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What would solve all of our social ills? Unlimited energy from cold fusion? A benevolent general artificial intelligence? The arrival of angels and the rapture?

Those would be great, but in this solution, Braus will propose something simpler:
protected bike lanes.

Today most people won't bike in a big city because it is (or feels) too dangerous. By making biking save, the protected bike lane has shown to quintuple (that is x5) the population of cyclists overnight. (Lessons from Green Lanes 2014) Protected bike lanes also make cycling more diverse because women and people of color disproportionally choose not to bike without them. 

Protected bike lanes are cheap and as long as they don't gobble up parking (which they don't have to) most people support protected bike lanes. Car people are happy they won't hit a bike, bike people are happy they won't be hit by a car!

But there is more! 

The humble protected bike lane does more than protect bikes, cars, and pedestrians from bonking into each other, it also changes people's mindsets. When people can ride their bikes, they begin to see and envision the city as an urbanist does. They see the benefits of livable, dense, multi-use buildings. They see how pedestrians, bikes, cars, and transit could weave into a glorious multi-modal transit system.

If we want an army of urbanists to support transit infrastructure and dense urban living, we can build that army by first producing protected bike lanes. 

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Comments? Feedback? Questions? Solutions? Message us! We will do a mailbag episode.

Email: [email protected]
Adam: @ajbraus - [email protected]
Scot: @scotmaupin

adambraus.com (Link to Adam's projects and books)
The Perfect Show (Scot's solo podcast)
The Numey (inflation-free currency)

Thanks to Jonah Burns for the SFM music.