Earlier this week, several LACBC staffers and local chapter leaders headed down to San Diego for the
California Bicycle Summit! CalBike hosts this convening of bicycle leaders every two years, and this year’s theme was Equity in Motion.
In addition to learning from the summit, connecting with other bicycle advocates, and bicycling around San Diego to get dessert, LACBC presented our work on several panels including:
Policy & Outreach Coordinator Bryan Moller presented on LACBC’s work with the Active Streets L.A. program and the Southeast Cities in the panel on “Collaboration to Build Bikeway Networks in Diverse Communities.”
Education Director Colin Bogart discussed Operation Firefly and the series of bike safety classes LACBC offered with Metro in the “Making Connections in Low-Income Communities.”
Planning & Policy Director Eric Bruins discussed local sales tax campaigns on the “Funding California’s Bikeways #2: Local Measures.”
Volunteer Daniella Alcedo shared lessons from the “Women Bike, Women Lead” series she co-led in the “Creating Women-Identified Leadership Opportunities in Bicycling.”
Board Member and Santa Monica Spoke Chair Cynthia Rose presented on LACBC’s local chapter program in “Working with Local Chapters as Regional Advocates.”
Executive Director Tamika Butler participated in a panel discussion on “Police and Prosecutors: Help or Hindrance in Safety Efforts?” and also gave a Tuesday morning keynote address on “Bicycle Advocacy as Anti-Oppression Work” to a standing ovation.
Here are some of the highlights of the summit from our staff:
Ishraq Ali, Membership Manager: My highlight was Extraordinary Desserts, a dessert shop. Seriously. Also, getting to meet and learn the stories of how different grassroots groups started their movements. Shoutout to Oakland, Santa Ana, Richmond & Turlock! Meeting Bill Walton [at the CalBike party] was cool since he is high on life and high on biking. It’s so great that he’s a genuine champion of cycling.
Zachary Rynew, Volunteer & Education Coordinator: Tamika’s speech made me very proud to be a part of LACBC and for what we are fighting for.
Tamika Butler, Executive Director: My highlight was getting to know all of the other folks from around the state and realizing how much, even though there is still much work to do, we’re leading the way in California.
Hyeran Lee, Policy & Outreach Coordinator: My highlight was equity! I think it was important for all organizations to consider how to make our internal and external systems more equitable. I hope this conference helps us advocates work to make our communities more equitable through bicycling.
Bryan Moller, Policy & Outreach Coordinator: Even though I was only at the CalBike Summit for 1.5 days, it was great to meet others doing great active transportation work throughout the Golden State. The mix of technical and social presentations was something that I really liked, as the two are equally important; they also proved to be good respites from one another.
Eric Bruins, Planning & Policy Director: My highlight was hearing about how much progress has been made on reforming Caltrans into a multi-modal agency (though we’re still working on having that trickle down to the districts), and all of the energy around increasing funding for biking and walking. I’m all about the money.
Carol Feucht, Communications Director: I really enjoyed learning about how what is happening in L.A. fits in the context of what else is happening in California. LACBC sent a pretty large group of staff and local chapter leaders, but Los Angeles County seemed to be everywhere at this summit with folks from Bike SGV, Multicultural Communities for Mobility, Fleet Street, CicLAvia, Streetsblog Los Angeles, TRUST South L.A., Bicycle Culture Institute, L.A. Rooted, and other L.A.-based organizations attending and sharing lessons from the powerful work we are all doing in our communities.
Colin Bogart, Education Director: My highlight was meeting people who are doing work similar to our project with LAUSD and getting a dialogue started with them.
Thank you to the California Bicycle Coalition for organizing the summit, all the San Diego groups that helped with summit logistics, and the summit sponsors for making this possible. If you want to see more highlights, search for the #BikeSummit hashtag on Twitter.
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