In this episode, you’ll learn all about National Association for Transportation Officials (NACTO) and their new Urban Bikeway Design Guide from Executive Director, Ryan Russo.

Ryan starts by sharing his origin story working for NYC DOT doing bicycle and pedestrian planning and executing the PlaNYC vision for the better part of 14 years before leaving for Oakland, California to launch a new Department of Transportation Department, where he was for five years prior to returning to NYC to take the helm at NACTO.

NACTO is an association of North American cities and transit agencies formed to exchange transportation ideas, insights, and practices and cooperatively approach national transportation issues.

The NACTO Urban Bikeway Design Guide, Third Edition will help city leaders and street designers meet the needs of our time and sets a new standard for street design in North America. Developed for cities, by cities, the new guide is more than a permission slip for better street design–it’s a prescription for safe, connected, equitable bike networks. It captures lessons learned and emerging practices to set a new bar for the design of city streets. New topics address critical gaps, including planning and project development.

The guide includes information on advisory lanes or edge lane roads, protected bikeways and roundabouts, and various shared street designs.

We also discuss the Designing Cities Conference taking place in May of this year.

#streetsareforpeople #allagesandabilities #bicycleinfrastructure #bikewaydesigns

Thank you so much for tuning in! If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend and be sure to subscribe to the Active Towns Channel on YouTube for more content, or if you prefer, you can find and subscribe to the Pod on most major Podcatcher listening platforms.

Helpful Links (note that some may include affiliate links to help me support the channel):
👉 NACTO website
👉 Purchase the Urban Bikeway Design Guide
👉 Transportation Alternatives
👉 Ep 158 with Warren Logan
👉 My episode with Wes Marshall – Killed By A Traffic Engineer
👉 Advisory Lanes (Edge Lanes Roads) episode with Michael Williams

If you are a fan of the Active Towns Podcast, please consider supporting the effort as an Active Towns Ambassador in the following ways:
1. Join our Patreon community. Contributions start at just $3 per month
2. If you enjoyed this episode, you can also “leave a tip” through “Buy Me a Coffee”
3. Make a donation to my non-profit, Advocates for Healthy Communities, Inc., to help support my pro bono work with cities

Credits:
– Video and audio production by John Simmerman
– Music via Epidemic Sound

Resources used during the production of this video:
– My recording platform is Ecamm Live
– Editing software Adobe Creative Cloud Suite
– Equipment: Contact me for a complete list

For more information about the Active Towns effort or to follow along, please visit our links below:
– Active Towns Website
– Active Towns on Bluesky
– Periodic e-Newsletter

Background:
Hi Everyone! My name is John Simmerman, and I’m a health promotion and public health professional with over 30 years of experience. Over the years, my area of concentration has evolved into a specialization in how the built environment influences human behavior related to active living and especially active mobility.

Since 2010,  I’ve been exploring, documenting, and profiling established, emerging, and aspiring Active Towns wherever they might be while striving to produce high-quality multimedia content to help inspire the creation of more safe and inviting, environments that promote a “Culture of Activity” for “All Ages & Abilities.”

The Active Towns Channel features my original video content and reflections, including a selection of podcast episodes and short films profiling the positive and inspiring efforts happening around the world as I am able to experience and document them.

Thanks once again for tuning in! I hope you find this content helpful and insightful.

Creative Commons License: Attributions, Non-Commercial, No Derivatives, 2025