Michael Carroll, P.E.
President, NACTO
Deputy Managing Director, Office of Transportation, Infrastructure, and Sustainability, City of Philadelphia
Cities are about connection. From friendly exchanges between neighbors to animated conversations in sidewalk cafes, parks, offices, schools, and city halls, cities are where we access opportunities, learn from different perspectives, and expand our horizons. Over time, these connections form the basis of rich, full lives.
The smallest everyday moments create these connections that can last a lifetime.
For any child getting on her bike for the first time, the rush of freedom can be overwhelming at first. But as she embraces the experience, she learns that being on a bike is liberating and opens a new world up to explore. As she grows older, she will pedal farther, her world growing beyond her immediate block and neighborhood. She will gain the confidence to expand her reach, not just in place, but in possibility—that first bike ride providing the spark for independence and discovery.
Even as adults, we benefit when our world broadens. And the communities in neighborhoods benefit when we connect places so that people can interact. This is how immigrants and other new arrivals learn a city’s rhythms. This is how elders in communities can share the legacy of a neighborhood with younger generations. All of this is made possible when it becomes easier for neighbors to get to know each other, when the rich diversity of a city can be felt everywhere because everyone can get everywhere.
These are the tangible, purposeful results of cities creating the conditions for connection to flourish.
We are fortunate to live in a moment when cities are expected to deliver. And they are delivering moreso every year. The expansion of networks in cities providing sidewalks, bike lanes, and frequent transit is tremendously encouraging. These are the investments that enable whole families, and all of our friends and neighbors, to access the opportunities that cities provide.
Cities no longer rely on bare minimum treatments—faded lines on a road or a bike sharrow here and there. Instead, we see planning for transportation investments being undertaken holistically and in concert with neighborhood needs. By sharing best practices between cities, practitioners are designing and building higher-quality bikeways, better bike share systems, and safer streets that attract more people to biking, walking, taking the bus, and every other human-scaled mode.
Ultimately, the greatest potential of the urban landscape is defined not by towering skyscrapers or bustling thoroughfares but by the connections they nurture among their inhabitants. In this way, bike lanes are more than just painted pathways. They are conduits of connection, catalysts for exploration, and symbols of a city’s boundless potential.
And this work—calmer streets, well-designed intersections, connected bikeways, art in the crosswalk—does more than just help bind communities together. It paves the way for a future where cities thrive as vibrant hubs of opportunity and possibility for all.
This guide reflects the lessons of cities that have innovated in building these connections—and the possibilities we have to do much more.
Corinne Kisner
Former Executive Director, NACTO (2019-2024)
NACTO is founded on the belief that transformative change is possible through our collective action–and that cities are leading the way.
Changing the status quo is not easy work. It takes time and energy. It takes imagination to envision new possibilities. It takes creativity to bring people on board by painting a picture of a place’s potential. It takes resilience to hold on to the vision when we experience setbacks–when our progress is not linear. It takes adaptability to try new strategies and incorporate changing contexts. And it takes all of us, a network of committed champions who are learning together and leaning on each other, advocating and implementing and organizing for a brighter future.
Fifteen years ago, a small group of public servants from a handful of U.S. cities banded together with a vision: streets designed for people, with biking at the fore. They sought to build bike lanes that offered a safe, convenient, and accessible way for people to get around, and they needed practical guidance for their planners and engineers. This group of dedicated dreamers knew that a different mobility paradigm is possible—if we design for it.
The result of this collaboration–the first edition of NACTO’s Urban Bikeway Design Guide–changed the trajectory of city street design in North America. With that permission slip to innovate, more cities built bikeways, tested new design strategies, and shared information on what they learned. NACTO incorporated the lessons from this experimentation into our materials in a positive feedback loop: local projects codified into written guidance, which in turn inspired and encouraged even more cities to raise the bar for bikeways.
Now, this third edition of the Urban Bikeway Design Guide sets our sights even higher. And the best part? It represents the expertise and on-the-ground experience of a robust and growing movement of city transportation champions. NACTO can no longer claim to be a small group: over 150 individuals employed by more than 60 cities and transit agencies helped NACTO develop this guide.
Together, we are creating the conditions for our neighbors to feel comfortable choosing to bike to work, to school, to visit friends and family, to connect with their communities, and to access opportunities. We are designing cities at a human scale, so that we can live more healthfully, more sustainably, more equitably, and more joyfully–with the bicycle as a catalyst for connection.
At NACTO, we lead with imagination. We—you—have the power to shape the future, starting with the design of our streets. Let’s keep going.