fairfax bike summit | #ffxbikesummit | page 1 · energy to today’s ... kristin haldeman is a...

Fairfax Bike Summit | #FFXBikeSummit |

| Fairfax Bike Summit | #FFXBikeSummit

PROGRAM AGENDA

9:00 am

RIDE FROM TYSONS TO MASON• Led by Pete Beers, FABB/WABA Bike Ambassador

INFRASTRUCTURE ADVOCACY 101 WORKSHOP• Led by Fionnuala Quinn, FABB/Alta Planning + Design

EXHIBITS OPENRear ballroom and lobby

WELCOMEIntroductions• Bruce Wright, Chairman,

Fairfax Advocates for Better Bicycling• Congressman Gerry Connolly,

11th District of Virginia• Supervisor Cathy Hudgins,

Hunter Mill District, Fairfax County• Supervisor John Foust,

Dranesville District, Fairfax County

Keynote Address The Third Mode: Towards a Sustainable Fairfax• Jeff Olson, Environmental Architect and

Author, Alta Planning + DesignFABB Award• Presentation to Christine Godward Green,

Safe Routes to School National Partnership

PANEL: Silver Line Opens— Getting to and from Tysons• Moderator: Alan Young, FABB• Kristin Haldeman,

Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority

• Charlie Strunk, Fairfax County Department of Transportation

• Jenifer Joy Madden, Multi-modal Transportation Advocate and Author

• Robert Thomson (aka Dr. Gridlock), The Washington Post

2013 FABB AWARD RECIPIENT Christine Godward Green of

Safe Routes to School National Partnership

As the regional policy manager for the Washington, DC region, Christine works to increase walking and bicycling to school and in daily life. She has been instrumental in supporting the volunteer efforts of parents in changing school policies and launching new walking and biking programs throughout Fairfax County. With the help of Christine’s commitment and assistance, the Fairfax County school system was awarded funding to hire their first ever Safe Routes to School Coordinator. We are delighted to have an opportunity to honor her tireless work.

MORNING SCHEDULE8:00 am

10:00 am

10:50 am


CLOSING CALL TO ACTION• Andy Clarke, President, League of American

Bicyclists

PANEL 1A: Access, Encouragement, and Barriers to Cycling• Moderator: Douglas Stewart, FABB• Nelle Pierson, Washington Area Bicyclist

Association• Stephanie K. Firestone, Mobility Lab• Bill Threlkeld, Cornerstones

PANEL 1B: Bike Riding and Safety• Moderator: Skip Bean, Local Bike

Commuter• Alice Eggers, Fairfax County Police

Department• Doug Landau, Abrams Landau, Ltd.• Ubaldo Cisneros, St. Anthony of Padua,

Falls Church• Liz MacGregor, FABB

PANEL 2A: The Future is Calling• Moderator: Jeff Anderson, FABB• Robert Williams, Virginia Department of

Transportation• Kristin and Aurora Eddy, Fairfax County

Parent and Third-Grader• Megan Odett, Kidical Mass DC

PANEL 2B: Bikes are Good for Business• Moderator: Tom Wyland, FABB• Dave Meyer, Green Lizard Cycling• David Patton, Arlington County

Transportation Planning Bureau• Bill Nesper, League of American Bicyclists

1:15 pm

2:05 pm

3:00 pm

AFTERNOON SCHEDULE

LUNCH AND LUNCHTIME ACTIVITIES

Book sales and signing Author table in lobby

• Andy Clarke: “Smart Cycling” • Brett Lovgren: “The Bicycle Path” • Jenifer Joy Madden: “The Durable

Human Manifesto” • Jeff Olson: “The Third Mode”

“A Trip to the District” A 10-minute video presentation by Bike Walk RVA about a recent field trip by officials and advocates from Richmond to tour bike infrastructure in our region. Main ballroom.

ExhibitsRear ballroom and lobby

Noon

4:00 pm

SOCIAL HOURContinue the conversation! After the summit, everyone is welcome to join us for appetizers at

Coyote Grill10266 Main StreetFairfax City


UBALDO CISNEROS Ubaldo Cisneros is the social minister at St. Anthony of Padua, Falls Church. The church serves large numbers of people from widely diverse ethnic and national backgrounds who live within the parish. For those in the Falls Church area, Saint Anthony of Padua provides food, clothing, counseling, and legal services. The church also provides information and referrals on Food Stamps and health services. Ubaldo has worked with FABB to organize successful free bike light giveaways. The purpose of this effort is to reach riders who depend on bicycles for transportation and who cannot afford bike lights.

ANDY CLARKE Andy Clarke is the President of the League of American Bicyclists and has been a Fairfax County resident and bike commuter for more than 20 years. He has served numerous roles in the bicycling movement - advocate, planner, trainer - including time at the League (twice), the Federal Highway Administration (as a consultant), Association of Pedestrian and Bicycle Professionals, and European Cyclists’ Federation (a long time ago, in a land far away). He is the author of the book “Smart Cycling.”

KRISTIN EDDY Local parent Kristin Eddy is an occupational therapist, adventure racer, and lover of riding bikes. She works to share that love with big and little kids and in pursuing safer routes to school and work in her community. She is joined by her daughter Aurora Eddy, a third grade student at Hunters Woods Elementary School, big sister to Embry, artist, nature lover, good food eater, and avid bike rider. Aurora commutes from Herndon to Reston for school three to five days per week!

ALICE EGGERS Master Police Officer Alice Eggers has been with the Fairfax County Police Department for 20 years, including positions at the Reston and Franconia stations and with the Police medevac team. She currently works on bicycle and pedestrian safety in the Traffic Safety Section of the Traffic Division. Officer Eggers also trains school crossing guards. She is working with FABB on production of a bicycle safety video that will be used as a training aid for Fairfax County Police.

OUR SPEAKERSWe are honored that each of the following people joined us.

We thank all of them for contributing their time and energy to today’s conversation.


STEPHANIE KRONE FIRESTONE Stephanie Krone Firestone has worked for more than 20 years, advancing environmental policy, planning, and mediation. She writes Age’n Community, a blog on older adult mobility at mobilitylab.org. Stephanie works at the National Association of Area Agencies on Aging (n4a) as director of the Livable Communities Collaborative, where she helps communities around the country as they plan for rapidly aging populations. She earned a Master of Urban and Environmental Planning from the University of Virginia and a Bachelor of Communications from the State University of New York. Stephanie enjoys multi-day biking trips with her husband and volunteers in her local community for hospice and as a birth doula.

KRISTIN HALDEMAN Kristin Haldeman is a Program Manager with the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority’s Office of Long Range Planning. Her program focuses on policy and planning efforts to improve access to both Metrorail and Metrobus. Kristin’s work emphasis is on pedestrian and bicycle access, transportation equity, and transit-supportive development analysis. Kristin led the development of a more robust bicycle planning program at Metro, including development of a 6-year capital program focusing on bicycle and pedestrian access to Metrorail stations. Her team coordinated the construction of Metro’s first Bike & Ride facility at College Park. She and her staff also work with Metrobus staff on bus/bike safe operations training and with Transit Police on efforts to reduce bicycle theft. Kristin holds a Master’s degree in Urban and Environmental Planning from the University of Virginia.

DOUG LANDAU Attorney Doug Landau is a founder of the Herndon, Virginia, law firm Abrams Landau, Ltd., a practice dedicated to helping people harmed and disabled through the negligence of others. An avid cyclist, bike commuter, and All-American triathlete, Doug’s experience as a cyclist, as well as his background in medicine, make him uniquely qualified to represent fellow cyclists who have been injured in bike crashes. Doug is passionate about bike safety as evidenced by his “Putting Lids on Kids” program, through which his firm has provided bike helmets to hundreds of local needy school children. The program also provides information about head injury prevention and traumatic brain injury. He is a frequent attendee at bike safety events and is an advocate for cycle-friendly laws.

Trail connection to Burke VRE


ELIZABETH MACGREGORElizabeth MacGregor has been commuting daily by bike for nine years from her home in Vienna, Virginia, to her job as an attorney in downtown Washington, DC. Liz is a certified League of American Bicyclists Cycling Instructor. She is an active volunteer with FABB and the Washington Area Bicyclist Association (WABA) where she teaches cycling classes. She is also the Safe Routes to School (SRTS) Coordinator for Luther Jackson Middle School. Last summer, she guided 14 scouts and nine adults from her son’s boy scout troop on a 184-mile bicycle trip on the C&O Canal towpath.

JENIFER JOY MADDEN Jenifer Joy Madden is a multi-media writer/producer and adjunct professor of digital and broadcast journalism. Her work has appeared on ABC News, PBS, and Discovery Health Channel and in The Washington Post and blogs such as Greater Greater Washington and her own, The Durable Human. Vice Chair of the Fairfax County Transportation Advisory Commission, Jenifer has attended innumerable land-use and transportation planning conferences, training, and courses including some at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Jenifer has played an integral role in the Fairfax County Bicycle Master Plan, the Tysons Metrorail Station Access Management Study, Safe Routes to School, and the Live Healthy Fairfax Community Health Improvement Program. In 2012, Jenifer was named a Lady Fairfax and in 2007 received Hunter Mill District’s Community Champion award for envisioning and garnering support for a trail network connecting a national park, two regional parks, and 10 county parks in the northern Vienna area.

DAVE MEYER Dave Meyer and his wife are the owners of Green Lizard Cycling. The bicycle and coffee shop opened in March 2013 next to the W&OD Trail just across from the old train depot in historic downtown Herndon. Dave is a long time cyclist and enjoys sharing his enthusiasm for cycling with others and encouraging people to bike more and drive less for the health and environmental benefits. Green Lizard carries bikes for those who compete, those who commute, and those who simply want to ride for fun. Repair and bike fitting services are available side-by-side with a full-service coffee bar.

McLean recently installed bicycle wayfinding signs


BILL NESPER Bill Nesper is Vice President of Programs at the League of American Bicyclists. He directs the Bicycle Friendly America (BFA) program with a particular focus on growing the program as a tool for new communities, businesses, and universities. Bill first joined the League in 2002 and worked in membership and managed the bicycling education program before taking on the BFA program. He holds a BA in History from the University of Florida and an MA from George Mason University.

MEGAN ODETTMegan Odett is the founder and organizer of the Washington, DC chapter of Kidical Mass, the national movement to encourage parents and children to bicycle together. She has spoken about women’s and family bicycling in numerous venues. Megan’s favorite biking activity is riding to splash parks with her two sons. She occasionally indulges in cargo stunts with her Yuba Mundo longtail and Burley trailer that involve carrying any combination of: her children, her dog, her cat, a jogging stroller, a week’s worth of groceries, and a carpet steamer. Megan currently serves as Member Services Coordinator at the Alliance for Biking & Walking, the national coalition of bicycle and pedestrian advocacy organizations.

JEFF OLSON Our keynote speaker, Jeff Olson, has spent most of his life trying to create better connections between people and nature. He grew up in suburbia, where he saw how quickly a landscape of open space could become a placeless sprawl, and realized that better planning and design were the keys to the future. Jeff studied architecture and public policy, but two experiences really shaped his vision: a year living in Rome and a bike trip with friends between New York and Boston. He says, “I’ve worked in the non-profit, public, and private sectors, but it has always been a vision of wanting to create a better world that has moved me forward.” Jeff served as the first New York State DOT Bike/Pedestrian program manager and then went on to lead the U.S. National Millennium Trails program before joining Alta Planning + Design. His recent book, “The Third Mode,” describes why non-motorized mobility is important for transportation and how many other problems could be resolved with similar thinking, leading to a more connected, healthy, and sustainable society.

FABB advises people on bike routes


DAVID PATTON When David Patton was working with the national bicycle collection at the Smithsonian in 1989, he encountered interwar issues of the popular British journal Cycling and realized there was no North American equivalent. Suspecting that the British story informed bicycle use and non-use in this country, David enrolled at the University of Cambridge to pursue a PhD in Cultural and Historical Geography. At Cambridge he organized the Fifth International Cycle History Conference and worked on bicycle history, transportation, the beginnings of professional traffic engineering and bicycle administration, and cultural perceptions of safety and efficiency. Returning to the U.S., David served as Virginia Department of Transportation’s statewide Bicycle and Pedestrian Coordinator and became aware of the lack of good data on bicycle and pedestrian activity. In 2008 he joined the Transportation Planning Bureau of Arlington County, Virginia, where he serves as the Bicycle and Pedestrian Planner.

NELLE PIERSON Nelle Pierson designs and manages programming to grow, unite, and celebrate DC-area residents who bike or are interested in biking. The Washington Area Bicyclist Association’s Outreach efforts include the DC Bike Ambassadors, East of the River program, Suburban Outreach, and Women & Bicycles. Bicycling Magazine recently named Nelle a leading innovator in the bike movement for championing one of the first comprehensive programs to get more women biking for transportation. In her free time, Nelle is out riding one of her six bicycles on various terrain, lazily reading in a cafe, crafting, playing the cello, or enjoying a potluck.

FIONNUALA QUINN As she bicycled all over Dublin while growing up, Fionnuala Quinn never imagined that making transportation bicycle travel safe and ordinary in daily life would become the focus of her energy in later years. For more than 20 years, she has lived in Fairfax County, where she endeavors to leave her minivan at home and bike locally instead. She works as an engineer for Alta Planning + Design on creating safe, accessible, and innovative bicycle and pedestrian facilities for people of all ages and abilities, as well as on improving the safety and usability of the infrastructure we have already installed. “When I apply my engineering background to facility design, I give a piece of the credit for the necessary education to the enthusiasm for bicycles that runs three generations through my maternal lineage.” She serves on the FABB board as well as the advisory board for Women Bike, a national initiative to get more women cycling in the U.S.


CHARLIE STRUNK Charlie Strunk started his career with Fairfax County Department of Transportation in 1986 and since 2006, has served as Fairfax County’s first ever bicycle coordinator. Charlie manages efforts to incorporate bicycle facilities as part of local transportation infrastructure and in new developments including: the creation of new bike lanes, expanding and improving bicycle parking, and producing the Fairfax County Bicycle Route Map, now in its third edition. He can be spotted bike commuting from the Vienna area. At the 2012 Fairfax Bike Summit, FABB formally recognized Charlie for his work on behalf of bicyclists.

ROBERT THOMSON Robert Thomson, The Washington Post’s “Dr. Gridlock,” answers travelers’ questions, listens to their complaints, and shares their pain on the roads, trains, and buses in the Washington region. In addition to his twice-weekly newspaper column, he writes for a daily blog on The Post’s web site, engages readers in online chats, and presents features about transportation issues on The Post’s Sunday commuter page. Robert has been a reporter and editor for 30 years in New York and Washington. He joined The Post in 1988 and worked on the DC, Maryland, and Virginia desks. In 1999, he became The Post’s transportation editor. When Ron Shaffer, founder of “Dr. Gridlock,” retired from The Post in 2006, Robert took over the column. He enjoys getting out of the office, even to drive at rush hour.

BILL THRELKELD Bill Threlkeld has been involved in the community development field since 1983, first as a land-use planner in Virginia and then in rural development projects in the Peace Corps in the Dominican Republic. He co-founded the Center for the Support of Native Lands, a non-profit organization to assist indigenous peoples to protect biological and cultural diversity around the world. As Division Director of Neighborhood Resources with Cornerstones (formerly Reston Interfaith) since 2005, he oversees programs that combine direct assistance with self-sufficiency and empowerment goals and approaches to create stronger communities. Bill has a BS in Geography from James Madison University and received a Master of Public Policy from Rutgers University in 1992. He is fluent in Spanish and is a keen cyclist.

Wiehle–Reston East Metrorail station will have parking for more than 200 bikes


ROBERT WILLIAMS Robert Williams has been the state-wide Safe Routes to School Coordinator for the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) for three years. During that time he has worked to expand the outreach of the program and has created the very popular mini-grant program, with the purpose of making SRTS funds more accessible for schools. He has seen a dramatic increase in the popularity of the SRTS program in the Northern Virginia area, particularly from Fairfax County and the municipalities within. Prior to coming to VDOT, Rob worked with the New Jersey Bike/Ped and SRTS programs as a research coordinator at the Voorhees Transportation Center at Rutgers University. Rob received a Bachelor’s degree in Public and Urban Studies at Virginia Tech and a Master of Urban and Regional Planning degree at New York University.

Special thanks for a generous donation to the Fairfax Bike Summit

How to Make a Difference—One Person at a Time

• Be a role model by biking to the store, work, school.

• Be a bike buddy to a family member, neighbor, co-worker.

• Organize an informal group ride.• Pay attention to local planning and

transportation decisions.• Submit bike parking suggestions to local

businesses.• Attend public meetings and speak up.• Write to your elected officials, newspaper,

local department of transportation.• Support your local, regional, and national bike

advocacy organizations.• Let elected officials know that you care about

bike infrastructure.• Let schools know that you care about safe

biking and bike education.• Learn local biking rules and regulations.• Encourage teens in your life to stick with

biking.• Expect good design and give thoughtful input

on the built world.• Be a watchful, careful, and aware driver. • Be a self-appointed Fairfax Bike Ambassador.


The Fairfax Bike Summit has been brought to you by • Fairfax Advocates for

Better Bicycling• George Mason University• Fairfax County• The City of Fairfax

Fairfax Advocates for Better Bicycling (FABB) is a volunteer group that is working to make Fairfax County and the City of Fairfax more bicycle friendly so that people can safely bike to their everyday activities. FABB is affiliated with the Washington Area Bicyclist Association (WABA), a 501(c)(3) organization.

fairfax bike summit | #ffxbikesummit | page 1 · energy to today’s ... kristin haldeman is a...

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