The Illinois state capitol building has been beautifully refurbished and our registration was set up in the rotunda. We had time to take a tour before we met with our legislators.

Our State Representative Carol Ammons is a big supporter of the environment and met with us outside the House Chambers, as the House was in session. The Senate had not convened so we got to meet with Senator Paul Faraci in the Hall of Flags. He has also been a great ally on environmental issues, especially protecting the Mahomet Aquifer.

We held a huge rally in the rotunda and had a lineup of speakers including legislators and activists. I am hopeful that our state will be passing these bills and helping lead the way toward a more sustainable future. 

Last fall I had the privilege of testifying before the Senate Transportation Committee on behalf of the Clean & Equitable Transportation Bill. The meeting was October 15th and the Senate Conference Room was filled with people. There were three of us activists and we were invited to testify first. My statement is provided below.

Our testimony was featured on the local television news that evening.

I will continue to work on behalf of our communities and the environment. We can make a difference when we work together!

I had the good fortune to be asked to be part of a consulting team that Teska Associates assembled for the City of Decatur, IL to improve the safety and beautification, address economic development, and build community along Jasper Street. The process was very interactive and driven by the neighborhood. The final input meeting included a bike rodeo during which nearly 100 neighborhood children enjoyed biking and learning bike safety skills as parents and advocates gave their input on the final plan for the corridor. The final plan includes placemaking (design guidelines), building neighborhood capacity, transportation (street redesign), housing, and building economic opportunity. 
 The vision for the Jasper Street Roadmap is: A vibrant, active corridor that connects people, places and
businesses. 

Urban and Regional Planning has a large role to play in creating sustainable communities that reduce our environmental impact. We cannot save our wild lands and endangered species if we do not address climate change. Studies show that  20% of all U.S. emissions are directly attributed to household consumption(1). Transportation and housing account for more than half of all U.S. household emissions, both at home and overseas.

Each of us has a role to play as we consider how we can reduce our role in contributing to the climate crisis. Nearly 30% of our household emissions are from transportation. One thing my household has done is to choose where we live so as to reduce our dependence on the automobile. The majority of our daily trips are done via bike. We try to make long distance trips via transit whenever possible, but this can be challenge. 

Speaking of planning for the future, I recently had the opportunity to make a trip to Chicago to meet the new Executive Director of the Sierra Club, Ben Jealous, at the offices of the Illinois Chapter of the Sierra Club. The State of Illinois supports the operation of passenger rail so that it is a viable option for trips. So, I took the train to Chicago with my trusty bike to join the fun. Many people think that biking in winter is too cold or too difficult. However, with the right gear it is still a great way to travel. 

What does it take to enable multimodal travel? It takes good leadership, planning, and investment by a community. As a planner and environmentalist I will keep working to reduce my household environmental footprint as I work on public policy to support an equitable and just transition to a fossil-fuel-free future.
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I have been passionate about protecting our environment, calling myself an environmentalist, since I was twelve years old. The Sierra Club is the major environmental organization in the country doing the important work necessary to protect our environment, natural resources, and wilderness areas and I am deeply honored to have been elected to the national Board of Directors for the Sierra Club. 
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I have worked on behalf of the environment at the local, state, and national levels professionally and as a volunteer. As a transportation planner, I have specialized in creating sustainable communities, active transportation systems, and visioning. My passion is promoting choice, sustainability, and livability through community outreach and programs that help people. Building livable and sustainable communities is an essential part of stopping and reversing climate change. To preserve our environment and save our wildlands and waters we have provide places for people to live, work, and play that reduce our impact on the planet.

Please join me in doing the important work to reverse climate change and protect our ecosystems and support the work the Sierra Club is doing.

As a transportation planner and cycling instructor it was clear we needed to be creative in offering support and resources to our community. We created new programs and webinars, conferences went online, and more flexible and creative approaches were adopted in teaching bike skills. We created a new program for kids named Cycling Superheroes. Parents sign kids up, tell us their favorite ride routes, and shared pictures of their rides. Kids get a specially designed Superheroes t-shirt, cycling safety activity books, and a bag to carry it in on their bikes. The Superhero kits were mostly delivered via bike, of course!
A Bicycling 123 Class for adults was offered in September. In Illinois we have the Bicycle Safety Quiz, a great online resource provided by Ride Illinois. The students take the online quiz before attending the class. Classes were limited to 6 students and held outside. We had a mother-daughter duo attend the class. The daughter had recently been hit by a car. Thankfully she was not injured but she wanted to improve her cycling skills and increase her on-road confidence. Helping people enjoy bicycling and be safe is a rewarding part of our work. 

The conference offers the opportunity for experienced planners to volunteer to mentor emerging planners. Two young planners were assigned to Cynthia to chat about how to build a career as a planner with a particular interest in transportation systems. These emerging planners are always an inspiration. 

Touring a city by bike offers the best way to see how a community is creating choices for people to travel. New Orleans is building an impressive trail system. Cycling along the Lafitte Greenway was a treat. It serves the Treme neighborhood, a traditionally African-American neighborhood that was heavily impacted by Hurricane Katrina. The trail has many types of users and was designed to help reduce stormwater runoff into the neighborhood with bioswales. Amenities along the trail include playgrounds, playing fields, art, bikeshare, and good wayfinding.

Next year the National Planning Conference will be in San Francisco!

A tour of the communities of Ypsilanti and Ann Arbor the day prior to the conference showcased the work the communities are doing to increase mobility options for residents and visitors. Ypsilanti now has its own transit center with service into downtown Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan.

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The Blake Transit Center is part of the local transit system RIDE which operates service between Ypsilanti and Ann Arbor. The Blake Transit Center is in downtown Ann Arbor, very close to the University of Michigan campus. 

​The Ann Ashby Bike House in downtown Ann Arbor. A popular service for bike commuters providing secure space for parking your bike inside ​the Ann Ashley Parking Structure.

​A fun and creative bike station at the famous Zingerman's Delicatessen in downtown Ann Arbor. 

​The bicycle infrastructure had interesting design features not seen in the U.S. including bicycle rumble strips on bikeways to alert cyclists of pedestrian crossings. The system includes separated bike paths, on-street bike lanes, bike boxes, bike ramps, bike bridges, and bike corrals. The bike ramps are designed to also accommodate strollers.

The transit system has improved significantly since 1996. The subway trains and stations have had makeovers from drab concrete walls to artist-inspired themes.

Stockholm is a city of islands. There are public ferries, boat tours, private boats, and many waterfront docks operating throughout the long summer days.

We took the fast and convenient train to and from the Arlanda airport. This is new since we lived there and it was an amazingly fast, clean, and easy way to use. We never needed to use a car or a taxi during our visit to this beautiful and very multimodal city. 

Knowing that the report would need examples from the U.S. in order to gain any traction, I searched for places that had implemented traffic calming programs. In the early 1990’s only Berkeley, Seattle, and Portland had done much work on calming traffic. I pulled heavily from the groundbreaking work that Donald Appleyard had done in his book Livable Streets and added a chapter on the necessity for public engagement in order for traffic calming to succeed. The opening section of Traffic Calming reads in part:  Traffic calming promises to be an important tool for improving the quality of life in American cities…This report examines the myths of traditional traffic planning and how such planning must change to provide safer streets. 
The PAS report garnered a lot of attention, both positive and negative. To suggest streets should be designed for everyone, including pedestrian and cyclists, was considered naïve if not dangerous by mainstream engineers and most planners. I faced some hostile audiences. One audience at a state conference stands out in my memory as some of the planners in the audience insisted that fire trucks had to be able to make U-turns on residential streets to put out fires. Thankfully, things have changed since ​then and now communities all across the country want to reclaim their streets. It is a beautiful thing to watch unfold!