Last year, Occidental College's Urban & Environmental Policy Institute (UEPI) worked with numerous community partners to convene more than 300 bike activists, students, public officials, researchers, and various other bike supporters at Los Angeles Trade Technical College for the first ever L.A. Bike Summit. The group was addressed by keynote speakers from Mexico City, New York, and Portland, OR, all of whom shared inspiring stories of streets reclaimed by cyclists and pedestrians in their own cities. At a diverse range of workshops and panel discussions, attendees learned about and discussed the ways bikes can heal the environment, create more livable communities, and increase public health through active lifestyles.

Now in 2010, UEPI is working with bike, pedestrian and street advocates to re-form the L.A. Bike Summit as the 2010 LA StreetSummit: Biking, Walking and Beyond. On March 20th, 2010, once again at Los Angeles Trade Technical College, this year's Summit will broaden its agenda to include a focus on making our streets more accessible and more friendly for everyone --cyclists, pedestrians, children, seniors, all Angelenos!

Janette Sadik-Khan, New York City’s Commissioner of Transportation, will provide a pre-Summit address on March 18 as part of the series of events that will culminate with the all day Summit on March 20th. In New York, Commissioner Sadik-Kahn has overseen an unprecedented transformation of streets. After generations of automobile-driven transportation planning, New York City streets are being re-purposed to move and connect people instead of cars. Sadik-Khan has implemented numerous popular and innovative projects that are making streets safer and more convenient for bicycling and walking, and as public places for people to utilize and inhabit. Watch a 10 minute interview with Janette Sadik-Khan at Streetfilms here.

By convening a diverse alliance of advocates, community groups and others, we are hoping and anticipate that such a gathering can spur this streets-related re-prioritization in Los Angeles as well.

In order to extend its scope and bring in a range of new community groups and advocates, the L.A. Bike Summit has been renamed "L.A. StreetSummit 2010: Biking, Walking, and Beyond." The event will still include a major focus on bicycle advocacy, but it will also include a broader range of topics that contribute to creating more connected and livable places for Southern California communities. The Street Summit will bring together many constituencies including bike, pedestrian, public transit, public health, planning, community and neighborhood groups - all of whom can agree on the need for a healthier city.

We are in the process of brainstorming and soliciting a diverse range of workshops to fill the day and to inspire us all for a new kind of streets movement—where streets are connected to people and communities. We are broadening the discussion from bikes to the need for active living, where streets accommodate human needs for health, shade, peace and quiet, green space, recreation, human interaction and safety. We hope to bring together public health scholars to highlight findings from current research into the role of the built environment in making us sick or healthy, food justice advocates committed to local access to healthy food, planners and designers with novel ideas for more efficient use of these 10,000 paved miles, and of course bicyclists and bike advocates, who have been busy heralding the next Los Angeles by pedaling ahead of the curve.