Mobility Moshpit 21
✨ Hello pioneering minds!
The Lab of Thought wants to challenge the way we think and act about mobility and the spaces we live in. We love to question the narratives that have shaped our motonormative mindset and explore alternative ways of seeing, thinking, and doing. Curious? Let's go!
Gridlock 2025: Unlocking the Future of Our Streets
Are you working on street innovation and city transitions? Then Gridlock 2025 could be your best investment of the year.
This one-day event in Haarlem brings together two years of fieldlabs, collaborations, and experiments, condensed into actionable insights. Expect to gain proven tools for running urban experiments, new methodologies for transition strategies, and instruments to deepen sustainable impact in your city or organisation.
If you want to supercharge your transition plan with fresh knowledge, practical templates, and new allies, this is the place to be.
📅 23 October 2025
📍 Haarlem, The Netherlands
⚡ Early bird tickets (20% off) available until 15 September
Frictioneering: Turning Resistance into Change
In urban planning, smoothness is often seen as the ultimate goal – seamless processes, optimised traffic, efficient systems. But without friction, nothing changes. Conflict and resistance reveal whose voices are heard, whose needs are prioritised, and where power lies.
At the Lab of Thought, we call this frictioneering: working with resistance rather than erasing it. It means exposing tensions between plans and lived experiences, and using pushback as raw material for transformation. Friction is where fear peaks, but it’s also where alliances form and real change begins.
That’s why we’re launching the Frictioneer Award 2025 – to celebrate those who challenge the status quo and expand what’s possible in city-making.
Street Experiments in Voorburg-Noord
Big changes are coming to Voorburg-Noord, where the sewage system will soon be replaced. This major works project offers the perfect opportunity to redesign the neighbourhood for the future — with more greenery, space to meet and play, and better conditions for walking, cycling, and shared mobility. Over the past year, residents have shared their wishes and ideas, supported and facilitated by The Lab of Thought, and this autumn the detailed street-level designs will begin, together with locals and businesses.
To test and experience new possibilities, the city, with active involvement from LOT, has started running small-scale experiments. This week saw the opening of a temporary street garden in Van Heurnestraat — giving residents a taste of how greener, more liveable streets might feel.
When the Street Becomes a Living Lab: the Haarlem experiment
At the beginning of September we joined forces with Jonge Honden to kick off a series of live experiments at primary school De Talenten in Haarlem. From 8:15 to 9:00 the street outside the school was transformed into a living laboratory: no cars, just play, cycling, scooting and conversations.
The goal was simple but powerful: to show children, parents and neighbours what a safe and welcoming school environment could feel like. By experiencing the street in a different way, the community could imagine a future where walking and cycling to school is active, independent and safe.
This is just the start. Every Tuesday we’ll make small changes based on what we learn, step by step building towards a neighbourhood where even 8-year-olds can travel safely on their own.
👉 Want to join or learn more? Drop us a message.
Flipping the Script on Traffic Updates
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Flipping the Script on Traffic Updates
When was the last time you heard a traffic update about blocked pavements, dangerous cycle detours or delayed buses? On the radio, updates are almost always for drivers. But what if traffic news put people first?
On 22 September — European Car-Free Day — The Lab of Thought is teaming up with RTV Slovenija and Matej Praprotnik to launch #StreetsForPeople #Day22 #TrafficUpdatesForPeople. Imagine radio reports highlighting obstacles for walking, wheeling, cycling and public transport instead of endless car jams.
📣 Are you — or do you know — a #RadioStation brave enough to join the action? Let us know and help grow the movement.
Listeners: if you spot an obstacle, share it online with #StreetsForPeople #Day22 #TrafficUpdatesForPeople.
Let’s make sure the airwaves reflect streets for everyone!
Mobility Bullshit Bingo: Cutting Through the Jargon
Why do so many debates about streets and mobility sound exactly the same? Too often, they are filled with technical jargon — throughput, optimisation, bottlenecks, parking demand. These terms may be accurate, but they reduce mobility to a technocratic issue and exclude many people from the conversation.
Mobility is not just about flows and capacities. It is about values: freedom, liveability, justice, connection. To address today’s urban challenges, we need to go beyond the how and start with the why.
That’s why we created a satirical tool — Mobility Bullshit Bingo. Simply enter your text, and the game highlights jargon, checks whether it’s value-driven, and even helps you rewrite it into language that resonates with people.
💚 Try the tool here: mobiliteitsbingo.nl
🌐 Created by Sahir Dhanani Enarth & Tom Heitland
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