Women Changing Cities: A Conversation with Melissa Bruntlett

Melissa Bruntlett is a Canadian-born cycling advocate, author, and communications consultant based in Delft, the Netherlands, and co-author of Building the Cycling City, Curbing Traffic, and her latest book, Women Changing Cities: Global Stories of Urban Transformation.

In this episode, Melissa joins Peter Ladner to talk about what it takes to build livable, human-scaled cities — and why the leaders driving that change are so often women. She reflects on her recent return to Vancouver after six years away, what's changed (and stalled) in the city's cycling network, and how Alberta and Ontario's moves to rip out bike lanes fit into a broader pattern of politicized backlash against active transportation.

In this episode, Peter and Melissa cover:

• Why women in leadership tend to prioritize safety, care, and access — and how that reshapes city-building
• The case for school streets as one of the most persuasive starting points for active transportation advocacy
• How the Netherlands went from car-choked streets to a cycling nation, sparked by the Stop de Kindermoord movement of the 1970s
• What traffic gardens are, and how cities like Tirana are using them to build the next generation of confident cyclists
• Why raising kids in a place built for independent mobility — walking, cycling, safe streets — changes childhood itself
• The role of storytelling in building political will for active transportation, complete streets, and traffic calming

Transcript

Welcome And Guest Introduction

Peter Ladner 0:04

My guest today is an internationally renowned Canadian activist, author, and consultant of Alyssa Brockley. She's based in the Netherlands, where she lives with her business partner, Chris. We're going to talk about her international perspective on making cities more livable, especially through expanded transportation options, why women leaders are different, what she noticed on her recent return visit to Vancouver after being away for six years, and how we should react to Alberta and Ontario's plans to rip out bike lanes. Welcome, Melissa.

Melissa Bruntlett 1:05

Hi, Peter. Very happy to be joining you from the other side of the world almost.

Peter Ladner 1:12

You're in Delft, but you grew up in Vancouver. Is that right?

Melissa Bruntlett 1:16

I actually grew up in Ontario. Oh, okay. Um yeah.

Peter Ladner 1:20

So but you were living in Vancouver before you moved to Delft.

Melissa Bruntlett 1:23

Exactly, yeah. So Chris and I decided uh to move to Vancouver in 2007 with our then one-year-old daughter for work. Chris was offered a great job, and so we took the opportunity to yeah, move out west and yeah, loved it uh and stayed for 12 years until something else came along.

Peter Ladner 1:45

Which drew you to move to Delft in the Netherlands?

Melissa Bruntlett 1:48

Yeah, so in 2016, after being cycling advocates in Vancouver for, yeah, at that time probably six years or so, um, we had been talking so much about how uh the cycling world here is something that we should be trying to look to for inspiration in Vancouver. And we felt that if we were going to do that authentically, we should come and visit. So we spent five glorious weeks here with the kids who were seven and nine at that time. Uh, and that became the basis for our first book, Building the Cycling City, the Dutch Blueprint for Urban Vitality. And then through that process of interviewing 40 experts around the world, a lot of them based here in the Netherlands, managed to convince two organizations to give a shot on two Canadians uh and hire us and bring us over. So I worked for a consultancy, a Dutch Canadian consultancy called MobyCon. And Chris took a job with the Dutch Cycling Embassy, which is where he still is today.

Peter Ladner 2:45

What project are you working on right now?

Melissa Bruntlett 2:47

Yeah, right now it's sort of um I'm kind of getting back to my roots a little bit. So after working as a consultant uh on various active mobility projects, both here in Europe and in Canada and the US, I decided a year and a half ago to create my own consultancy, Modacity Creative, uh, because I never really felt like I fit into a box

Why Delft And The Dutch Model

Melissa Bruntlett 3:10

because I focus so much on the communications and storytelling side of things. And so that's now what I'm doing again is going back to that, yeah, that idea of helping organizations, public-private NGOs, figure out who it is they're trying to communicate with, um, what are the messages that they need to communicate to help to build that buy-in that we know is so important for uh creating behavior change and building political will for active travel, uh, and then also helping to create that content as well. So everything from the photos that we share online to creating videos with organizations, creating communications campaigns and using my passion as an advocate to pay the bills, but also to be able to help uh organizations uh that are, you know, we still find that we're struggling to convince people. And so I hope I'm helping organizations to find that success and slowly, maybe a little bit faster, start to change hearts and minds.

Peter Ladner 4:07

Tell me about your latest bike ride.

Melissa Bruntlett 4:09

My latest bike ride. Oh, what was it? It was yesterday. Um, I don't cycle every day if I don't have to. We're like walking distance from the city center. So we spend a lot of time walking, but it was just a purpose trip. I I had to go and pick something up from a pickup point. A parcel wasn't delivered to our door. Um, and I was like, oh, I could walk it, but then I have to get back quickly. And so that was that was really just it was a very boring bike ride, but a very utilitarian one. It seems boring to me now, but if you go back to when I was living in Vancouver, it was just as simple as hopping on my bike, following the bike paths to the pickup point, grabbing my parcel, throwing it in my penier, and coming home. Uh, and something that would have been a lot of a much different experience when I was living in East Vancouver. So yeah, I guess it's boring, but also important.

Peter Ladner 4:59

What kind of bike do you ride?

Melissa Bruntlett 5:00

I ride a traditional Dutch upright bike. It looks like this one. But that was my bike in Vancouver.

Peter Ladner 5:06

You're pointing in the background. We're not we're not doing video here, but and so it is it's how many gears does it have?

Melissa Bruntlett 5:12

It has three.

Peter Ladner 5:13

Three gears?

Melissa Bruntlett 5:14

Which I don't use.

Peter Ladner 5:15

You just stay on the middle gear?

Melissa Bruntlett 5:17

Pretty much, unless I'm going up a particularly challenging bridge in the city center, but Dulft is very flat.

Peter Ladner 5:23

Or big wind. Is that also something?

Melissa Bruntlett 5:26

Or big wind, exactly. Yes. Uh the Dutch Mountains, as we call them.

Peter Ladner 5:43

Uh, you came back here to promote your latest book, uh Women Changing Cities, Global Stories of Urban Transformation. And you had been away for a number of years, and I know this is somewhat Vancouver specific, but what did you notice in Vancouver that's different now compared to when you were here before?

Melissa Bruntlett 6:03

I mean, there's been, we've been watching along and seeing some of the changes along the way. I think um, yeah, riding along Beach Avenue was definitely different. I don't remember it being that that I mean, I was riding on the seawall, which is not where you ride anymore when you're cycling. That was one thing I remember seeing uh when we were there. And um, yeah, just little like there's little changes here and there. I think the one thing I think Chris were Chris and I were a bit disappointed, it's not the right word, but we had hoped that you know, all of that momentum that Vancouver had in the late 2000s and the 2010s would keep going and and there would be even more of a cycling network, not just in downtown. Downtown has done a lot of great work, but in the neighborhoods. Yeah, it would have been nice to see a little bit more, but it was still so wonderful to get on a bike and and you know, be in the trees, alone Stanley Park and the seawall, and also

Storytelling That Builds Political Will

Melissa Bruntlett 6:55

just riding through East Vancouver again and sort of going back down memory lane to a time when our kids were, you know, not teenagers and not getting ready to move out and all of those things. So it was emotional and and nice to reconnect.

Peter Ladner 7:09

Well, you you you said that we've we seem to have lost momentum here in Vancouver, but Alberta is about to introduce, well, they've just introduced in, I think it's in Edmonton, a bicycle complaint hotline where if you don't like bike lanes, you can you can enter some website where all your options start to complain more and more, not say, oh yeah, actually I don't mind the bike lanes. What's your perception of how things have changed, both in Canada and you've go all over the world in other places? And and maybe there are this is just an exception, or is this something that's happening in lots of places?

Melissa Bruntlett 7:44

I don't want to say it's hyper-located or hyper-focused in North America, in the US, and Canada, but it is where I'm hearing a lot more of this extreme politicization of cycling. Um, we saw it a little bit in the UK, and I think it's there's still remnants, but now they're focused on other things. So thankfully it's flying under the radar a little. But it's it's troubling because especially, you know, I'm I'm from Ontario originally. I grew up in in Kitchener. And part of what I say when I'm doing this work is all I hope is that my nieces and nephew that still live there one day can be able to cycle to school safely, and that's what we're working for. And then to hear that in Ontario and now Alberta as well, that they're basically banning the use of cycle lanes and any sort of policy, no money's going towards it, it's it's really troubling because it goes against everything we work for, obviously, but it forgets that not everybody can drive and it operates under this assumption that everyone can own a car, can drive a car, can afford a car. Uh, and you know, notwithstanding, you know, the fact that children can't drive until they're 16 in Canada, uh, and then older adults are aging out of being able to drive safely, if we're only looking at people of driving age, there's still a vast number of people for whom driving is just not an option. And we see in places that are investing in cycling, like here in the Netherlands, but also we see it in Paris and in other European cities like Brussels, where they're, you know, when they invest in these bike lanes, they're actually giving more access to people to keep cycling or cycle while young or cycle while old, cycle with disabilities. It's very myopic to just, you know, only focus on this cars versus bikes. Um, and yeah, I really hope that this is just a blip uh and things will change. Yeah, we've got to get away from this idea that bikes are for the liberal left-wing, whatever, and cars are for everybody else, and we all just need to sit down and shut up. Bikes and walking can be for everybody.

Peter Ladner 9:48

We had a uh interview with Roy Simons, a consultant here in Vancouver, and he said that it's just a practical thing. We will not have any choice because we can't widen the roads and fit more cars in most places. It's very, very hard to widen a road, especially when there's houses and buildings around it. So we're somehow gonna have to figure out a way to build it all in. Now, you you mentioned schools. You've done a lot of work with uh school streets. Why are school streets important? And I'm gonna spoiler, I'm I think they're they're important because it's very hard to argue against safety for kids. And if you start with that, you can build from there. Is is that actually the case? And how do you make that happen?

Melissa Bruntlett 10:32

I think it's one of the ingredients, so to speak, and in the recipe of what is a good diverse transport system. Um, but in a lot of places where they're like, well, where do we get started? We have so much pushback about bike lanes in downtowns or economic centers. What do we do? It's often the best place to start are the school streets and getting kids to and from school by walking or cycling. Because as you said, Peter, it's really difficult for people to say, well, no, we don't want to invest in kids' safety. I think some people, when they think of school streets, think it's, you know, we're closing it off completely to cars, and that's the only way to do them, like they've done in Paris, which are beautiful, but not everyone can do it like that. And so sometimes you can have more temporary measures. There's all sorts of ways to do it, but it's really just about trying to remind a community around a school and the school community itself that these are places for children to learn, for them to create social connection with people, to meet people outside of their proverbial bubble. And if they're just arriving to and from in cars, then they're completely sheltered. Uh, and that that exposure is very much limited to the classroom or the playground, and they lose that those opportunities. But it also becomes these uh opportunities for the community to have social connection. And so that's usually the case I try to make is not only are we creating a safer environment for children, um, we're also creating a safer environment for the community as well. Maybe that's not the argument that's going to convince people, but if you can tap into that, you know, remember when you were a child and you walked to school, what did that feel like? And how can we give that back to this generation where we're busy saying, well, they spend too much time inside

Vancouver Changes And Lost Momentum

Melissa Bruntlett 12:10

and they're not social enough and they don't get outdoors? Well, we've designed it out of our streets, and we basically need to design it back in to give them that right back.

Peter Ladner 12:18

Well, going back to our previous discussion about closing off streets, I I like the re-purpose, the re different story of instead of saying we've closed off the streets, you say we've opened up the street to all these other possibilities. You made a statement when you were in Vancouver. I went to one of your talks about your book, where you said that um something to the effect that women leaders make better cities or something like that.

Melissa Bruntlett 12:42

Controversial statement, yeah, I thought.

Peter Ladner 12:44

But I I I when I was starting to try to figure this out, I I thought, well, you could say uh uh my guess would be that um women, for example, are somewhat more connected to kids in their safety than typical, if I can call them that fathers. Um is that one element of why you think that women are changing cities in in great ways and why we should somehow work harder to get more women involved?

Melissa Bruntlett 13:10

At the the very base of it, it is that you know women have different experiences, and those experiences influence how they approach their work. Um and we touched on that in the second book in curbing traffic. We had a chapter around the women's experience, uh, my experience moving here versus my experiences cycling around in Vancouver and in Ontario when I'm growing up. Yeah, at the beginning of you know, coming up with this third book, Women Changing Cities, it really was trying to unpack why were cities like Barcelona, Paris, Sydney, Montreal, um, Bogota, why were they standing out in terms of forging ahead at a time when we are seeing this big divide or a lot of pushback against uh traffic calm public spaces? And it they were being led by women, there had to be something to that. And so digging into that, it it does come down to, yeah, again, this idea that women predominantly are the ones that perform the care roles in families. Uh, and if they are in places of decision making like city planners, like mayors, uh, then they're gonna influence policy as a result. They're going to say, okay, hold on, kids need to get to school safely. We need to address that in a better way. And it's not to say that women do it better than men. So I think there are a lot of amazing men doing a lot of amazing work around the world for walking, cycling, public transport, and public space. Um, but it's that we need a better balance. And right now, um, or at the time of writing the book, anyways, only 25 of the 300 largest cities had women for mayor. So 8%. And so if we're talking about, okay, we've reached gender parity, we're fine, you know, women are getting stuff done and they're being represented, that number alone shows that it's not happening. But in the cities where it is happening, things are changing and things are getting a little more balanced because we are having better balance in the people that are making the decisions in the first place.

Peter Ladner 15:06

When you're in Vancouver, uh Molly Burkowski from Translake sent out a note summarizing her take on your book and your talks. And the number one thing she said you were putting across was lead with empathy. Is that a particularly women-influenced message?

Melissa Bruntlett 15:27

I don't think it has to be. For myself, for example, I wasn't necessarily the primary caregiver, but there were points in our lives when the kids were younger where I was more home than Chris. And so there are different experiences of moving the kids around that I now use as my inspiration for helping others understand. I think the main thing is that empathy needs to be there. And I think that's what we've lost in a lot of places. We need to be able to empathize with the experiences of people that don't

Bike Lanes As A Political Flashpoint

Melissa Bruntlett 15:55

share the same livelihood, same economic vitality, so to speak, as others. We need to be able to understand that someone with a disability is going to experience the city differently. We don't have to experience it that way for ourselves per se, but we need to empathize with that and bring that into the process. That's sort of where we're getting a little bit stuck in some places, is this idea that, well, cycling is great, but doesn't work for everything, and we forget all of the ways that cycling can help uh be a mobility aid for people, be that tool of freedom for children. Uh we get so compartmentalized in our own experiences. And I think we just need to be able to, yeah, look beyond. And that's where empathy comes in. And it's not, again, it's not that women are the only ones that can do it. It's just that we don't value it enough. We see it sometimes as a weakness when really it's a strength, because it means that we're creating uh systems that work better for the most of us rather than those that already enjoy the most.

Peter Ladner 16:53

Should we be calling bike lanes mobility lanes?

Melissa Bruntlett 16:56

Great question. Sometimes I think yes, sometimes I think no. Um, and I think it's just a matter of it's just the communications, right? Is um I think for you and I, Peter, when we think mobility lanes, we see the diversity of what we're speaking about, that it's not just for cycling, it can be for people on mobility scooters or um others micromobility. Um but for some people that don't live and breathe, but we do, I think the message could get lost if we talk about mobility lanes. And so I don't think we need to make that dialogue shift because if I think of my parents, if I said, oh, hey, they're building new mobility lanes in your town, they would be like, Well, what does that mean? I don't understand what you're talking about. But if you say, hey, they're building these separated bike lanes that are going to connect you from your suburban home to the power center so you don't have to drive all the time because they would like to do that, then they understand. And I think that's the big thing, yeah, when we're talking about what terms to use. It's okay to refer to them sort of more as mobility lanes, but knowing your audience and knowing who needs to know what is super important.

Peter Ladner 18:02

Well, you've described yourself as a storyteller and talked about the importance of telling these stories. Is there an example of a story that you've come up with that shifted the conversation that you're particularly proud of?

Melissa Bruntlett 18:16

The story I come back to a lot if I'm talking to people about why traffic calming, for example, is important in neighborhoods, especially, why 30 kilometer an hour speed limits in neighborhoods is important. I think of the story we told in curbing traffic of our friend Maya, who lives here in Delft. Um, she has multiple multiple sclerosis, so she has to use a mobility scooter to get around. She can walk small distances, but she can't move much further. And when we talk to her, she really emphasized that the neighborhood streets and then the cycle lanes on the busier streets means that she has the same level of independence as I do. And that's the story I try to share with people. And I think when people hear it, I've had people say, like, I didn't think about it that way. It's you see someone on a two-wheeled bicycle, and you're like, oh, well, they're just like a cyclist, whatever. But then when you explain, like, okay, but that space also makes it possible for Maya to take her kids to school, to go to the grocery store, to go to the library, to go study in another city, you know, having the capacity to the battery capacity to go travel to The Hague from Delft to study. Then people start to realize, okay, it's not just about the capital C cyclists on their bikes, it's about all the people that can use these for access to the city. And it it starts to shift how people see these spaces that, you know, maybe they would have thought of as just for one purpose or these traffic comms spaces as like an annoyance for those driving in cars because they get stuck behind someone on a bike. They were all just trying to move around. And it's, I think that helps shift the way people can think a little bit. I mean, one of my most recent trips was uh back to Tirana in Albania. They're a former communist city. And when the wall fell or when communism fell, they went

School Streets And Kid Safety

Melissa Bruntlett 20:40

from being a city that had, you know, a modest amount of cars to being overrun by cars almost overnight because suddenly that everyone had access. It was the sign of prosperity. There was a huge influx throughout the city. And in the last 10 years or so, through leadership from their mayor and from their deputy mayor, and also from local advocates, they've been expanding their cycle network along some major corridors in the city. They completely transformed the main square that had a massive roundabout with, I think it was almost six lanes of traffic going around it to a complete public square. And also coming back to this idea of investing in children, they have built two traffic gardens for children to learn how to cycle in a safe space, but at the same time, are also investing in school streets throughout the city as well, working with some local NGOs to help realize those. When we go there, I mean, we went there for the first time in 2022 and then went back again uh just last month. And even within that small span of time, they've already started building out the network even more. And you can feel the change. We saw a lot more of women on bikes when we were there this time. We started to see just more people in general on bikes, not as many kids, but it's growing. Yeah, you know, coming from Canada, you have these associations. Assumptions about Eastern Europe, and then you get there and you're like, oh my God, they're doing amazing things here. It's definitely worth a visit if you happen to like be in this space and super nerdy about cycling urbanism. Um, but it's a city that I think has a very promising future.

Peter Ladner 22:15

You threw a ref threw away a reference to a traffic garden. What is a traffic garden?

Melissa Bruntlett 22:21

So a traffic garden, um, it it's a it's an idea that actually started in Denmark, and we had a few here in the Netherlands as well. And they're essentially park spaces or old parking lots I've seen down in the US as well, where there is no access for cars, and they basically create um a mini cycling situation. And so the one in Tirana, for example, is in the Grand Park. Well, there's two, but the one I'm thinking of is in Grand Park. Uh, and it's um, yeah, just little two-meter bike lanes uh with the traffic circle and the signage that the kids would see on a street, and they run classes there to teach kids how to navigate. So, where you're supposed to keep going straight, how do you show your directions left and right? How do you navigate a traffic circle? When do you enter? These kinds of things, all with the goal of teaching kids how to cycle in a safe, controlled environment so that when they're ready and confident enough to go on the street, they know what they're doing. And you know, we can be assured that these are children that know how to navigate, but also we're building new cyclists as well, building that confidence in that next generation of us, essentially. Um, and then another city that's yeah, I mean, I talk about Montreal a lot. We're going back there next month. Um, we're coming back for a family visit and we're gonna go spend a day in Montreal with our daughter and her boyfriend. I think it flies under the radar for a lot of people, but they've been like every time we go, there's something new. And it's a city that I've spent so much time in growing up. It's where my parents are from. Despite pushback for sure, Valerie Plant received a lot of hate for a lot of the work that she did.

Peter Ladner 23:59

She was the mayor of Montreal.

Melissa Bruntlett 24:01

She was the mayor of Montreal, that's right. Um, and despite all that, they still managed to achieve so much and building out on what they did during COVID, making it permanent as opposed to just temporary, continuing the open streets that they do every summer, you know, and expanding the program. It's a great North American example of what can be done in a city that's not flat, has lots of hills, gets winter, all of those things. I think they're doing a lot of just really inspirational stuff that I would love to see people roll it out throughout Canada at the very least, um, to yeah, give those opportunities to as many people as possible.

Peter Ladner 24:37

You could agree or not with me that when one city or one area, one town gets it right, that it's important to share that information, get people there to see and experience it, and just the story itself will move a lot of political will.

Melissa Bruntlett 24:53

Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, it's one of the reasons why we give people tours here in the Netherlands and we invite people to come and see it. It's not to say that people need to copy and paste, but it's to, you know, show them Delft here, where just 10 years ago we had a rail viaduct going through the center of the city. It was completely cut off. We can show them the old squares that used to be parking lots that are now patios uh for people to enjoy social time. Uh, we can take them to Rotterdam that's gone through an immense transformation since it was flattened during the war to what it is now, just to show people what can be possible and even taking them to suburbs here and saying, okay, well, you're from okay, ex-Canadian suburb, and yeah, it feels like everything's too far away, and we can't design for cycling in these satellite cities. But come look at what they're doing here and see what you can draw from it as

Women Leaders And Leading With Empathy

Melissa Bruntlett 25:45

inspiration to uh apply at home. And I we never ever ever say copy paste because I understand that a Canadian city is very different from a Dutch city in terms of the way it's been planned historically, but it doesn't mean that there aren't opportunities to learn from each other. And, you know, no matter what study visit it is, whenever we take people around, they they say like it's one thing to read about it, it's another thing to experience it, especially for people that haven't like that aren't part of this world of cycling, that maybe are a decision maker that's a little bit hesitant about implementing cycling lanes, to see it here and to see who's using it. They always have this aha moment of like, oh yeah, this is what it's for. And I'm really excited about doing this back home when I get back.

Peter Ladner 26:34

But I also wanted to ask you, we got to go through this. People say, well, the Netherlands is different, it's flat, they've got this, you know, they're all used to it, they know how to do it, and they're different people. But it wasn't always that way. Could you just run us through like the transformation of, let's say, Amsterdam from the days when it was like let's say most North American cities congested with cars? What made the difference? What turned it into a cycling city?

Melissa Bruntlett 26:58

Yeah, I hear this argument all the time, and we heard it when we were doing the promotion for the first book as well, like, oh, that's the Netherlands. We could never do that here. You know, after the war with the Reconstruction, a lot of cities started designing their streets in the same way here in the Netherlands, designing them in the same way that we were designing them in Canada and in the US and other parts of Europe with wide thoroughfares and to make space for the car because the car was the tool of the future. And if you go back through the archives, we saw so many photos of Amsterdam, Rotterdam, the Hague choked with cars the same way that Bloor Street on Toronto or Young Street would have been, or Main Street in Vancouver. And there was this moment in the early 70s that sort of became this inflection point. And part of it was a road safety crisis. Uh, at its peak, over 3,000 people were dying in the streets in car-related collisions or um, yeah, one-sided accidents or what have you.

Peter Ladner 27:57

Wait a sec, 3,000 people in what area over one year?

Melissa Bruntlett 28:00

In one year throughout the Netherlands, but this was 1972, so please keep in mind population growth. Um, but also within that were over 400 children were killed. And so that started the Stop to Kinder Mord movement, which is the stop child murder uh movement that was uh launched by teachers, mothers, parents, caregivers, all of these people to say enough is enough, our roads aren't safe, we need to do something better. And then around the same time, we also have the OPEC oil crisis here in the Netherlands, where there was massive oil shortages, and the national government implemented car-free Sundays to help conserve and ration the fuel that they did have. And these two moments sort of coincided to basically show people there was a problem, but also show people what streets were meant to be for. They were meant to be places for social gathering, which is what people did on the Sundays, you know, having picnics in the middle of the street, meeting up with friends. They were meant to be places where everybody could move around regardless of age and know that they could still get home at the end of the day. And so that sort of spurred uh the political will, but also the activism to demand better. And then you see this shift, this period of trial and error of experimentation in the 70s and the 80s, when they're trying out the first bike lanes that were huge failures, by the way. Uh, one of them in The Hague was torn up by business owners because they were adamantly against it being there. They hired construction workers to come in the middle of the night and pull up all the tiles. But then through that experimentation, realizing, hey, maybe we need a network. And so Delft, where I live, was actually the home of the first cycling network that was implemented in the 80s and built upon throughout the 90s. Uh, and then you see this expand throughout the country and eventually become sustainable safety, which was implemented and adopted in the late 90s, and is this idea that everyone deserves the right to come home? Our systems, however people move, whether they're walking, cycling, driving, or using public transport, need to be safe. They need to be cohesive, coherent, connected, uh, and attractive. And that is basically those, you know, three decades, two or three decades or so become that growth that becomes what we enjoy today. Uh, so it took time. Um, and we like to say that, you know, when I'm presenting to groups, I'm like, okay, it took us like, or it took the Netherlands, not us. I've only been here seven years, but it took the Netherlands like 50 years to get here. But now they've made all the mistakes. We can learn from that and

The Stories That Change Minds

Melissa Bruntlett 30:35

bring those ideas elsewhere to hopefully skip some of those mistakes. But I the thing is, cities are still going to make a mistake. The problem is that sometimes if you make a mistake, it's okay to learn and adapt and evolve. It doesn't mean that the whole project is a failure and we should just stop. What I try to remind people when we say, oh, this is what happened, you know, 50 years ago. They were like, no bike lanes. This is a terrible idea. And now to not have a bike lane in a Dutch city would be absurd.

Peter Ladner 31:03

Interesting. So I guess people in Ontario and Alberta can take heart, cycling advocates can take heart from the fact that, yeah, back in the day they ripped one out in The Hague.

Melissa Bruntlett 31:13

Yeah.

Peter Ladner 31:13

But they they learned to live another day. You raised two kids uh in a starting in Vancouver, and then you move to a cycle-friendly, more cycle-friendly place. How are your kids different for having been raised where they can have more access to cycling, safe cycling?

Melissa Bruntlett 31:33

Um, I think for us, the reason that we decided to move here in part, I know everyone says it's for the bike that we moved here, and of course that's part of it. But really for us, it was for our kids because we loved living in East Vancouver. They we biked everywhere with them, but we knew it would there was still some lack of freedom that they were experiencing. Getting them to cycle to school on their own when they were at the time, yeah, nine and eleven, let's say, would have been a little bit challenging, even though we weren't far from school, getting them to go to their friends' houses. They were the ones that were walking to their friends' place and not the other way around. No judgment on the other parents, what we're comfortable with. But it meant that there was always this lack of freedom. And coming here within a month of moving here, they were cycling to friends' homes 20 minutes away, cycling to sports clubs, cycling to school, walking into the city center without us. Uh, and it really gave them that sense of ownership. Uh, and we could tell that they're we say, Oh, do you want us to bring you? No, I don't want you to come with me. It's fine. Nobody else's parents do that. Don't do that. That's I'm fine on my own. And so we we saw all this happening, but I think we had this really lovely moment recently. So our eldest has moved to the UK to England for a couple of years. Uh, she's done college, just graduated last week, uh, and is taking a little bit of a gap before starting up potential new studies. And I always ask, you know, how's it going? Do you like it? She lives in a relatively small town. And she's like, Yeah, it's it's nice. She's enjoying that independence that comes with moving out that we we all are excited and slightly sad for for our children. But she said, you know, I know you, I know she has this eye roll when she says it, I know, mom, but I can't really walk everywhere like I could before. I don't feel like I can be as independent in how I move around now. She's a lot more reliant on a car and she misses it. And I think that it's something that we hope that they understand. And if she decides to stay there, that's her choice and whatever. But to hear her say, like, I understand now how much I gained by living there and how much freedom I had to just move around wherever I wanted, whenever I wanted, without having a car. We feel like, okay, good job, parents. We did it. But it's something, again, I really wish that we could give to more people. And not everyone has the privilege to do what we did. But for our kids, that's that's the difference for them that we see.

Peter Ladner 33:58

I imagine it would have had a big impact on your life too. I mean, lightening the load of having to drive them or escort them to all these places would be quite different as a parent.

Melissa Bruntlett 34:07

If you think about the number of hours that parents spend either shuttling their kids around in a car or accompanying them on foot or bike to get to where they go. I mean, we were doing the same thing in Vancouver, cycling half hour, 45 minutes to cycle or to swimming lessons and things like that. The amount of time that freed up, just even to know that in the morning our kids could go off to school on their own and I could sit and enjoy my coffee before I had to leave for work. You know, it's just little, little things like that. Or, you know, on the weekends, they can go and meet up with friends. We don't have to chaperone them to get

How The Netherlands Became Bike Friendly

Melissa Bruntlett 34:40

there. And Chris and I could go into the city center and go to a museum or go sit down in a patio and enjoy a lunch together. It does give us so much more, yeah, time for us, which I think a lot of parents also need.

Peter Ladner 34:53

It's funny, we don't really hear bike lanes pitched to uh to parents. Hey, parent parents, this can change your life. Free up six hours in your average week. Do you still not have a driver's license?

Melissa Bruntlett 35:08

I do now.

Peter Ladner 35:09

Um, I how when did you get it?

Melissa Bruntlett 35:11

When we moved here, I wasn't able to switch my Canadian driver's license and I lived without it for almost seven and a half years, but I just did the process of having to, I did all new lessons on the Dutch system, uh, all the tests and everything, and got my license in April this year. But the caveat being I will likely almost never use it here. I got it so that when we travel to other countries or when we travel back home, we don't have to be reliant on our aging parents to take us around because the system isn't there to get us to places. So in August, we're going to my parents' cottage, which is about an hour north of Montreal. It's a you have to drive to get there. There's no other way. And there's five of us traveling. So it just made sense to have to rent a car as much as I would have preferred to take a train or bike there. It's just not possible. Uh, so that's that's the reason I got it. But yeah, there's no no car purchase in our future. Where I did join the car share here. So if I need one, it's there.

Peter Ladner 36:11

What did you have to do to learn about cyclists to get your driver's license?

Melissa Bruntlett 36:18

You have to be aware all the time.

Peter Ladner 36:22

In what ways?

Melissa Bruntlett 36:22

Um there are things you have to learn to do or well, it's just it's a different system than what I learned in Canada. I mean, the bike lanes didn't exist in 1996 when I got my license the first time. So just being aware of where to look, also being aware of who has the rights to roads. We have a lot of cycle streets in uh in the Netherlands in general. And on those streets, cyclists have priority and the cars are guests, so you have to slow down, you have to behave accordingly. The traffic calming in the neighborhood streets that I mentioned earlier, it's usually done through cobblestones. Uh, and it does force you to slow down in a way that you may not be aware of in other places where you just have smooth asphalt. Yeah, it's it's just being a lot more aware of the space. And, you know, when I'm talking with planners and designers about how to create environments where people slow down and follow speed limits, I often say it's it's all about psychology, and it really is. The narrow streets or the the rough surfaces force you to slow down because it's so loud or you're worried you're gonna hit something. You have to be a lot more aware of everyone around you. And it's not to say that that makes it harder, it just means that you you're just more diligent and you just have to be a little more aware. And it doesn't take a lot of energy to do that. And I think that's the thing that maybe we need to be teaching more in other places around the world. And I wish I had been taught more uh back in Ontario when I got my license. Is there are other people on the road and cars don't own the space? That's really what gets driven into you is you know, be aware of the pedestrian, the cyclist, the bus, the other cars, and make sure that you're following the rules accordingly.

Peter Ladner 38:07

Did I read somewhere that kids in the Netherlands have to pass a cycling test when they're 12 or something? It's part of their school curriculum to know all this stuff. Is that is that the case?

Melissa Bruntlett 38:16

That's correct. Yeah. So they do uh traffic education in schools, uh starting from younger uh years in primary school. They learn about like what are the road signs, they learn how to walk properly on like what when they're supposed to cross or you know what they need to look for on streets when they're walking. And then eventually

Raising Independent Kids Without Car Dependence

Melissa Bruntlett 38:35

that transitions into cycling. Uh, and by the last year of high school, or not high school, sorry, of primary school, they have a traffic exam and they do a set route through a city center. You'll see usually around mid-May to late May, there'll be these little traffic exam signs posted up around the city center. And the kids ride this route showing that they can indicate left, right, that they know when to stop, when to give way, uh, when to keep going. Uh, and there are volunteers along the way that mark them. And then at the end, they get a little certificate that says they've passed their traffic exam and they're now ready to keep cycling as they go into high school. Uh, so Leo unfortunately missed that because we moved here when she was already high school aged, but Etienne did go through uh the traffic exam and we have an embarrassing photo of him that he looks clearly unhappy that dad made him pose for a photo for it. But it's like a proud little moment that we can share that yes, one of our children did go through the traffic examination examination and pass. So yeah.

Peter Ladner 39:35

Congratulations, Etienne. What's next for you, Melissa?

Melissa Bruntlett 39:40

Ah, for now, it's gonna be hopefully a relaxing summer, but a busy autumn. So a lot of speaking events coming up. I'm going to Estonia at the beginning uh of September to do another event for the book, but also a professional workshop. There's the Eurovelo conference coming up at the end of September, beginning October, which is a cycling tourism conference where I'm giving a workshop on communications. Yeah, trying to remember it's okay not to have another project on the go. It's really, really difficult. And I'm not gonna lie and say Chris and I haven't thought about book number four already. But just trying to sit in this half-empty nesting, just enjoying an okay pace of life for a little bit and seeing what comes next, being open to new opportunities.

Peter Ladner 40:24

Well, you deserve a break for all the great work you've done. And uh I look forward to reading your next book or reading and hearing more about what you're doing. I know you and Chris are are very fastidious social media posters, and so I can keep track of Chris taking your daughter Leo on the back of his bike from our graduation event just to keep up with the old times. Um we will keep watching, and uh I hope people enjoy hearing your stories and will maybe learn a little bit and come up with some of their own stories that they can carry forward. Thanks so much, Melissa.

Melissa Bruntlett 40:58

Thanks, Peter. Thanks so much.

Peter Ladner 41:06

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