Exciting news from today's TCAT newsletter:

Save the Date – April 25th – for Bike Summit 2008 in Toronto!

Join leading thinkers, practitioners and decision-makers who are on the fast track to creating bikeable communities. Bike Summit 2008 will be held on Friday, April 25th in Toronto.

Enjoy innovative and forward-thinking sessions that will:

• Share international and Canadian best practices and perspectives on putting policy into action.
• Build local, regional and provincial momentum and leadership for bikeable communities.
• Engage key stakeholders on how to effectively implement policies and strategies to realize and maximize the value of bicycling for transportation, health, tourism, recreation, economic development, energy conservation and the environment.

Highlights of Bike Summit 2008:

The Toronto Coalition for Active Transportation (TCAT) and the Clean Air Partnership are partnering to host this one-day Summit, covering topics such as public policy, economic incentives and disincentives, business support, infrastructure policies and design, and government support.

Speakers will include:

• City of Seattle Senior Transportation Planner Peter Lagerwey
  Peter’s work with the Seattle pedestrian and bicycle program spans more than twenty years. Seattle’s pedestrian crash rates are the lowest in the country. Bicycling Magazine recognized Seattle as one of the most “bicycle friendly” cities in America four times. Peter was the project manager for the new Seattle Bicycle Master Plan which calls for installing more than 400 miles of bicycle facilities over the next ten years.
• Chicagoland Bicycle Federation’s Randy Neufeld
  Randy served as CBF's executive director from 1988 until 2004, and is currently CBF’s Healthy Streets Campaign Coordinator. Randy is also Founding Chair of the Thunderhead Alliance, the national association of state and local bicycle advocacy organizations.
• Alta Planning Principal Jeff Olson
  From 1993-98, Jeff served as the New York State DOT Bicycle and Pedestrian Program Manager, and has worked on numerous trail and bikeway planning and design studies throughout the United States, and was the creator and founder of the Millennium Trails program for the USDOT. He has served on the Pedestrian Committee of the Transportation Research Board and was a co-founder of the Association of Pedestrian and Bicycle Professionals (APBP).
• Vélo Québec’s Executive Director Jean-François Pronovost
  Jean-François and Vélo Québec work closely with the Quebec government promoting cycling throughout Québec and designing guidebooks and technical standards to assist planners and engineers. This partnership is also responsible for funding and developing the Route Verte – a 3,000 km network of trails, paved shoulders and shared, low volume roads for bicyclists that is already attracting millions of dollars of business every year.
• London Cycling Campaign’s Chief Executive Koy Thompson
  London Cycling Campaign (LCC) is the largest urban cycling organization in the world. Since 1978, the LCC has been improving facilities, providing information and raising the profile of cycling across London in order to make it a world-class cycling city. In 2008, the British Secretary of State for Transport announced that the Government will be investing £140 million over the next three years to boost cycling nationally.
• Bicycle Trade Association of Canada’s Director of Advocacy Usman Valiante
  Usman’s role within BTAC is to foster partnerships and relationships across the bike industry, governments and advocacy groups and to promote public policies at all levels of government with the objective of getting more Canadians to cycle more often. By vocation Usman is a senior public policy analyst, commercial strategist, negotiator and advocate. His career focus has been on the development and evaluation of public policies and commercial programs regarding the environment. Usman is an avid bike commuter and recreational mountain-bike racer.

To register and for more information:
Please visit TCAT’s website at www.torontocat.ca/main/bikesummit2008

Thanks for reading about Bike Summit 2008 and please pass along this information to others who may be interested.

Best wishes,
TCAT

info@torontocat.ca 416.392.0290

Sounds like a wonderfully interesting conference with plenty of good information to learn from. How much of it will make it into practice in Toronto is yet to be determined, of course!