A few years ago when New York City began to take huge strides in making their city more friendly to her bicycle riding residents, Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan was charged with redesigning the city. In an interview, she talked about how the city’s transformation was turning all 8.4 million residents into very engaged citizens,

Nothing gets 100 percent support in any city. You’re not looking for unanimous approval, otherwise you wouldn’t build a thing—8.4 million New Yorkers, 8.4 million points of view, and everybody considers himself a traffic engineer. 

Now that San Diego is turning the page from an auto-centric focus to one that prioritizes people, it is gratifying to witness more and more people getting involved in their own communities by participating civically and then demanding street design that allocates space for bicycle riders. These baby steps are leading some into leadership positions within their own community:

The #CCPG has spoken: they love bikes. They have elected me to Chair the Transportation Committee. Cue Mr Burns voice… excellent.

— Michael Muhammad (@mbsully7) August 21, 2013

The folks at Code for America who utilize their software talents to build tools to engage residents to participate in their civic duty recently updated their phenomenal Streetmix tool to make redesigning streets way more fun and exciting. What is Streetmix? Streetmix allows you to

[d]esign, remix, and share your street. Add bike paths, widen sidewalks or traffic lanes, learn how all of this can impact your community.

Want a cycle track on your street? You can design it. How about a canopy of trees above you as you ride on that cycle track? Done!

So why not redesign your own street? Send those ideas in to us, your council representative and of course – your friendly city employees at the Transportation Department. Let them know what you’d like to see.