Bicycle City: Riding the Bike Boom to a Brighter Future

“Bicycle City” is a book about how bikes can serve as “intermediaries” in helping cities move from car-created sprawl toward something more desirable: walkable, transit-oriented, “people-centric” communities. Good news, the author says: Thanks to innovations like e-bikes and cargo bikes, the transition can be fairly rapid.

Dan Piatkowski is an American-born professor of urban planning who teaches at a university in Oslo, Norway.

The big ideas for Urban Atlanta:

1. Bicycles and other forms of “micromobility” can play a role as a bridge to better cities in the Atlanta area. In fact, we’re already seeing this in Atlanta and in suburban and exurban cities.
2. Infrastructure is the key. The more bike lanes and trails we build, the more cyclists we will see. But we must choose where to build this infrastructure wisely.
3. We need to reimagine what mobility is. Bicycles, and in particular cargo bikes, could have many uses. One example: They could become the urban delivery vehicles of the future.
4. This is not a “war on cars.” It’s an effort to build better cities by offering more choices. Cycling and micromobility have an additional benefit: By getting people out of cars, they build an appreciation of cities. You notice things on two wheels that you do not on four.
5. We must deal with cycling’s image problem, which is that cycling is for affluent urban people. Good first step: a rebate program for bikes, with greater assistance for low-income riders.