Velo-city Recap: Gdańsk 2025

Intuitive Intersections 

One of the highlights of the week was Mobycon’s Danish and Dutch Intersection Design Workshop, co-led by Robin van der Griend. Despite the prior evening’s fun, this session attracted a full house on Friday morning… anyone who’s ever been to a Velo-city conference knows what a challenge that is!

During the workshop, Robin helped to compare the design principles and philosophies for Danish and Dutch intersection design and let people mix and match various design elements to redesign a local intersection case study in Gdańsk. Since the City of Gdańsk is looking into redeveloping the area, this workshop was a meaningful way to help them go further in making cycling an easier and more attractive way to get around. 

In a separate session on signalized intersections, Robin moderated a highly interactive debate! Would you pick option A or B for the redesign of an intersection? Robin asked the Velo-city audience at his session on Thursday about Rethinking Traffic Light Controlled Intersections. It resulted in a fun and lively debate about pros and cons on segregating or mixing, bike lanes versus a bicycle street, traffic signals versus zebra crossings, where people physically had to pick sides! His key takeaway from the event was that the design should not only BE safe, but it should also FEEL safe. 

Women in Cycling 

On Tuesday evening, our team co-hosted the Women in Cycling Networking & Drinks event, which once again, proved to be a great hit as well as a very welcoming, open and safe networking space. The event was open to all genders, but according to Dagmar, “it was interesting to observe the dynamics, close to opposite to male dominated meetings that many fellow women in the transport world have experienced.” It was a big success with the forging of many new friendships. Hopefully the tradition will continue next year. As they say, something is a tradition once it takes place three times, right?  

Dagmar also delivered a Women in Cycling Germany session together with Prof. Angela Fracke (University of Kassel), Isabell Eberlein (velo_konzept) and Mareike Rauchhaus (Nextbike) where they discussed a new study currently underway across Germany. With the use of mentimeter, participants of the session answered selected survey questions about everyone’s personal experiences regarding barriers in their career, attractiveness, professional goals, & salaries within the cycling sector.

The research focuses on why women remain underrepresented in male-dominated fields, including positions of power and leadership, even within the cycling sector. The panelists had the opportunity to discuss the anonymized answers live with the participants, and first results of the study have just been released at EUROBIKE. 

Reimagining Urban Space 

A standout moment for many at Velo-city 2025 was the arrival of Ecaps and Ytilibom, who were on a mission from outer space. The outer-space creatures study space, and touched-down in Gdansk, where Dagmar was able to meet them, and guide them around. While they seemed to be very confused about how we distribute space between cars and people on earth, they were cute, loved music and made friends everywhere they went!  

Data, Apps, & a Smart Cycling Future 

The central question of the MegaBITS session was “how do we get people to download a cycling app, use it and keep using it?” Veronique Rietman shared insights from a former MegaBITS workshop, held last year, using the marketing-model AARRR (describing 5 phases: Acquisition, Activation, Retention, Revenue and Referral) as a theoretical framework.

Presenters from the Province of Antwerp and Pin Bike, a supplier of a smart cycling hardware product, use the theoretical framework to elaborate on how they managed to demonstrate the added value of their app or platform and gained valuable data about cyclists’ behavior. The conference emphasized the value of data tools, insights, engagement strategies, as well as infrastructure to compel long-term behavioral change. According to Veronique, “It was nice to see that policymakers have increased attention for smart cycling.” For Mobycon, this is an extra motivation to bring more attention to cycling data & ITS in our project work as well as masterclasses!  

Reflecting on Velo-city 2025 in Gdańsk 

Robin van der Griend: 

During a technical visit in Gdańsk, Robin joined local staff to observe how the city is transforming itself to make the city more accessible for walking and cycling. As a city rebuilt after WWII with Soviet planning principles in mind, many arterials were designed to only be crossed using underpasses. This is not only challenging for people with bikes but can be almost impossible for people using mobility aids or pushing a pram.

Robin was able to witness the ways the City of Gdańsk has been working to add more level pedestrian and bicycle crossings, reducing barriers, and making walking and cycling more attractive. While there is still more work to do, the number of people cycling has been steadily increasing since the city initiated this transformation, and it was inspiring to witness. 

Dagmar Köhler 

Our work to advance cycling for everyone is not “nice to have”, it is a duty. What matters is that we do it. For some of us, it is much harder to do our job than for others, I was deeply moved to meet Tbilisi’s bicycle mayor Mar Mikhelidze who is taking real risks. As Gil Penalosa said it: “We have to show up … Stop building cities as if everyone was 30 and athletic … We don’t design for walking and cycling; we design a way of life.” Thank you, Gil! Thank you, Mar!  

Veronique Rietman 

In Gil Penalosa’s plenary presentation, he illustrated how not talking about cycling can be beneficial to promote cycling. “If you want to promote cycling, don’t talk about cycling, but talk about better cities, greener cities, more vibrant cities.” Think about what is important to your stakeholders and illustrate how cycling can contribute to that. 

As this was my first Velo-city, the overall experience was memorable to me. I loved the enthusiasm, openness, and passion of the Velo-city community. In particular, I really enjoyed the bike parade: cycling through the beautiful city together with hundreds of Velo-citizens and inhabitants of Gdańsk reminded me once again of the power of cycling. 

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Velo-city 2025 reminded Mobycon of the power of community, collaboration, and bold ideas. Whether debating intersection design, connecting over drinks, or reimagining urban spaces, the week reinforced why cycling is more than just a mode of transportation; it’s a way to design better cities for everyone. It was rewarding to be recognized by international Velo-citizens, and Mobycon looks forward to continuing the conversation and to seeing many of you again in Rimini for Velo-city 2026! 
 

Missed us at the conference? Contact us to chat further, ask questions, or find out how we can help make your community more livable!