#WalkBikePlaces Conference in Vancouver

Logo credit Pro Walk Pro Bike Pro Place.

A few weeks ago, I attended Pro Walk, Pro Bike, Pro Place, an urban design and active transportation conference, to present a joint panel session about MARTA Army's TimelyTrip crowdfunding phase I did with IOBY and Transit Center. This conference takes place every two years, and this year it was held in Vancouver, Canada.

It was my first time in Vancouver. I heard about its claim to be the world's greenest city, but wow is what I said once there! The scenery is just gorgeous. Weather has been quite warm and dry as well, and I met quite a few nice people.

Vancouver/Squamish - Sea to Sky Gondola

Vancouver - Sunset on English Bay

Over the weekend before the conference, I went on a tour of that included the Britannia Mining Museum, the Sea to Sky gondola, Shannon Falls, and Horseshoe Bay. Again the views were amazing. I spent evenings at the English Bay in the West End district, and sunsets on the ocean are worth their gold!

Vancouver - City view

What is the first thing you do at a conference in Vancouver? Get the Mobi bike share pass (included in registration) then get on a "mobile workshop" using one of the many bike lanes/paths! Again, the views are impressive. On that tour, local urbanists explained how the city plans to improve land use and activate the space in less-favored areas and turn them into [land use] "innovation" districts.

#WalkBikePlaces - Project management for tactical urbanism

As far as the conference was concerned, close to 800 attendees, mostly from North America, crowded over fifty sessions on topics ranging from transit, walking, and placemaking. The venue was the Sheraton Wall Center in Downtown Vancouver. I liked the keynote speeches on making cities happy with Charles Montgomery and healthy with the city's health officials. Who knew that health, happiness and urban design were linked together? One of my favorite sessions was on tactical urbanism, where the panel described how they applied modern, fast and incremental project management methodologies (Lean Startup anyone?) to achieve quick sidewalks and street improvements.

#WalkBikePlaces - MARTA Army 1-year launch

During the joint IOBY/MARTA Army/Transit Center panel session, David Weinberger presented IOBY's crowdfunding platform that I initially used. I presented the making of MARTA Army's TimelyTrip initiative. I passed around one of our laminated signs to the audience. Last but not least, Kirk Hovenkotter presented Transit Center's vision on the possibilities offered by tactical urbanism. We had passionate transit advocates in the room who stayed for questions after the session time was up. The toughest question we got is how to sustain such programs after launch. To be quite honest, we are still figuring how we'll do it at the MARTA Army. We'll have to keep the "Soldiers" interested and donations flowing.

There was another set of "mobile workshops" in the afternoon. I went on a tour explaining what "Vancouverism" is. The guide, a former city council member, explained how different Vancouver neighborhoods figured out how to design themselves around (former) trolley lines, parking, less parking, and different eras of apartment buildings (1960s to 2000s), while maintaining human-scale commercial store fronts.

In the evening, I managed to string 3 transportation modes to go from conference hotel to the evening function: bike share, trolley bus, and ferry. Best way to conclude a conference on mobility! Generally speaking, I have found Vancouver's SkyTrain, buses, and ferries to be frequent and reliable.

I was up the following morning at 4am to go to the airport, landing in Atlanta at around 10pm, filled with memories of this fun and fulfilling trip. I am looking forward to the next Pro Walk/Pro Bike/Pro Place conference in 2018 in New Orleans!

Recap of the Buford Highway Bus Crawl

Image welovebuhi.com

Last Wednesday evening, April 27, WeLoveBuHi and MARTA Army organized the first-ever Buford Highway Bus Crawl (#BuHiBusCrawl). About 120 people took the MARTA bus in Doraville, Chamblee, and Brookhaven to sample the Asian and Hispanic food that makes Buford Highway famous.

WeLoveBuHi regularly organizes events such as bike rides, marathons, etc. along Buford Highway to promote quality of life and businesses along that corridor. MARTA Army is a new grassroots organizations that reclaims your MARTA experience, and is known for the TimelyTrip adopt-a-stop program.

The Logistics

6 groups of about 20 people were scattered on multiple MARTA buses on route 39 at the end of rush hour, starting from Doraville Station and riding south. Route 39 is THE most frequent route in the entire MARTA system (every 12 minutes peak and weekends, every 15 minutes midday and at night). I used to live along that route, and I can tell you how good of a model it is for the rest of Atlanta. There were some delays, and some groups ended up riding with others. Everyone made it safely to the final destination. It is amazing to see this many hungry people waiting at MARTA bus stops!

Waiting for the bus during the Buford Highway Bus Crawl.

I was the leader for one of the groups. I think boarding and exiting buses went much better (faster) than I initially thought. Scheduling at each location was very tight because we didn't want to miss buses, so the next groups could enjoy each location and the rides comfortably.

Because of delays in bus service, my group rode with the next group for most of the event (some buses ended up too close to each other, and there was just not enough time for groups to visit a location). It was OK because the two groups were about 15 people each and could still fit on one bus. Other larger groups did not have that luxury.

All the credit goes to MARTA Army's Simon Berrebi and WeLoveBuHi founder Marian Liou for organizing this event!

The Food

The most important part of the event.

Taco bar during the Buford Highway Bus Crawl.

We stopped at the following locations, sampled excellent food, and heard from amazing speakers:

Location	Food	Speaker
Yen Jing (near Koreatown)	Chinese dumplings	Victoria Huynh (Center for Pan Asian Community Services - cpacs.org)
Doraville City Farmer's Market (Saigon Market)	Vietnamese sandwiches and rolls Guava candies	Tour with store manager.
Plaza Fiesta	Tacos, Venezuelan empenadas	Amanda Rhein (MARTA) on Developments around Brookhaven Station (TOD)
Bismallah (near Plaza Fiesta)	Bangladeshi samosas	Sally Hammock (PEDS) on excess Buford Highway capacity
Royal Lounge (Druid Hills)	Drink specials	Ryan Gravel (City of Atlanta, Beltline creator) on shaping Buford Highway's future

Ryan Gravel speaking at Buford Highway Bus Crawl.

The event concluded at Royal Lounge. To access the lounge, we had to cross Buford Highway as a large group. At the lounge, keynote speaker Ryan Gravel spoke about his background as a Chamblee native, and how communities have to rethink Buford Highway's future outside of the all-highway mindset to avoid fading into the mix of other suburban neighborhoods.

And most importantly, the Buford Highway International Dining Guide was handed out. Grab it, now!

Buford Highway International Dining Guide by WeLoveBuHi.com

The interest for this event was surprising. Many people rode MARTA buses for the first time. Tickets for the event sold out - twice. During pre-event discussions, we thought novelty was a key aspect. Simon and Marian felt it was essential to showcase the true character and day-to-day challenges of Buford Highway. Looking forward to more of these in the future, maybe in other neighborhoods!

Fw: "Transporte, um Direito do Cidadão, um Dever do Estado"

"Public Transportation: A Citizen Right, A State Duty"

Via cosmopista.com

This text in the post title above is painted as a small logo on every single bus in São Paulo, Brazil. Politicians in developed countries (US too) could use some inspiration. This article (in Portuguese) discusses, among other things, Brazilian infrastructure investment gaps in the nineties, and how the São Paulo State is catching up to provide adequate transit to its residents.

For background, public transit in the São Paulo region is made of two elements:

• Rail (Metrô + CPTM), run by the São Paulo State.
• Bus (Ônibus): local buses run by the city of São Paulo, and regional buses run by a conglomerate of several regional operators (EMTU).