Building the Cycling City

“In sharing their two-wheeled adventures and the lessons of Europe’s greatest cycle cities, the Bruntletts offer a pragmatic and hopeful vision of the future. Building the Cycling City shows how all cities can follow the Dutch blueprint for health, happiness, and mobility freedom.”–Charles Montgomery, author of “Happy City: Transforming Our Lives Through Urban Design”“Building the Cycling City shows how people worldwide inspire each other to create better cycling cities. The book celebrates local heroes who choose to adapt Dutch ideas to their own demands. The resulting urban transformations often became an inspiration to Dutch city builders themselves. Melissa and Chris Bruntlett offer not only inspiring stories, but also concrete plans and effective strategies for cycling cities. This is a must read for both cycling advocates and urbanists.”–Saskia Kluit, CEO, Fietsersbond and President, Dutch Cycling Embassy“A fantastic history of the Dutch evolution into the bike-capital of the world and how its history and solutions can be applied…elsewhere. It should be required reading for every politician, planner, advocate, traffic engineer, or anyone else involved in the livable streets movement.”– “Streetsblog San Francisco”“Beautifully crafted…recommended to all the cycling advocates, city and town planners, city design architects, municipal corporations, road traffic and safety departments, companies and officials involved in urban infrastructure development, politicians, citizen activists…and every one who believes in making our cities more livable .”– “Pedal and Tring Tring blog”“Decision makers the world over would do well to read this book to see just how clean, humane and pleasant our towns and cities can be.”– “Resurgence & Ecologist”“Excellent.”– “Resilience.org”“All designers of bicycle infrastructure would do well to read the book…It’s a book that even many cycling advocates would do well to read…Most importantly, it’s a book that should be in the hands of every elected official of every city everywhere.”– “Transportation Planning”“An informative and enjoyable read that will inspire anyone interested in learning more about Dutch transportation planning and policies…Building the Cycling City left me inspired.”– “Sightline”“I would equate Building the Cycling City to riding a Dutch bike. You don’t want to rush through it like a road bike, but it hauls a lot of lessons from the Dutch cycling experience which are practical to North American cities and delivered in an upright, easy to read manner.”– “Dandyhorse”“If cycling as a mode of transportation interests you and you’re not impressed with our half-ass bike lanes, Building the Cycling City should be on your reading list.”– “Urban Review Saint Louis”“Melissa and Chris Bruntlett’s book Building the Cycling City: The Dutch Blueprint for Urban Vitality is a fantastic read for those interested in exploring more about how the Dutch have been successful and how those long-learned lessons can be applied at home.”– “Spacing”“Unflaggingly optimistic…Building the Cycling City is an accessible read.”– “Environment & Urbanization”

Chris and Melissa Bruntlett are co-founders of a marketing and communications firm focused on inspiring healthier, happier, simpler forms of mobility through words, photography, and film. For many years, they have been developing written and visual content, including videos, with a focus on storytelling rather than relaying quantitative information. Collectively, they have written hundreds of articles based on the experiences of their family both at home in Vancouver and in cities around the world.