Moving People Forward is Bicycle Colorado’s annual event that brings together thought leaders, innovators, decision makers, business leaders and stakeholders to explore the trends, topics, and technology at the forefront of the mobility revolution.

This year’s conference was a series of virtual sessions from February 9-18, 2021.

All times for the virtual sessions are listed in Mountain Standard Time (MST).

Interpretation services are available for individuals who need it in Spanish, Vietnamese, and American Sign Language. After selecting your ticket on EventBrite you will have the option to select the interpretation services you need prior to checkout.

Meet our keynote: Dr. Destiny Thomas

Tuesday, February 9, 9:00am – 10:30am

Storyteller: Amar Azucena Cid, Transportation Planner/Program Manager in Race and Equity
In conversation with: Mike Washington, Director of Denver Metro Outreach, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, Office of U.S. Senator Michael F. Bennet

Dr. Destiny Thomas is a change agent. She is the founder and CEO of Thrivance Group, a multi-regional, socially responsible, for-profit firm that works to make public spaces and public services more safe, more healthy and more accessible, especially for Black, Indigneous, and transgender people, and those with disabilities.

An anthropologist planner hailing from Oakland, CA, Dr. Thomas has a combined 15 years of experience in nonprofit management and project management within government agencies, including the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) and the City of Los Angeles. In addition, Dr. Thomas has led advancements in statewide racial equity initiatives for over a decade. Her focus has been urban planning, policy writing, and organizational development in communities most impacted by racial inequities.

Dr. Thomas’s areas of interest include: harm reductive planning, implementing the Dignity-Infused Community Engagement methodology, anti-displacement studies, healing environmental and infrastructural trauma, and bolstering agency and voice in marginalized communities within municipal planning processes. To this end, she launched Thrivance in 2020. As a culturally-rooted, trauma-informed enterprise, the team works to build capacity for these very values within municipal agencies, direct service providers, and advocacy organizations.

For her work in urban planning, Dr. Thomas was recently featured on Good Morning America. She and the Thrivance Group also hosted the Unurbanist Assembly, a 23-hour, digital event where more than 8,000 people participated in a virtual teach-in centering anti-racist frameworks in urban planning, public health, and social services sectors.

Dr. Thomas earned a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Fisk University in 2006; a Master of Public Administration with an emphasis in Public Health and Non-Profit Management from Tennessee State University in 2008; and a PhD in Social and Cultural Anthropology from the California Institute of Integral Studies in 2016. She is a creative who seeks to embody servant leadership, and is a proud member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated.

We are able to bring Dr. Thomas to our conference with help from Saint Joseph Hospital.

MPF 2021 conference sessions

Redefining safety in Colorado’s transportation system

Tuesday, February 9, 5:30-7 p.m.

Active transportation professionals and advocates have traditionally defined safety in a very narrow way: as safety from drivers of motor vehicles. This is because decision makers and influencers in transportation typically don’t inhabit identities that make them vulnerable to profiling, racism and violence from law enforcement and other citizens in public spaces, and that includes us at Bicycle Colorado. In this session, we’ll dive into how policies in Colorado (and beyond) can and do limit how people of color travel through communities and how we must design, build, legislate and activate our transportation system to increase freedom for people who are immobilized more by personal violence than traffic violence.

Storyteller: Denise Boler, Former bus operator and regular RTD rider
Moderator: Jill Locantore, Executive Director, Denver Streets Partnership
Speakers: Senator Julie Gonzales, Colorado District 34,
Marisa Jones, Policy & Partnerships Director, National Safe Routes Partnership,
Director Shontel Lewis, Regional Transportation District (RTD) District B,
Jack Todd, Director of Communications and Policy, Bicycle Colorado

Shaping inclusive cities through land use, housing and transportation policy

Thursday, February 11, 9-10:30 a.m.

Land use and transportation policies shape our cities. Thoughtful planning and implementation can help cities become more sustainable, equitable, and connect people to the things they value; when little thought is given, they can reinforce inequities, cause displacement, hinder our air quality, encourage sprawl, and stress our transportation system. Growing cities like Denver are struggling to find the right policy levers and effective balance to create vibrant, liveable, inclusive and sustainable environments for people. We’ll start by looking at Denver’s history of red-lining and how it shaped the city of today, then look at the hot emerging land use and transportation topics like Bus Rapid Transit, transit corridors, zoning and housing policy options, and transportation project impacts from highway widening to shared streets.

Storyteller: Maricendi Jaimes, Westwood Unidos
Moderator: Robin Kniech, Denver City Council At-Large
Speakers: Alex Baca, Housing Program Organizer, Greater Greater Washington,
Lisa Bender, City Council President, Minneapolis
Renee Martinez Stone, Initiative Director, West Denver Renaissance Collaborative

Designing streets for all abilities

Tuesday, February 16, 9-10:30 a.m.

When we make improvements to our streets for one user group, it’s often marketed that we’re making the street more accessible for all users. What happens when those improvements for some create an access challenge for others? Hear from planners and community organizers about how we can truly create designs that put access for people with disabilities at the forefront.

Storyteller: Rosemary McDonnell-Horita, resident of Wheat Ridge, CO, and disability advocate
Moderator: Jessica Vargas, Program Manager, Denver Streets Partnership
Speakers: Jonathan Fertig, Senior Architect at Davis Partnership Architects and co-founder of Denver Bicycle Lobby,
Mike Jacobson, Planner, Livable Streets Division at San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA),
Jodie Medeiros, Executive Director, Walk San Francisco,
David Pulsipher, Pedestrian and Bicycle Planning Supervisor, Denver Department of Transportation and Infrastructure (DOTI)

Undoing systemic racism through equitable planning

Thursday, February 18, 9-10:30 a.m.

“Community engagement” has long been a required component of the planning process, but it continues to be a siloed effort and is rarely implemented in an equitable way. The City of Oakland, however, has flipped that paradigm to make communities, particularly low-income people and people of color, the foundation of their updated 2019 Let’s Bike Oakland bike plan with the goals of Access, Health and Safety, Affordability and Collaboration. Join us to learn who enabled this shift to happen and how Oakland’s most under-resourced communities have guided the plan and will be supported with critical community-wide investments in bicycling beyond solely infrastructure. We’ll also be joined by the City of Fort Collins to reflect on their learnings from the plan, the future of equitable transportation planning in Fort Collins and how transportation professionals in Colorado can help undo systemic racism.

Storyteller: Julia Burciaga, Co-Founder, Montbello en Bici
Moderator: Mo McCanna, Education and Safety Director, Bicycle Colorado
Speakers: Manuel Corona, Transportation Planner, Oakland Department of Transportation,
Jeff Knowles, Alta Planning + Design, Inc., Oakland, CA,
Marquita Price, Director of Urban and Regional Planning, The East Oakland Collective,
Nick Heimann, Active Modes Specialist, City of Fort Collins

Moving People Forward is possible with the support of the following sponsors

Presenting Sponsor

Champion Sponsors

Session Sponsor: Undoing systemic racism

Interpretation Sponsor

Questions about Moving People Forward?
Interested in supporting it as a sponsor?

Please email us at MPF@bicyclecolorado.org.

Check out what last year’s Moving People Forward was all about

And take a look at photos from previous Moving People Forward conferences below! Photos by David M. Budd Photography and Jack Todd.