When summarizing Gregor Robertson's ten years as mayor, any historical perspective on the City of Vancouver will undoubtedly refer, perhaps quite pointedly, to his responsibility for the growth in cycling — the activity, and more importantly the infrastructure that enabled its growth.

In the late 1980s, a small group of young environmental activists began to identify as a subculture people concerned about bicycles, and their place on the streets…and they began to build a community.

"That Vancouver is now one of the top cities in North America for protected bike lanes is unbelievable; the substance of what’s happened is pretty dramatic. Public perceptions and attacks is a whole other part of the story."

"You might get laughed at the first time, but you back it up with numbers and success and experience elsewhere, you can start to make the case. But if you don't do that, you're never going to get the funding that you need, and it's never going to meet anywhere near its potential."

"One of my usual approaches was just to let everybody know that I rode my bike all the time, and if there were ever any cycling aspects of projects, I was happy to help on them. Rather than being hard-nosed about things, I was more of a soft-pedalling lifestyle bicycle advocate."

"Because cycling was given a low priority within engineering culture, it was given to the junior engineers who had just come out of university. They were more interested in actually doing something, and didn't mind ruffling some feathers. And that's helped create that culture change."

"I was motivated personally as a daily cyclist, and as a transportation practitioner I saw how a lot of transportation infrastructure was contrary to properly accommodating cycling. I felt myself in somewhat a unique position — having an understanding, and being able to talk the language of the transportation practitioners."

"It was a conscious choice on my part to be as car-free as possible. I had bought into that paradigm and I think a part of me was stubborn, and people said you can't do it. I was like yeah, I actually can do it. I can ride, get some exercise, and it's zero cents a litre. "

"Making these commitments incrementally over time, as the network effects come into play, produces a cultural change. And that becomes a reflection of who we are."

"In those days, the real challenge was that the engineering fraternity felt that if people get out and ride, they'll gain confidence, they'll gain the skills that they need, and they won't want to build separated facilities. Intuitively, we all felt this was bullshit. We just didn't have the evidence to suggest otherwise."