Active Transportation Symposium Announced: October 29-30 in West Sacramento

The California Transportation Commission (CTC) and Caltrans will co-host the first-ever, two-day symposium to share information and network about active transportation issues. The agenda is still being worked out, but several speakers and topics have already been confirmed.

For example, one focus will be on the benefits from investing in and engaging in active transportation--what they are,  how best to measure and report them. Dr. Susan Handy of UC Davis's Institute of Transportation Studies will lead a panel on that topic.

Another panel will tackle the notion of what makes a project "transformative," which the Active Transportation Program (ATP) encourages. Transformative projects are not necessarily large ones, although they can be. The mayor of Woodlake, Rudy Mendoza, will talk about a small ATP project in Woodlake that brought transformative changes.

Topics will include equity, safety, and programs. Keynote speakers include Tamika Butler, former head of the LA County Bicycle Coalition and current California Planning Director for Toole Design, Leah Shahum, founder of the Vision Zero Network and former director of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, and Carl Guardino, president and CEO of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group and one of the commissioners on the CTC.

The symposium is open to everyone, and CTC staff hope to get a mix of people including planners, advocates, legislative staffers, academics, agency staff--basically people "who care about the program and want to make it the best it can be," according to Laurie Waters of the CTC.

The symposium will be an opportunity to explore active transportation issues in more depth than can usually happen at workshops on the guidelines, where participants are frequently thinking about how to get funding for a specific project rather than what is good for the program. "This is not a workshop about filling out applications," said Waters. "We are hoping to look at it from a higher level."

Mark your calendars: the event will be held October 29 and 30 in West Sacramento, a few weeks after the California Bicycle Coalition's semi-annual Bike Summit in Los Angeles. You can register for the ATP symposium here.