Transcript
Avi Stopper (00:00)
Welcome to Bike Networks Now. I'm Avi Stopper, the founder of Bike Streets. Through a series of conversations with leaders in bike transportation and beyond, we're trying to answer a question: Why is bike transportation still not possible for most people in American cities, and how can we make it a reality? Despite voter support and billions of dollars of investment, there's no city in America where biking is a practical reality for people of all ages and abilities. Why is that? And how can we fix it so anyone can ride to the places they want to go today? These aren't just freewheeling conversations. We're in search of an answer. And that answer—a modern approach to innovation—is the topic of a book we're writing on how cities can make bike transportation possible today.
Avi Stopper (00:50)
My guest is Kevin Mayne, who has been described as the voice of the bicycle industry. For 14 years, he was the CEO of Cycling UK, the largest advocacy group in the United Kingdom. In 2012, he became the Director of Development at the European Cyclists Federation. And from 2019 to 2024, he was the founding CEO of Cycling Industries Europe (CIE), an industry group that represents more than 50 bike companies in Europe. Before becoming the voice of the bike industry—what a title—Kevin held senior leadership roles at Cadbury Schweppes, Coca-Cola, and Kraft.
I wanted to talk to Kevin because he has an expansive view on advocacy from a perspective that is quite different from how we typically think about advocacy in the United States. In transportation circles, we often talk about how the auto industry did this or that, led to the removal of streetcar systems, invented ideas and laws like jaywalking, and created a quote-unquote "there's nothing we can do about it" culture around traffic violence. A classic case being the use of the word "accident" to describe a preventable car crash.
My take is that Kevin approaches bike advocacy in some respects like the car industry promotes its own interests through a well-funded, highly organized and professionalized approach that emphasizes the importance of data and a market-based approach and argument for why governments should invest in bike transportation. That's my take. Kevin, how did I do with that intro?
Kevin Mayne (02:27)
Not bad. I think I try and sit on both sides of the fence with what I would call having my feet deeply embedded in sort of cultural advocacy and the resistance to the automotive movement and other things like that. But actually I describe myself as a managerialist, and that is I'll do what works. So frankly, I have taken on board what I think the automotive industry does well and said, well, if that works, why don't we give that a go? But if grassroots passion works and if fear of being killed works, then we've got to use those tools too.
Avi Stopper (03:03)
Okay, so let's start like this. Pretend I'm a government official that you're trying to get to invest in bike transportation. How do you approach that conversation? Give me your pitch.
Kevin Mayne (03:14)
Every pitch is individualized to the person. That could be individualized to their politics, individualized to their values. And even tactically here in Europe we've learned that we will send one advocacy movement in the room to talk to Green progressive left and we will send probably more industry-led advocacy in the room to speak to, let's call it, the right.
It's very simplistic, but I would approach every conversation by knowing the other person. That's no different to what I was taught 40 years ago when I was given sales training on pitching to sell soft drinks to shopkeepers—go and find what the other guy wants. So I mean, cycling, it's relatively easy to roll off the tongue. The societal benefits, green, you know, the health, particularly the removal of threat because our vehicles are softer and the need for kids to have movement and to have mental health and that stuff is all correct. But if you're not buying it and if your perception is, actually I'm sending my family out into the streets to die, you're unlikely to get that kind of level of political buy-in.
But if I turn around and said, actually 80% of the economic value of cycling goes back to the city where the cycling happens. It's a creator and an engine of local jobs. That's, okay, you know your bike shop, but maybe the person who does some deliveries by bike, maybe it's the coffee shop that sells more coffee to cyclists who bike out there, or it's on the edge of a park. So the kids play with bikes that do some pseudo mountain biking and the dollars stay in the city. And that's not the same as a car factory where your economic pitch is, we're going to reshore automotive manufacturing and have 2000 jobs in one place, which matters not a jot to the city next door. Whereas bike is essentially local economics made good.
And so few politicians can turn away local jobs and few politicians can turn away green, clean local jobs that are accessible to people who are probably in lower socioeconomic brackets. So I'll have that pitch in my pocket for whichever political flavor, whichever individual I'm talking to.
Avi Stopper (05:31)
So it sounds like on the one hand there is definitely a "who are you selling to" kind of question, but on the flip side there are some unifying themes that generally work and resonate irrespective of where the person that you're talking to sits on the political spectrum.
Kevin Mayne (05:47)
Yeah, I tease my political friends. You know, I'd say every politician is a kind of failed economist because if they were a real economist, they'd have a big job at a bank. But you've got to be able to talk that political language. Even at city level, you're talking about cost of living, you're talking about local jobs, you're talking about how people feel about the money in their pocket. That's been a toolkit that we haven't used well in cycling.
And for example, activating a local bike shop owner to be an ally. In his own domain, he's a CEO, he's a job creator, he's a wealth creator and he should be talking to the politician—or she, I should say—should be talking to the politician with you. And a lot of people in the industry struggle to do that as well because that's not their day job to make those kind of pitches.
But their heart and soul are embedded in our success story when we have it. There's themes like that that I think we've probably added more to the bike advocacy mix both in the UK and I think in the US over the last 20, 30 years. I think People for Bikes have done a great job. I think IMBA have done a great job selling the idea of the value of mountain biking. But I think not enough of our community is practiced at adding those arguments to the mix.
Avi Stopper (07:02)
So you have, I think, if I'm not misquoting, described cycling as an ecosystem capable of creating a million jobs. And I think that at CIE, that is really one of the core foundational arguments. How do you see that working? There are the obvious direct beneficiaries job-wise. There are the bike shops. There are the bike mechanics. There are people who are selling gear adjacent to that recreational gear, just the kinds of clothes that you might ride while riding. Although of course we're trying to get people just to wear their normal clothes when they ride.
Where do you see that million jobs—it's a very tantalizing number with great potential and opportunity. I'm curious broadly about how you frame the overall economic benefits to a community, not just the direct jobs that are created in the bike ecosystem by selling bikes and bike adjacent stuff, but to the restaurant owner who is now able to attract more people to their restaurant because more people are interested in coming if it's easy and pleasant and delightful to get there. How do you think about really articulating what that million job number means?
Kevin Mayne (08:08)
It probably helps for the audience to know where it came from. Because that's an EU-wide number. And we're claiming about 1.2 million jobs in the EU 27 countries at the moment. And we're claiming there's another million to be added if cycling growth is supported. And actually that goes to one of my automotive tricks. Because I never understood how the European automotive industry could come up with 12 million jobs in the automotive industry. And I was like, how is this possible?
So I looked at their methodology and they use a thing called economic multiplier effects. So if you've got a car factory with 2,000 jobs, they'll say, well, actually there's 200 suppliers and there's 800 jobs in services around that. There's people in security and there's people in catering and there's people delivering the post and there's transport and there's, you know, all the bits and bobs. And that would be, you know, if I was being cynical, I'd say that's a bit of a stretch.
But if it's good enough for the automotive industry, it's good enough for us. So when we did our calculations, we said, well, if you've got a bike shop, you've got the owner, you might have a member of staff, you might have somebody part-time. But also, you've got the person who delivers the bikes, you've got the person who does the accounts, you might have somebody who does some marketing, you might have somebody who cleans the windows. And if you're using the automotive methodology, they all count.
And then you've got the people who are enabled by cycling. So the person who does deliveries by bike, the person who works as a cycle instructor, the person who runs cycling holidays, the person who works in cycle tourism. And actually when you add all that up, particularly if you include cycling tourism—and cycling tourism in Europe is massive—you get to these very big numbers.
And I think it's a legitimate way to count because cycling does create economic activity in a way that's different from other forms of transport. If somebody drives somewhere, they're probably going to spend money at their destination, but they're not creating much economic activity along the route. Whereas if somebody cycles somewhere, they might stop at a café, they might buy something from a shop, they create economic activity all along the route.
Avi Stopper (10:15)
That economic multiplier approach is fascinating. It really changes how you can talk about the economic impact of cycling infrastructure. But I want to dig into something you mentioned about the automotive industry's influence. You've worked in both corporate environments and advocacy. How do you think the cycling industry and advocacy movement can learn from the automotive industry's playbook without losing the grassroots passion that drives so much bike advocacy?
Kevin Mayne (10:42)
I think the automotive industry has been very smart about building institutional relationships and creating long-term strategic thinking. They don't just lobby for specific projects—they lobby for entire policy frameworks that benefit their industry over decades. They invest in research that supports their positions. They build relationships with universities, with think tanks, with government officials at all levels.
The cycling movement has traditionally been much more reactive and project-focused. We'd fight for a specific bike lane or against a specific bad decision, but we weren't thinking strategically about how to shape the entire transportation policy landscape.
What I learned from my corporate background is that you need both the passion and the professionalism. The passion is what gets people involved initially and what sustains the movement through difficult times. But if you want to create systemic change, you need professional advocacy that can engage with policymakers on their terms.
So for example, when we were working on the European Cycling Declaration, we didn't just rely on grassroots cycling advocates. We brought in economists who could talk about job creation, we brought in public health experts who could talk about the health benefits, we brought in urban planners who could talk about the infrastructure benefits. We built a coalition that could speak to different audiences with different types of expertise.
But at the same time, we never lost sight of the fact that cycling is ultimately about people's lived experiences. The most powerful moments in advocacy are still when a parent talks about wanting their child to be able to cycle safely to school, or when somebody talks about how cycling changed their life.
Avi Stopper (12:10)
That balance between professionalization and maintaining authentic grassroots voices seems really important. I'm curious about how you think about coalition building. You mentioned earlier about sending different advocates to different political audiences. How do you build those coalitions while maintaining authenticity?
Kevin Mayne (12:28)
I think authenticity comes from having genuine diversity in your coalition. If you're trying to fake it by coaching the same person to speak differently to different audiences, that's going to fall apart pretty quickly. But if you actually have a diverse coalition with people who naturally speak to different audiences, then you can be authentic.
So for example, when we're talking to business-oriented politicians, we'll have actual business owners in the room. When we're talking to health-focused policymakers, we'll have public health professionals. When we're talking to environmental advocates, we'll have people who are genuinely passionate about environmental issues.
The key is finding the common ground. A business owner might not care about environmental ideology, but they do care about having healthy employees and reducing healthcare costs. An environmental advocate might not care about business profits, but they do care about reducing carbon emissions. A parent might not care about either of those things, but they do care about their child's safety and health.
Cycling delivers on all of those concerns, so you can build genuine coalitions where everyone is getting something they actually care about. But you have to do the work to understand what different stakeholders actually want and how cycling can help them achieve their goals.
Avi Stopper (13:35)
That approach of finding genuine common ground rather than trying to convert people to your worldview seems much more sustainable. I want to ask about data and evidence. How important is having solid research and data to back up your advocacy arguments?
Kevin Mayne (13:50)
Data is absolutely crucial, but it has to be the right data presented in the right way to the right audience. Politicians and policymakers are used to making decisions based on evidence, so if you don't have data to back up your claims, you're not going to be taken seriously in many contexts.
But the data has to be credible and it has to address the concerns that your audience actually has. So if you're talking to someone who's worried about economic impacts, you need economic data. If you're talking to someone who's worried about safety, you need safety data. If you're talking to someone who's worried about feasibility, you need examples of where similar things have worked.
The challenge is that a lot of cycling advocacy has historically relied on what I would call "feelgood data"—data that makes us feel good about cycling but doesn't necessarily address the concerns of skeptics. Like, we'll talk about the environmental benefits of cycling, but if somebody's main concern is economic impact or practical feasibility, environmental data isn't going to convince them.
And you have to be honest about the limitations of your data. If you oversell or if you make claims you can't back up, you lose credibility. But if you're honest about what you know and what you don't know, and if you can show that cycling delivers real benefits in areas that people care about, then data becomes a powerful tool.
Avi Stopper (15:00)
That point about using data that addresses your audience's actual concerns rather than just data that supports your position is really important. Let me ask about something specific to your experience. You mentioned working across different European countries with very different political systems and cultures. How do you adapt your approach for different national contexts?
Kevin Mayne (15:20)
That's one of the most interesting challenges in European advocacy because every country really is different, despite what people might think about there being a unified European approach to cycling.
In some countries, like the Netherlands or Denmark, cycling already has strong political support, so your job is more about optimizing policy and funding. In other countries, like many in Eastern Europe, cycling is still seen as a sign of poverty or backwardness, so you're doing much more basic advocacy about changing perceptions.
In some countries, the federal government has a lot of influence over transportation policy. In others, it's much more decentralized and you have to work city by city. In some countries, environmental arguments are very powerful. In others, economic arguments work better.
But I've found that there are some universal principles. Safety concerns are universal—parents everywhere want their children to be safe. Economic concerns are universal—politicians everywhere care about jobs and economic development. Practical concerns are universal—people everywhere want transportation that actually gets them where they need to go.
The key is understanding the local political culture and finding the local messengers who can deliver those universal messages in ways that resonate locally. So in some countries, having a government minister endorse cycling is really powerful. In others, having local business leaders or community groups take the lead is more effective.
Avi Stopper (16:40)
That localization while maintaining core messages makes a lot of sense. I want to ask about something that I think is particularly relevant to American audiences. In the US, there's often this sense that cycling advocacy is fighting against deeply entrenched car culture and car-oriented infrastructure. How do you approach advocacy in contexts where cycling is starting from a very low baseline?
Kevin Mayne (17:02)
I think the American context is actually not as different from some European contexts as people might think. Remember, most European cities also went through periods of heavy car orientation. Even Amsterdam was much more car-oriented in the 1970s than it is today.
The key insight is that you don't have to convert everyone all at once. You need to find the early adopters and the people who are already predisposed to support cycling, and you build from there. In every city, there are people who would cycle if they felt safe doing it. There are business owners who understand that cycling customers are good customers. There are parents who want better options for their children.
You start with those people and you demonstrate success. You build infrastructure where it's going to be used and where it's going to be visible. You make sure that your early projects are successful so that you can point to them when you're asking for more support.
And you have to be strategic about framing. In car-oriented contexts, framing cycling as anti-car is usually a losing strategy. But framing it as providing more choices, reducing congestion, improving public health, supporting local businesses—those messages can work even in car-oriented contexts.
The other thing is that you have to be patient and persistent. This is long-term work. The Dutch cycling network that everyone admires took decades to build. But the good news is that once you get some momentum, it can accelerate pretty quickly because cycling has so many co-benefits.
Avi Stopper (18:25)
That patience and persistence point is really important. I think sometimes in the American context there's an expectation that change should happen quickly, but you're describing a much longer-term strategic approach. Speaking of strategy, I want to ask about your role at Cycling Industries Europe. How important is it to have the bike industry engaged in advocacy alongside grassroots advocates?
Kevin Mayne (18:48)
I think it's absolutely crucial, and it was one of the missing pieces in European cycling advocacy for a long time. The grassroots advocacy community is passionate and dedicated, but they often don't have the resources or the professional expertise to engage effectively with policymakers on complex technical and economic issues.
The bike industry, on the other hand, has resources and professional expertise, but they haven't traditionally seen advocacy as part of their business model. They've focused on selling bikes to people who already want to buy bikes, rather than working to create the conditions where more people would want to buy bikes.
But when you bring those two sides together, you can be much more effective. The industry can provide resources, professional expertise, and economic arguments. The advocates can provide passion, credibility, and grassroots organizing capacity.
And from the industry's perspective, investing in advocacy is just good business. If you make it easier and safer for people to cycle, more people will buy bikes. If you create better cycling infrastructure, people will cycle more and wear out their bikes faster and need to replace them. If you make cycling more mainstream and socially acceptable, you expand your market.
So there's a natural alignment of interests, but it took time to build the trust and the working relationships to make that collaboration effective. Now we have industry executives who understand advocacy and advocates who understand business, and that makes everyone more effective.
Avi Stopper (20:10)
That alignment of interests makes perfect sense when you put it that way. The industry benefits from more people cycling, and advocates benefit from having more resources and professional expertise. I want to ask about something you mentioned earlier—the importance of local business owners as allies. Can you elaborate on how you cultivate those relationships?
Kevin Mayne (20:30)
Local business owners are incredibly powerful allies because they have credibility with politicians in a way that advocates sometimes don't. Politicians expect advocates to advocate for their cause—that's what they do. But when a local business owner says that cycling is good for their business, that carries more weight because they have skin in the game.
The key is to identify businesses that genuinely benefit from cycling and then help them articulate why it benefits them. So a café owner near a popular cycling route might see increased business on weekends when cyclists stop for coffee. A bike shop owner obviously benefits directly. But you might also have businesses that benefit indirectly—maybe a bookstore that sees more foot traffic because cycling makes the area more walkable and bikeable.
The challenge is that many business owners don't automatically make the connection between cycling infrastructure and their business success. They might notice that they get more customers on nice days when people are out cycling, but they might not think about advocating for better cycling infrastructure to make that happen more often.
So part of the work is helping them see those connections and then giving them opportunities to share their perspectives with policymakers. Sometimes that's as simple as inviting them to speak at a city council meeting or including them in a letter to the mayor. Sometimes it's more sophisticated—maybe organizing a business coalition or hosting an event where business owners can meet with political leaders.
The other thing that's really important is making sure that cycling infrastructure actually does benefit local businesses, and making sure businesses understand how to take advantage of it. So if you're building a bike lane near a shopping district, maybe you also help businesses install bike parking or promote cycling-friendly policies like allowing cyclists to carry their bikes into stores.
Avi Stopper (22:10)
That practical support for businesses to actually benefit from cycling infrastructure is really smart. It creates a positive feedback loop where businesses become natural advocates because they're seeing real benefits. I want to ask about something that's been a theme throughout our conversation—the importance of professional, strategic advocacy. For smaller advocacy organizations or individual advocates who might not have access to the kind of resources that you've had in your roles, what advice would you give about how to punch above their weight?
Kevin Mayne (22:40)
I think the first thing is to understand that you don't have to do everything yourself. There are resources and allies available if you know how to find them and how to ask for help.
For example, there might be academic researchers at local universities who are interested in cycling or transportation or urban planning. They might be willing to help with data analysis or policy research in exchange for being able to publish their findings. There might be graduate students who need thesis projects.
There might be professionals in your community who are personally interested in cycling and willing to volunteer their expertise. Lawyers who can help with policy analysis, marketing professionals who can help with communications, business owners who can help with economic arguments.
The key is to think beyond the traditional cycling advocacy community and identify people who have skills you need and reasons to care about cycling success.
The other thing is to be very strategic about where you focus your limited resources. Don't try to fight every battle or work on every issue. Pick the things where you can realistically make a difference and where success will create momentum for other improvements.
And don't underestimate the power of good storytelling. You might not have budget for expensive research or professional marketing, but if you can tell compelling stories about how cycling improves people's lives, that can be incredibly powerful. Stories stick with people in a way that statistics often don't.
Finally, I'd say don't be afraid to think big and ask for things that seem unrealistic. Some of the biggest successes in cycling advocacy have come from people who were willing to propose bold ideas that seemed impossible at the time.
Avi Stopper (24:20)
Those are really practical suggestions. The idea of tapping into university resources and finding professionals who have personal interest in cycling is something I think a lot of advocates might not think about. Let me ask about measuring success. How do you know when your advocacy efforts are working?
Kevin Mayne (24:40)
That's a great question because advocacy success is often incremental and long-term, which can make it hard to measure and hard to stay motivated.
I think you need multiple types of metrics. You need output metrics—how many meetings did you have, how many people attended your events, how much media coverage did you get. You need policy metrics—did you get the policy changes you were advocating for, did you get the funding you were asking for. And you need outcome metrics—are more people actually cycling, is cycling getting safer, are cyclists' experiences improving.
The challenge is that outcome metrics often lag behind your advocacy efforts by months or years. You might have a successful advocacy campaign that leads to funding for infrastructure that doesn't get built for two years and doesn't show up in cycling counts for another year after that.
So you have to celebrate the interim victories along the way. Getting a supportive policy passed is worth celebrating even if the infrastructure hasn't been built yet. Getting a business leader to speak in support of cycling is worth celebrating even if it doesn't immediately lead to new infrastructure.
And you have to take the long view. Some of the most important advocacy work is changing the conversation and building relationships and creating the conditions for future success. That stuff is hard to measure but incredibly important.
I also think it's important to document your work and learn from both successes and failures. What worked? What didn't work? What would you do differently next time? That institutional knowledge is incredibly valuable and often gets lost when advocates burn out or move on to other things.
Avi Stopper (26:10)
That point about celebrating interim victories seems really important for maintaining momentum and morale. I want to shift gears and ask about something that you mentioned as a capstone of your career—the 2024 European Cycling Declaration. Can you talk about what that is, where it came from, and why it matters?
Kevin Mayne (26:30)
For a long time as a cycling movement, we weren't sure that the federal layer—it's not federal, but the kind of multi-country stakeholder level called the European Union—mattered because essentially cycling is local. But increasingly over a number of years, we invested in European movements. We talked to the EU. The EU has some regulatory input that doesn't affect cycling much.
But it certainly throws around a lot of funding. It throws around a lot of economic stimulation funding. It sets the tone for a lot of the countries where it funds and how its money is spent. And it's an essential kind of narrative that you bolt on to the stuff you do nationally and locally. And even in some political systems in Europe, you might have one political tradition in national government and a different tradition in the cities. They'll find a way to talk to Europe to validate their position and maybe get some money.
So we decided to really invest in Europe and full circle back to where we started—every other sector's got a European strategy. It's got a European signed-up policy framework. And lo and behold, apparently the only four modes of transport in Europe are automotive, maritime, aviation, and rail or public transit. That's it. And it's been that way since Europe started, 50 years ago.
And in that space, by having those strategies, those official—and particularly industrial partnerships, not even transportation partnerships—every year they'll have a summit with the right political players and the CEOs will all turn up and billions flows out of that in funding and subsidy and research and political influence and contact points. And the whole of green, sustainable kind of environmental lobbying has struggled to break into that space.
So even before I was on the scene, colleagues were saying, we'll really know we've arrived if there's a European cycling strategy that's been signed off that sits—we will know when they draw the four columns of transportation mobility, there's a fifth one that's been added. Even in statistical analysis, let's count us.
So the teams and the lobby did a great job. We started to get the funding flowing and in the period I've been involved I think we got about an extra five billion euros flowing down into local government that can be spent on bike lanes and stuff like that. So cycling is recognized as a good thing and it's something you can do, but we pushed several times to get this so-called European cycling strategy on the books and basically in the last political round, the last electoral cycle, we achieved that.
Some of us, some of my colleagues were in it for a long time at various levels and we got quite close in 2017. But what had been fed back to us was the game changer was that we played every angle. We played political left and right. We brought the post-pandemic and industrial stories to the table.
We mobilized our friendly networks of city mayors and regional governments and others that were pro-bike and were keen to see more. And we had a group of governments with which we had a good relationship. We had a bunch of governments who didn't care. So you might argue in the US, you have certain states that are keen and certain cities are. And we worked with them. So there was a kind of sherpa group of countries that thought a European cycling strategy would be a good thing.
And all those movements aligned. And fair play, it was a massive team effort, but I'm very proud of what we did. And certainly the feedback we got was that adding the job creation industrial dimension was pivotal. That gave a whole bunch of people reason just to go, oh yeah, I'd like some of that.
Extraordinarily, I had to go to one meeting with one of the CEOs of major companies, president of our association, and a very senior Dutch politician said to us, "Yeah, but these bikes aren't made in Europe, are they? We're not going to be able to do anything with jobs. I mean, be honest, you're amongst friends here." And we're like, "It's a million jobs." And he goes, "Really? Can you validate that?" And we're like, "Yeah." "Oh, well, in that case, perhaps we better be more supportive. You know, I'll have a word with the commissioner."
They're only small touch points, but I remember that conversation so vividly. And the process took nearly three years after the pandemic to become a reality. It isn't a fully institutionalized signed-in strategy alongside the big four transport movements, but it is already enabling some pretty good actions and some funding streams and some next steps, which I think is pretty positive.
Avi Stopper (30:10)
That's a fascinating example of how economic arguments can change minds even among people who you might expect to be supportive for other reasons. The fact that a Dutch politician needed to hear about job creation to become supportive really drives home your point about meeting people where they are rather than where you think they should be.
Kevin Mayne (30:30)
Exactly. And that's something I learned from my corporate background—you can't just assume that people will support something because it aligns with what you think their values should be. You have to understand what they actually care about and how your proposal helps them achieve their goals.
That Dutch politician wasn't anti-cycling. But in his role, he was focused on economic development and job creation for his constituents. Until we could show him how cycling contributed to those goals, it wasn't a priority for him. Once we could make that connection, he became a strong advocate.
And that's true at every level of advocacy. A city council member might personally love cycling, but if they can't explain to their constituents how cycling infrastructure benefits the community economically, they're going to have a hard time supporting it politically.
Avi Stopper (31:10)
That makes perfect sense. Before we wrap up, I want to ask about lessons for American advocates. Based on your experience working across different countries and political systems, what advice would you give to cycling advocates in the United States who are trying to build more effective advocacy movements?
Kevin Mayne (31:30)
I think the first lesson is to think bigger and longer-term. American cycling advocacy has often been very focused on individual projects or immediate concerns, but if you want systemic change, you need to think about how to shape the entire policy landscape over time.
The second lesson is to build broader coalitions. Don't just work with other cycling advocates. Work with public health people, environmental advocates, business groups, parents' organizations—anyone who has a reason to support better cycling conditions. And make sure those coalition partners can speak authentically to their own constituencies.
The third lesson is to invest in professional advocacy capacity. Grassroots passion is crucial, but if you want to engage effectively with policymakers on complex issues, you need people who understand policy and politics and can speak the language of government and business.
The fourth lesson is to use economic arguments strategically. American politicians, like politicians everywhere, care about jobs and economic development. If you can show that cycling infrastructure creates jobs, supports local businesses, and provides good return on investment, you'll get attention from people who might not care about environmental or health arguments.
The fifth lesson is to be patient and persistent. This is long-term work. You're not going to transform American cities overnight. But if you're strategic and consistent and you build on your successes, you can create momentum that leads to big changes over time.
And finally, don't underestimate what's possible. When I started in cycling advocacy, the idea of a European cycling strategy seemed impossible. The idea of getting billions in EU funding for cycling infrastructure seemed impossible. But we did it by being strategic, building coalitions, and staying focused on our goals over many years.
American cities can become great cycling cities. It's going to take work and time and resources, but it's absolutely possible if advocates are willing to think strategically and work professionally while maintaining the passion that drives this movement.
Avi Stopper (33:20)
Those are excellent recommendations, and I think they really capture the themes we've been discussing throughout this conversation. The combination of passion and professionalism, the importance of coalition building, the need for economic arguments alongside other benefits. Before we finish, is there anything else you'd like American advocates to know?
Kevin Mayne (33:40)
I think the most important thing is to remember that you're not alone in this work. There are successful cycling advocates all around the world who have figured out how to make change happen in difficult political contexts. There are resources and expertise available if you know how to find them and ask for help.
And I think American advocates should have confidence in what they're trying to achieve. Cycling is not some utopian fantasy—it's a practical transportation solution that works in cities all around the world. The benefits are real and measurable. The economic case is strong. The public health case is strong. The environmental case is strong.
What's needed is strategic thinking, professional execution, and the persistence to keep working through the inevitable setbacks and challenges. But if American advocates can bring the same level of strategic thinking and professional capacity to cycling advocacy that other industries bring to promoting their interests, I'm confident they can create the kind of systemic change that makes cycling a practical reality for people of all ages and abilities.
The other thing I'd say is don't be afraid to learn from people outside the traditional cycling advocacy community. Some of the most important insights for cycling advocacy come from understanding how other industries and movements have successfully influenced policy. There's a whole world of knowledge about effective advocacy that cycling advocates can tap into.
Avi Stopper (34:55)
Kevin, this has been incredibly illuminating. Your perspective on combining grassroots passion with professional strategy really comes through, and I think American advocates will find a lot of practical wisdom in what you've shared. Thank you so much for your time.
Kevin Mayne (35:10)
You're very welcome, it's been a pleasure.
Avi Stopper (35:15)
Thanks for listening. If you have questions, comments, or suggestions for guests you'd like to hear from, drop us a line at [email protected]. Bike Networks Now is a production of Bike Streets. Anyone should be able to ride a bike to any destination in their city today. You can learn more about our work at bikestreets.com.
