The tone of the book has steered away from being prescriptive in favor of observational, presenting what has worked and how, rather than a formula of to-do’s. Some themes of the book cover long acknowledged strategies of making cycling a more viable form of transport in North America, but among them are surprising incremental ideas on how the Dutch overcame the post-war model of development, subsequently becoming one of the safest countries for cyclists and pedestrians alike. It’s the way the Dutch view cyclists— as pedestrians with wheels—that has helped them create better infrastructure and street design than any other country.

To learn more about the goals and context of the book, I sat down with co-author Chris Bruntlett to learn more. Read the full conversation about what North America can learn from the Netherlands about building cities to scale. (This conversation has been edited for clarity and condensed.)

Aubrey Byron (AB): Can you start off by telling me a little about your background and how you and your wife came to start Modacity?

Chris Bruntlett (CB): Absolutely. So Melissa and I actually grew up in Southern Ontario, in the Toronto area. We moved out to Vancouver about 11 years ago for a job I was driving to probably about 45 minutes each way for a couple years. Then the stars kind of aligned, and I got a job in the city and we got an apartment in a pretty walkable neighborhood. Melissa was also working in the fashion industry at the time. I was working in architecture. We made the decision to sell our car, knowing it was not getting the use that it used to; it was collecting dust in the garage. From there, that led us onto this adventure where we were sharing our day-to-day experiences getting around by bicycle, getting around by public transit, getting around by foot. The social media and Instagram posts evolved into blog posts and short videos. That’s evolved into consulting with various cities and sharing stories from other people we know that are finding other ways to get around and pushing the cause for more human-centric cities. It’s kind of an evening and weekend passion project that over the course of five or six years has evolved into a full time job for me and a part time job for Melissa. We’re now traveling around the world sharing stories and hoping to inspire people to think differently about their streets.

AB: And you have two small children, is that right?

CB: Yeah they’re not so small now. I mean, they’re 9 and 12. When we sold the car I guess they would’ve been two and five.

AB: I get questions a lot as far as cycling advocacy from people who have kids because there are safety concerns and then there will likely be a third point on your commute, be it school or daycare. So do you have advice for parents trying to transition into a car-light lifestyle and how to make that work?

CB: I think people’s choices are a product of their built environment. So we can’t really begrudge parents who are having to shuttle their kids around by car if they’re traveling long distances and the streets are fairly hostile. I think what we learned over the course of this that kids are pretty resilient creatures and the rewards of getting to move around in a more socially connected way, in a healthier way, in an ultimately more rewarding way—those benefits outweigh perceived negativity. We always hear the same things—every city has its challenges whether it is geography or climate—but you know, there’s no reason why we can’t, with a little bit of resilience and forward thinking, at least give people options to leave the car in the driveway if ultimately that’s what they want. From what we’ve seen, that latent demand is pretty big in cities. Families do want other ways to travel around. They just haven’t been afforded a choice by the way we’ve designed our streets and our cities.

AB: So in the book, one thing you talk about a lot is post-war planning. That’s a pretty large part of our core focus on why cities are going broke. So you can tell me a little more about how that design plays into the challenges specifically of building a cycling city?

CB: For sure, and I think when people talk about the Dutch being different and the Netherlands being a different context, one thing they can be credited for is resisting this post-war mindset that was in the minds of everybody—from the politicians to the engineers to the planners to even the business community. They all thought that by accommodating the car, by building our cities around the car, by putting housing out in the suburbs and by leaving the city center for business and commerce, we were creating light and space and air and freedom and economic opportunity for everybody. I think 60 years into this Suburban Experiment, we’ve kind of hit a wall in terms of how we can keep planning our streets and make the cars flow freely. We’re also starting to understand the negative consequences on our economy, on our happiness, and on our freedom and well being.

So it really gets to the crux of what we write about in the book, that so many different Dutch cities resisted the urge to do this. It was in part through citizen activism, and it was in part through political will. They definitely started off with an advantage in that they kept their land uses closer together and they kept their streets at a more human scale. In that environment, cycling becomes much easier than doing it on the perhaps sprawling cities such as Los Angeles or even mid-sized cities across North America.