

Exactly.

[Mike Pesca]

She contains multitudes.

[Meredith Glaser]

Exactly. I am not just, you know, some sort of particle that engineers have named. I am actually a human.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah. Is it? Now, this is weird. And my mind is being scrambled because our American comes from Europe, but sounds like our European comes from America.

[Meredith Glaser]

You got me. You got me. I am

[Mike Pesca]

so where are you from, by the way?

[Meredith Glaser]

I am from California.

[Mike Pesca]

Okay.

[Meredith Glaser]

And I went to UC Davis, one of the greatest bicycle towns in the U.S. and then I also went to UC Berkeley, another great bicycle town. And I moved to the Netherlands 15 years ago.

[Mike Pesca]

Yes. So is it almost too easy to look to Europe as a model? Because the challenges of Europe just are so different from the challenges of America, not only in terms of culture, but in terms of car size, in terms of history. Just allay my worries. Or again, I'm channeling a listener saying, why should we talk to this person who's talking to us from cycling nirvana? How can they possibly understand Indiana, which is not so?

[Meredith Glaser]

In fact, my specialty is policy transfer, which is how ideas and programs and policies move from one place to another. My PhD was specifically on the topic of cycling policy. And I actually used US cases, US cities like New Orleans and Austin, Texas, as cases to study how officials and policymakers and urban planners go to other places like in Europe. How do they learn from these places and what do they do to take back? So you're talking to the right person. And it's not just, yes, okay, culture is different, right? History is different, sure. But actually, Europe and European cities are experiencing the exact same issues that US Cities are experiencing as well. We have to involve streets, right? Because that's inevitably what we are talking about. We are talking about changing the way streets are organized, how they are arranged, how the space allocation is determined. This means that there's a whole bunch of other players at the table. Fire departments, police communities, actually residents, the business community, who is at the table, who these stakeholders are, and how they can build coalitions around common visions and common ideas is a huge challenge. Actually, going to a place like the Netherlands, where actually Amsterdam used to be extraordinarily choked with cars. Right? And same with Utrecht, and you know, all these Dutch cities and many cities in Paris, for instance. Right. So when learning about how to make these changes, it's very convenient when all the right people are around the table.

[Mike Pesca]

So I would imagine that depending on the politics of the place, it's easier to get buy in on initiatives that don't cost money versus ones that do. Like changing the entire structure of a street. I'd also further imagine that it's maybe more difficult in the United States to allocate funds for these purposes, since the United States is a lower tax country than the two that you work in. But are my assumptions correct?

[Meredith Glaser]

So funding, of course, is an issue. However, we all know that streets and all the utilities and sewage that lies underneath them, that it needs renewal every couple decades, right? So those are opportune moments when the street is being dug up to rethink how this space is arranged. And that's oftentimes the most crucial moment when city officials can come together and say, okay, we are actually going to change the allocation of these streets. We are going to incorporate, you know, protected bike lanes or different arrangements of the streetscape in order to allow for people, not necessarily car drivers, to move and to experience the public realm. Right? So it's not just a matter of, you know, funding coming in and ripping up roads and billions and billions of dollars of infrastructure improvements. It also can be quite piecemeal that there is one corridor, one section of street being, being, you know, upgraded, I would imagine.

[Mike Pesca]

Well, you tell me the statistics. More people are biking and politicians see more of an upside to sell these healthy street initiatives. And if your constituents want safer biking opportunities, it is incumbent on an incumbent or a challenger to endorse that. Is that the general trend everywhere?

[Meredith Glaser]

Not everywhere. You know, it turns out that as Wendy was alluding to earlier, that for some reason, cycling has very specific ideologies attached to it. It is associated with, you know, the crazy radical left wing. It is associated with people who are, you know, crunchy granola, right? It's associated with, like, hippies. When actually, if you go to a place like the Netherlands, I don't know how many of your listeners have been to a place like Amsterdam or Ghent or even Paris days, you will see people cycling, you know, without a helmet, just with their daily groceries, going to the pharmacy, going to the doctor leisurely on an upright bicycle, almost elegantly. There's no high vis, there's no lycra, there's no race bikes. It's basically a person going much quicker than walking, but on a bicycle, right? And my dear friend Michael Koval Anderson would say something like, we don't have a cycling culture. Actually, we don't want a cycling culture because cycling should be just like vacuum cleaning, right? We don't need fancy vacuum cleaning clothes. We don't need to wave at other vacuum cleaning people, and we don't need to go to special cafes to show off our vacuum cleaner, right? It should just be something, an appliance that you throw into the, you know, into the closet and you take it out when you need it. And of course, yeah, that's a major culture shift. But there are cities where the political landscape has shifted and suddenly because of that political shift, now cycling is completely off the agenda. And Germany is a great example of this. Berlin has had a renaissance of cycling in the past 20 years. And as soon as conservative parties entered, they literally ripped out bike lanes.

[Mike Pesca]

By the way, I do vacuum with a helmet, but I'm just very bad at it. Okay, so in your worldview, cycling is a win, win. You could pitch it to municipalities or the people who could change the rules and try to impress upon them how it helps. So many things like limiting death, helping constituents, the environment, and the exercise and health of the people. But there are trade offs. And one of the big ones is. But you tell me if I'm wrong about this, whenever they install bike lanes, they take away parking. To some extent, bicycling is the enemy, not even of car culture, they can coexist, but of cars being guaranteed a free place to park on the side of the road. Is that accurate?

[Meredith Glaser]

I would say not entirely. There are fantastic robust studies showing that not only the removal of parking, but redesigning streets to be much more human scaled, human friendly, safe, quiet. That also means, yes, there is more space for cycling, bicycle parking, but also for greenery, for a small playground or something, that these types of benefits are huge in economic return.

[Mike Pesca]

Right, and, but sorry to interrupt, but it is still a trade off. You're saying the trade off is absolutely worth it, but in general it's a trade off.

[Meredith Glaser]

Parking is the trade off for all of these other benefits could be. I don't think they're comparative. Okay, but you know, considering the space of a car. Right. And maybe we have to go back to this idea, which Wendy was also alluding to, that as a society, we get stuck in what's called motonormativity. We get stuck in the notion that cars have a special place in society and therefore there's a moral obligation to kind of serve them. We would never place our couch in a parking spot for multiple days, but we place our car there. So this, this sense of motonormativity, that the car is sort of the status quo, is infected in society and we need to also deal with this and confront it and intervene in this system.

[Mike Pesca]

Yes. So as a critique, I would say the vacuum cleaner analogy, to use a living room item, is excellent. The couch one less so. I mean, there's a lot of downsides to sitting on the couch in a parking space.

[Meredith Glaser]

Of course, it's just to illustrate these classic assumptions, even about cycling. Safety of wear brighter clothes, wear a helmet. Cyclists need to follow the rules better. Well, we don't say this to car drivers. We don't say this to the car industry that you need to. There's no black cars allowed anymore because they're too tough to see at night. The car lobby is extremely powerful. But, you know, the same thing that happened to cigarettes, you know, years ago now, decades ago now, where they have to cover, you know, a certain percentage of the package with health concerns and pretty horrible images. You know, maybe we should do that to cars to really show, you know, the systemic and negative externalities that are associated with car driving and making space for cars. Right. Because we are also still doing that as a collective society. We are still making space. We are still building more highways. We are still giving the car industry tools and access to society writ large. We shouldn't be talking about accidents. It's not an accident anymore. When 100Americans are killed every day on our roads, that is a systematic public health crisis.

[Mike Pesca]

A foreseeable. We shouldn't call them accidents. Right? We should call them foreseeables. So in a minute, you and Wendy will talk. I swear it. But before you hear her specific situation, I want to know, in general, what's the best way to change the minds of people who still need convincing to allow for more biking in their towns or cities?

[Meredith Glaser]

Probably one of the most popular or kind of trending ways to do this is through what are called street experiments. So these are kind of temporary adjustments to streets, segments of streets that allow people to reimagine in real time what it would feel like if it was set up in a different way. And these are very powerful because the human imagination is quite weak. Right. If we. If you ask somebody, how about I take away your parking in front of your house? Yeah. You're not going to get a positive response. But if you ask them, what do you miss? What do you miss about the street outside your home? Maybe people will say, my kid would really love a playground or yeah, but a bench and some more trees. Well, if we start from the position of that. If we start from the position that children should be able to walk or bike to school again, Right. If elderly should be able to access safe public spaces, we should be able to have a conversation on the street without having to yell. We should be able to access health care, education, and employment, the things that we need. And when we are only providing that space for people who have the privilege of owning a car, we're limiting accessibility, we're limiting access to opportunity. So being able to reimagine this space is a very powerful tool for. For change.

[Mike Pesca]

When Paris became a biking city, was this how they did it.

[Meredith Glaser]

Amsterdam too, not that long ago, 10 years ago, Amsterdam also had these sort of experiments that were temporary in nature and it allowed the politicians, who at the time were a little bit right of center, it allowed them to say, okay, we're going to do this for two weeks and if it doesn't work, we can take it out. And that's exactly what happened in Paris as well with many of the school streets. So there's now over 300 school streets in Paris, which is a segment of the street that's around a school that basically has transformed. They limit car traffic and instead they put planter boxes, they put playground equipment, they put greenery and grass and trees to just see, hey, what would this be like? And it doesn't have to cost a fortune. Barcelona is another city that did this with their superblock model about 10 years ago as well. This is a way to very quick, light and cheap create change and also engage the community about it. Because you can't just do it from the top down. You can't just say, okay, here's an, an experiment. We're going to colonize this, this city street. Right? That's a horrible approach. It should come from the community. And many of those healthy streets or safe, slow streets that came out in Covid did this. Exactly. They had the community residents organize around it to have that buy in. And that was a really important measure to do.

[Mike Pesca]

All right, in a second we will have Meredith and Wendy talk to each other and they'll be able to hear each other because there are no big cars driving by. In a moment. When we return to how to,

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[Mike Pesca]

The snack wrap plus Caesar sauce equals extra crispy chicken Caesary greatness. Sounds delicious. Caesar sauce at McDonald's for a limited time. We're back with how to. We have Wendy who just wants to bike, just wants to bike freely, wants to, has this crazy goal of not getting hit. And we also have our professor with us, Meredith, who has been talking about great successes in Europe, successes in the United States. It might depend on some amount of reimagining. And part of that reimagining apparently is your couch gets a parking spot. I'm not really sure about that portion, but Wendy, can you talk To Meredith. You have heard what she's been saying. For my sake, ask her. Do you have to go so far as to what Barcelona and Paris did just to help the safety of your mom biking unit?

[Wendy]

Yeah, I mean, I can paint a picture for you. I don't know if you've traveled to this area of the world, but my son's school was recently rebuilt. It's a thousand people in that school, elementary school. And it sits on the corner between a. It's a wide road, two lanes, and the speed limit is at 20 miles an hour. During like school drop off, there's a nice wide lane for cycling and walking and so on. So you can technically. Well, actually it's not true. For the last year or two we haven't been allowed to walk or cycle to school because they have been finishing off the construction. So finishing off like all of the stuff that gets built on the outside of the school, the parking and so on. Which is really interesting for me to see that the priorities, the idea that one of these roads would be made pedestrianized or closed to traffic is just so mind boggling. Where would I start?

[Meredith Glaser]

Yeah, I can imagine. And especially in a smaller rural town, I'm sure everyone knows each other. The vibes are much different than in a large metropolis. Of course, I think in terms of like community organizing, there are a lot of opportunities to come together around a vision. And maybe this sounds controversial, but maybe it's not around cycling. Maybe the word bicycle doesn't even need to be in it. And there's a lot of movement right now around involving children and youth in public planning processes. So what if it came from the kids? You know, there's probably a student assembly at the school. There's probably a parent committee as well. What if kids rallied around the idea that they should just be able to walk or bike to school? Right.

[Mike Pesca]

I got one for you. Let's add on to this. The child led initiative for healthy biking, healthy transport. Louisiana has the fourth highest rates of adult obesity and fourth highest rates of childhood obesity. Fifth if you include Guam. I'm just talking about the states so you can message on that. And it's very hard for even people who love their cars to say, no, we want to prevent the kids from fighting childhood obesity if they want to fight it.

[Meredith Glaser]

Yeah, that's also a great idea is the position and framing around health, around physical activity. You know, American kids aren't getting enough physical activity. American adults are not getting enough physical activity. Biking to work, you know, biking to the doctor or dentist or Wherever you need to go is a fantastic form of physical activity. And you're just doing your daily things, Right?

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah. And they're not on their phones while doing it. That's another touch point that people are worried about. The kids. You leverage the children. You do it through the children.

[Meredith Glaser]

Yes. Doing a visual also through your community group, because there's already an organization around that. Right. So if you were to also leverage that group and if we could learn lessons from other similar advocacy organizations. For example, in Paris, the main advocacy organization is now hired by the city to vet its designs, and it is a crucial partner in street design. So why not partner with the city and say, we are a real partner here. We have access to community members, your constituents. We have access to their perspectives. We can gather data. Right. And to me, if I were hearing this, I would be like, oh, God, this is one more thing to add to my to do list. I already work full time. I have kids. I have, you know, family. And now. Now you're telling me I have one more thing to do. I would, like, hate myself right now. But put it on the others. Right. Like, this can't just be you. And it's not just you. You have this community, and it can grow. And. And I think what's needed is leadership around it. And when women lead, it's a very powerful movement.

[Mike Pesca]

What do you think, Wendy?

[Wendy]

Well, I really love the idea of making it more inclusive. And I like the idea of, you know, scoot, walk, run, like skateboard, What? It doesn't matter, really, because the goal is not to become a cyclist, like you say. The goal is to be in community, outside moving, and like, to not be in our cars, I guess. I think I can see that working maybe for the school environment. I don't know just how logistically to put the kids at the front of that.

[Mike Pesca]

Oh, there's a long history of turning your children into propaganda tools.

[Wendy]

I can use my son, but.

[Meredith Glaser]

Yeah, but that's where it starts, right? I mean, I think that's also how the BC booths in Barcelona started. The bike bus in Barcelona, it was a couple parents and their kids. And then it expanded very quickly beyond that, and now it's more of an institutionalized process. They have their own little signs in public space. Space of, this is where the BC boost starts. And like you said, it's not all the kids just on bikes. Some kids join a few blocks down, and they're on their scooters. Some kids are in their jogging clothes, and they jog to school. And it's freedom for the parents as well, which is so exciting to hear. I mean, I have volunteered for the BZ boost a few times when I've been working in Barcelona, and it fills my heart with so much joy. Thank you. To be in this swarm of love and kids. 100 kids. 100 kids. And it is, it's really amazing. They, and they did not get a lot of support from schools. They just did it on their own.

[Mike Pesca]

And also, I would say 20 years ago, you'd want to get a local newspaper, maybe TV station to buy in. Now, that's unnecessary. You could really leverage social media and tag other members of the community. And that's a way to get the word out. So, Meredith, any other advice for Wendy? Maybe you can find out when the next street is scheduled to be ripped up or what are the best way to coordinate efforts around the police, other important stakeholders.

[Meredith Glaser]

You know, I wrote down in my notes here that you have, you know, police officials who are in your cycling group. That is a fabulous connection. Definitely something to leverage in the case of, of developing a BC bus or a sort of street experiment. These are members of the community and enforcement community who can be allies. Cycling is also connected to so many different things. Land use, particularly how the buildings of the built environment are used and programmed. Where our schools are, where employment centers are, and more compact use is better for cycling and walking. So, you know, when zoning plans come out and land use plans come out, this is the best time to say, hey, we need more densification, even in the rural areas. Right? We need things that are closer together because those proximities allow people to walk and to cycle and to potentially leave their cars at home. Now, in your environment, the other thing I also wanted to mention was that it's highly likely that every single cyclist or person on a bike is also a car driver and car owner. Right? So all of these policies are meant for everyone. But.

[Mike Pesca]

So you're saying they're hypocrites and they need to repent.

[Meredith Glaser]

But that's something in the Netherlands that's also very special, is that most car drivers are also cyclists. So there is this symbiotic relationship and knowledge of I know what you're, I know what you're going through. I know how cycling is. You know, I know how it works. We're not closing streets, we're opening streets. Right.

[Wendy]

This is giving me so many ideas. I'm paying a lot of attention to the language that Meredith is using, like people who ride bikes rather than cyclists and just kind of being More inclusive. And I think I'll try and pay attention to that.

[Mike Pesca]

Sure. Wendy, tell me the very next thing you think you are going to do. And Meredith, assess if that's to your mind, the right next step.

[Wendy]

So I'm a little bit in two minds and this is probably my own insecurity, but I. Part of me just wants to reach out and see if I can find another parent who would cycle to school with me and my kid and just start it from the very ground up. The other part of me is like, should we aim bigger and see if the school will support something more organized that we can advertise? And I guess I'm just fearful in case I get a no or something because last year I asked. We showed up intending to cycle to school and they said, no, you're not allowed. And I was kind of stunned by that, you know.

[Meredith Glaser]

And you also have to assess like what you can personally do. Right. Life is very full. Maybe I would add to that at your next meeting with your cycling group to just share about this conversation. Do we want to have a community ride? If you guys don't already do that. A kidical mass has been something also becoming popular instead of critical mass. A kidical mass. So kids, just a lot of kids cycling and taking up the whole street, which is so fantastic. You have police who are already in your circle. Maybe they can just be involved as like bystanders in uniform riding along with you. That would be a very powerful show.

[Wendy]

And I like this idea of the kidical mess, like a one off event. Maybe it's not too overwhelming.

[Meredith Glaser]

Yeah.

[Mike Pesca]

And Wendy, I would say the first time you invite another mom and her kid to bike with you, video it. Not while you're biking, but then the next time when it's four of you and then eventually it'll be 100 of you and I'll make a great Instagram reels, which is I think the only reality that we're ever going to know pretty soon.

[Wendy]

I love that. Yeah, maybe I'll just have to get sucked into Instagram. Yeah.

[Meredith Glaser]

You know, we recently led a group of, well, fairly conservative folks from Arkansas. We went to Germany and Switzerland and rode a lot of bikes, talked about cycling policy. And one of the core messages that really resonated with especially the conservative folks was opportunity, freedom, you know, the choice that people have, people being able and kids being able to make the choice to bike to school. And in order to do that, we need safe streets. It really doesn't matter your political background. You can still, you know, have the freedom and the choice to, to move in a way that you want your body to move. And I think that's very patriotic sounding and very American. Right? But the big caveat being we need safer streets in order to make those choices real.

[Mike Pesca]

All right. Meredith Glaser is the CEO of the Urban Cycling Institute, a nonprofit based in Amsterdam, and professor of cycling at Ghent University in Belgium. Meredith, thank you so much.

[Meredith Glaser]

Thank you. Pleasure to be here.

[Mike Pesca]

And Wendy, our Brit turn Hoosier just wants two wheels, the open road, and also not to get hit. Thank you so much, Wendy.

[Wendy]

Thank you. Thank you both so much.

[Mike Pesca]

And that is it for the show. If you like what you heard today, please give us a rating. Please give us a review. Apple podcast, Good place for reviews. We do need your questions. Email [e-mail] today on the Gist. We have back to back interviews this week and next with the different main organizers of the Amazon strike.

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[Mike Pesca]

How to is produced by Jeff Craig and Cory War and Michelle Pesca puts the can do and how to. Charles Duhigg founded the show and then he founded a religion centered around the worship of six year olds. Here is a description of the theological

[Meredith Glaser]

liturgy service in this swarm of love and kids. 100 kids.

[Mike Pesca]

We here at how to are on a crusade, a children's crusade perhaps to bring you answers and sustenance. I'm Mike Pesca back every week answering your questions of how to.

[Ad Voice]

That's the sound of Lego Pikachu training for B. That's the sound of Lego Pikachu enjoying a post training snack. And that's a reminder to not let Lego Pokemon in the recording studio. Lego Smart brick brings Lego Pokemon play to life. Lego Pokemon with smart play. You're the trainer now.

[Mike Pesca]

The snack wrap plus Caesar sauce equals extra crispy chicken Caesary greatness sounds delicious. Caesar sauce at McDonald's for a limited time.