This year, the city of Leipzig will host the Velo-city conference in collaboration with the European Cyclists’ Federation. Our team is presenting at five different sessions throughout the event. If you plan on attending #VC2023, we hope you will join us for one or more of these sessions—and stop by GDCI’s booth, where we will be sharing materials and information about our exciting work and projects!
Wednesday, 10 May 2023, 10:45 – 11:45 GMT+2 (Hall 2)
A key ingredient to leverage the potential of cycling is professional capacity—from decision-making to implementation. How do practitioners learn from each other to replicate best practices and avoid making the same mistakes? How do they access research findings, and how does new knowledge actually permeate into practice, design guides, and decision-making? What is the best way to address politicians and decision-makers, so they understand the role of cycling and take the decisions needed to deploy its potential? This session takes a look into what it takes to build the capacity we need.
Giovanni Zayas
Program Manager
Wednesday, 10 May 2023, 12:00 – 13:00 GMT+2 (Room 6)
In many cities around the world, bicycle trips feel challenging, yet cycling could be an empowering tool by offering a healthy, sustainable, energy-efficient, financially accessible, and flexible way to move through the city. Enabling caregivers to cycle also promotes social interaction and cognitive development in children, especially the younger ones, and contributes to closing the gender gap in cycling. Hosted by BYCS & the Bernard van Leer Foundation’s Urban95 program, the session will highlight this important topic, through the perspectives of three international cycling NGOs working to provide safe environments, as well as cultural and behavioral programs, for families around the world to start cycling.
Maria Clara Trujillo
Senior Program Manager
Wednesday, 10 May 2023, 14:15 – 15:45 GMT+2 (Hall 3)
Access to affordable and efficient mobility options is essential for people’s daily lives. However, with the increasing cost of vehicle ownership and the lack of alternative mobility options in many places, more and more people are at risk of transport poverty. This session will shift the focus towards promising initiatives from the Netherlands, UK, USA, and Belgium that address these problems, and encourage participants to brainstorm on how to make sure that everyone can move around freely, safely, and affordably.
Fabrizio Prati
Director of Design
Wednesday, 10 May 2023, 14:15 – 15:45 GMT+2 (Room 6)
Cities around the world increasingly invest in walking and cycling to face their societal challenges. To this end, transport professionals collaborate globally to share knowledge, experiences, and resources. This session will provide insight into international programmes that empower cities of all kinds to act. This includes channeling investments into sustainable transport infrastructure, raising the bar to achieve higher quality in infrastructure development, and capacity building among professionals. The Transport Decarbonization Alliance aims at training 10,000 transportation professionals around the world, while the Bloomberg Initiative for Cycling Infrastructure (BICI) is helping ten cities to create safe, interconnected, and innovative cycling infrastructure with up to a $1M grant, as well as technical assistance. ITDP will report on their latest developments with regard to the Mobility Atlas environments, as well as cultural and behavioral programs for families around the world to start cycling.
Ed Lancaster
Senior Program Manager
Wednesday, 10 May 2023, 14:15 – 15:45 GMT+2 (Hall 4)
During times of increasing regulation, tension, and administrative constraints, making changes to street design often takes years—if it happens at all. How can improvements be made more quickly? In this workshop, representatives of the city of Leipzig will engage in dialogue with experts on tactical urbanism and engage participants to create ideas on how to quickly transform specific street-scapes of Leipzig into an inclusive cycling and walking-orientated space. The focus is on fast, small, and low-priced actions, transferability, consolidation of different views, and individual personal and professional backgrounds. The workshop will result in a collection of concrete measures that enhance the local situation. The most suitable ideas could be brought into action so that the workshop can directly impact cycling in Leipzig.
Solomon Green-Eames
Program Manager
We hope to connect with you if you plan on attending Velo-city next week! You can also follow GDCI on Twitter and Instagram for updates of these presentations and more from #VC23!
GDCI marks this World Children's Day with the release of two new booklets, “How to Engage Kids in Street Design” and “How to Evaluate Street Transformations Near Schools.”
In 2023, ten cities across four continents started designing their streets for kids. Collectively, the cohort reclaimed over 40,000 SqM of public space that prioritizes children and caregivers, engaged over 4,000 children in the process, and trained 140 practitioners.
Learn how street transformations designed for children can be scaled up and made permanent.
