This course follows a flipped classroom approach in which Amsterdam is both a story board and a lab. Experience and experiential learning are key components of the course. Students are encouraged to independently explore and examine the city through the lens of the learning material; to get inspiration, to struggle with concepts or to “translate lessons" to their local context.

The course includes intimate discussions with the absolute leaders in fields ranging from sociology to transport engineering, and including influential academics and practitioners. To develop a rich understanding of a cycling city students engage in fieldwork, excursions, small group discussions and course projects. Seminal and recent contributions to the relevant literature are discussed throughout the course.

The programme will cover topics as diverse as urban cycling (historical and current trends), power relations in policy, strategic planning at different scales, land use, streams and wayfinding, bicycle culture and effects, data collection and measurement, and marketing as a policy instrument.

Participants in this summer programme will also receive a bicycle included in their academic fees. These are true "Dutch bikes" and are simple and effective for commuting throughout Amsterdam, and for the adventurous, beyond on the Netherlands' enormous integrated network of bicyle paths, highways, and infrastructure. 

Meredith Glaser (MSc) is an urban strategy and transportation researcher and consultant, based in the Netherlands since 2010. At the Urban Cycling Institute of University of Amsterdam, her research focuses on policy innovation, knowledge transfer, and capacity building for accelerated implementation of sustainable transport goals. She manages the academic output for European projects (CYCLEWALK and HANDSHAKE) and is the current academic director for the summer program Planning the Cycling City. She is also one of the world’s most experienced educators for professionals seeking to learn Dutch transport planning policies and practices. She is originally from California and holds Masters degrees in urban planning and public health from UC Berkeley. 

Prof. Dr. Marco te Brömmelstroet currently holds the position of Associate Professor in Urban Planning at the University of Amsterdam, and is Academic Director of the Planning the Cycling City programme. His teaching in Planning Bachelor and Master's programmes centers around the (problematic) integration of land use and mobility and ways to improve this. His research is strongly intertwined with planning practice. He has done several studies on how to improve the use of knowledge in urban strategy making processes. Recently, he extended his curiosity into the role of the bicycle in the functioning of cities and vice versa. Not a coincidence; he covers around 5.000 kilometer annually as a bicycle commuter in Amsterdam, 7.000 kilometer on his racing and touring bikes and he owns a cargo-bicycle shop in Germany. He tries to combine a fanatic advocacy attitude towards cycling in cities with a healthy distant view as academic researcher.

Want to get to know more about studying in Amsterdam? Follow us on social media and join our summer community. Get a feel for our summer school vibe and our academic and social community, and learn about studying with us through the eyes of past summer school students. 

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Looking for an alumni perspective? Read this interview with Patrick Morgan, who attended Planning the Cycling in 2019. 

You can also hear more about the history and culture of cycling in the Netherlands from our Academic Directors George and Marco on our podcast Mokum.