7th Annual Silicon Valley Bike Summit Recap

AdvocacyBikes + TransitCaltrainConnecting Our Communi...El Camino RealFeaturedMenlo Park El Camino RealNotesPalo Alto Bike BoulevardsRedwood City El Camino...San Jose Protected Bik...Vision Zero
Written By Shiloh Ballard

 Thank you to all who attended the 7th Annual Silicon Valley Bike Summit. This year was the biggest year yet with 230 attendees and over 105 bikes parked! Did you miss it? Read on to catch up on all the day’s fascinating discussions. You can also view the archive of all tweets from the Summit and check out the photos and audio from the day [coming soon!].A huge thanks to Microsoft Silicon Valley for hosting and providing food and beverages – the day would have been impossible without their help. We would also like to express our gratitude to our presenting sponsor AT&T, our Signature Level sponsors City of Cupertino and Mineta Transportation Institute, as well as Emison Hullverson LLC/BicycleLaw.com; Dero; GJEL Accident Attorneys; Paoli & Geerhart LLP; Santa Clara County, San Jose, and San Mateo County Spare the Air Resource Teams; Lime Bikes; and Winter Consulting Group. Also thank you to Clif Bar for the snacks, Cindy Ras Creative for the graphic design, and Wayne Dollemore for the photography.Did you miss one of the breakout sessions or just want to check out the slides from a favorite speaker? Check them all out below (click on the bulleted links under each session description)!Keynote and Plenary We started the day with Executive Director Shiloh Ballard discussing the Silicon Valley Bike Vision, released earlier this year. She then introduced our Keynote Speaker, Tamika Butler, Executive Director of the Los Angeles Neighborhood Land Trust and former Executive Director of Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition. Tamika made a strong impression on the crowd with her presentation, “Transportation Advocacy as Anti-Oppression Work”. She discussed her personal experiences with law enforcement and transportation advocacy as a black, queer woman.We then moved to our plenary discussion on Vision Zero, Equity, and Law Enforcement. This talk featured Tamika Butler, Chief Eddie Garcia of San José Police Department; Bena Chang, Associate Transportation Specialist for the City of San José; and Leon Beauchman, External Affairs Consultant at AT&T. This session focused on the enforcement aspect of Vision Zero implementation locally and in other cities in California.Breakout Session 1You Can Bike There: Accessing Transit by Bike          Speakers from BART and Caltrain discussed bike access to and from stations, parking at stations, and on-board access. These are particularly relevant as BART expands to Silicon Valley and San José, and Caltrain is getting ready to electrify and expand capacity system-wide.

It Takes a Village: Safe Routes to School Planning & ImplementationSan Mateo County shared the results of its analysis of the county’s Safe Routes to Schools programs and how they relate to data on demographics and collisions. Local Safe Routes to School coordinators discussed how they use a variety of mechanisms to implement needed bicycle facilities that enable green student commutes.

Gimme Shelter: Protected Bikeways in Silicon Valley San José and Cupertino discussed their plans for completing strong protected bikeway systems. What was the process that led the cities to take on these ambitious projects? How is the protected bikeway design able to encourage people to bike but also deal with parking, auto traffic and stakeholders?

Breakout Session 2Discussing Main Street: Should El Camino Real be the Peninsula’s Main Bike Route?A debate regarding the best north south bike routes on the Peninsula and whether cities should prioritize El Camino Real for biking or plan for parallel routes.

Stressed Out: Planning Better Bike Networks from the User’s Point of ViewPanelists discussed creating better bike plans and tools for developing low-stress bike networks. Alta talked about integrating outreach and analytics to create better bike plans using recent examples that showcase elements of robust public engagement, rigorous analytics, and strong graphic visualization. Rails-to-Trails Conservancy reviewed its new tool that quantifies bicycle network connectivity based on the use of low traffic stress networks and access to key destinations, focusing on recent case studies.

Connecting the Boulevards: Palo Alto’s Bike Boulevard NetworkThe City of Palo Alto has made a significant investment toward the design and implementation of a complete low-stress Bicycle Boulevard network. A panel of city staff, project design engineers, and local advocates provided an update on the progress and benefits of a bike boulevard network.

Awards: See more on our blog. Final Session We Built it, Now What? How to Get More Butts on BikesThis session was PechaKucha style in which presenters will have about 6 minutes and 20 slides to present their program. The focus is on encouragement programs that get more people biking.

Several attendees wanted to know how they could volunteer for some of the programs mentioned:

We hope that you were inspired by all that you heard. Do you have a new idea that you want to work on this year? Let us know in the comments. Hope to see you next year!

Shiloh Ballard
Previous

Goodbye But Not Farewell
Next

Volunteers Needed: Annual San Mateo County Bike and Ped Count