Romee Nicolai is the Bicycle Mayor of Amsterdam, elected in 2024 as part of the global Bicycle Mayor Network led by BYCS. Born and raised in Amsterdam, she is an urban planner, cycling advocate, and community organizer committed to creating more sustainable, inclusive, and people-centered cities through cycling. As Bicycle Mayor, Romee serves as a bridge between residents, policymakers, researchers, and the cycling sector. She builds partnerships, leads public engagement initiatives, and advocates for safer, more accessible, and inclusive streets for all bicycle users. As the founder of the Bike Kitchen at the University of Amsterdam, she champions cycling not only as a mode of transport, but also as a catalyst for social connection, community empowerment, and healthier urban environments. Through awareness campaigns, educational programs, street experiments, and grassroots collaborations, Romee works to amplify local voices and inspire new perspectives on the role of public space in urban life. Her work focuses on strengthening cycling culture while advancing cities where safety, sustainability, and human interaction are at the heart of mobility and urban development. She believes that cycling can be a powerful tool for building more resilient and connected communities.

Irene Bittner studied landscape architecture in Vienna and Copenhagen, and her work focus on sustainable mobility in liveable streets and public spaces. She started her career as a practitioner in planning and architecture offices in Vienna and Berlin. More than a decade, she worked as a lecturer and researcher – among others, at the University of Graz, the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna and the BOKU University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna, where she completed her doctorate on ‘Urban open spaces for healthy-enhancing physical activities of adolescents’ in 2018. In the last years she shifted her focus from transdisciplinary research to knowledge-transfer for practitioners and multi-stakeholder processes. Since 2022, she works as an expert at the Austrian Energy Agency. Next to her role as lead coordinator of the Danube Region project ‘Active2Public Transport’ she is affiliated with the Austrian Federal initiative ‘klimaaktiv mobil’ where she also manages the quality standards of the nation-wide education of trainers for everyday cycling and other further education programmes.