California Bicycle Summit Includes Global Perspectives
CalBike’s work centers on changing policies in Sacramento. The upcoming California Bicycle Summit will bring together diverse perspectives from across our state, and we’ll also engage with advocates from around the world. The Summit, which will be held in San Diego on April 18-19, 2024, includes speakers from the Netherlands, Finland, Mexico, and Colombia, including a bilingual session in Spanish and English.
Cross-border bicycle diplomacy
San Diego is closer to Mexico than most parts of California, and the city is inextricably linked with Tijuana, just across the border. The 4:00 pm session on Thursday, April 18 — Bi-National Active Transportation Coordination in the San Diego and Tijuana Region — will be led by SANDAG regional planner Madai Parra, in collaboration with the City of Tijuana Mobility Commission (led by Tomas Perez Vargas) and Alianza por la Mobilidad Activa A.C. (led by Elizabeth Hensley and Daniel Gomez Patino). The panel will highlight active transportation efforts in each jurisdiction and the years of collaboration to plan a potential bi-national bicycle border crossing program with U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
On Friday, April 19, at 10:30 am, a bilingual Spanish-English panel will address the power of storytelling to shape our transportation future. CalBike alum and current executive director of Transform Jenn Guitart will be joined by Charis Pérez of Latino Health Access and Lorena Romero Fontecha from BiciActivo Radio. Fontecha is also an independent bike advocate from Bogotá, Colombia. This session will examine how cultural stories about biking, walking, and other forms of transportation affect our ideas about how we get around.
The view from Europe
The Netherlands has a well-deserved reputation as a leader in adopting bicycling for everyday transportation. In a 10:30 am session on Thursday, April 18, we’ll hear from a representative from the Netherlands’ Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management, the agency responsible for transportation and infrastructure in the Netherlands. The session will discuss active transportation as an integral part of transportation policy and feature representatives from industry to talk about what employers can do to incentivize bike commuting.
On Friday, April 19, at 9:30 a.m., the Summit will host a session on edge lane roads, a shared road treatment popular in the UK that is making inroads in the U.S. At 2:30 p.m., you can attend a session on Helsinki’s bicycle infrastructure, including bicycle superhighways, and the return on investment that the city has realized.
Representatives from the Dutch Cycling Embassy and the Finnish Cycling Embassy will be on their respective panels. How cool is that?
Have you reserved your spot at the California Bicycle Summit? The 2022 event sold out, and a limited number of walk-up tickets will be available. Buy your ticket now to be at the center of discussions of the hottest topics in active transportation.
