Book chat: Bicycle City by Dan Piatkowski

It took an oil crisis in the 1970s for the Dutch to realize that they simply couldn´t afford to live without bicycles, and today the Dutch lead the world in urban cycling. Fifty years later, another crisis, the pandemic, has led to a boom in bicycling and a radical rethinking of the future of urban mobility, demonstrating the possibility of a car-free urban future. The pandemic “bikeboom” is one of the very few bright spots in an otherwise terrible time – and an opportunity we cannot waste. The climate crisis is all too real, the inequities in our cities too severe, to allow the US to backslide to the status quo of car-dependence.

In Bicycle City: Riding the Bike Boom to a Brighter Future cycling expert Daniel Piatkowski argues that the bicycle is the best tool that we have to improve our cities. The car-free urban future—where cities are vibrant, with access to everything we need close by—may be less bike-centric than we think. But bikes are a crucial first step to getting Americans out of cars. Bicycle City is about making cities better with bikes rather than for bikes.

When: 16 October, 17.00-18.30

Where: Prismatic Pages, Rathkes gate 7b

Dan will be interviewed by Anine Hartmann, who is responsible for walking, biking, and new mobility at Asplan Viak.

Dan Piatkowski is an American academic and urban planner based in Oslo, Norway where he is on the faculty at OsloMet - Oslo Metropolitan University. Before moving to Norway, Dan has worked in some area of urban planning (either academic or professional) in Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Nebraska, and Georgia. Dan got his start in the bike world in the early 2000s with a very brief stint as a bicycle messenger in New York City before finding his way to working at bike shops, riding all kinds of bikes, and getting active in bicycle advocacy. These days he spends more time writing about bicycles than riding them.