UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies

Compton Cowboys and California Love
2021-03-11 12:30 - 14:00 (America/Los_Angeles)
UCLA Urban Planning and UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies Perloff Lecture Series on Race in Transportation
Compton Cowboys and California Love
Multimedia artist Walter Thompson-Hernández shares from his book, “The Compton Cowboys,” and latest NPR Podcast California Love.
In Compton, California, 10 Black riders on horseback cut an unusual profile, their cowboy hats tilted against the hot Los Angeles sun. They are the Compton Cowboys, their small ranch one of the very last in a formerly semirural area of the city that has been home to African American horse riders for decades. “The Compton Cowboys” is a story about trauma and transformation, race and identity, compassion, and ultimately, belonging. Walter Thompson-Hernández paints a unique and unexpected portrait of this city, pushing back against stereotypes to reveal an urban community in all its complexity, tragedy, and triumph.
California Love is a new audio memoir about Walter’s coming of age in Los Angeles.

WALTER THOMPSON-HERNÁNDEZ is an award-winning journalist, writer, and host. He is a former New York Times writer and host who covered global subcultures for the paper between 2017-2020. He was named one of Quartz magazine’s “Top 50 creative people in the world,” in 2018. In 2019 he was awarded the prestigious Whiting Award for his book, The Compton Cowboys: The New Generation of Cowboys in America’s Urban Heartland. He was awarded the “Yo Soy” award by the Hispanic Heritage Foundation and Instagram for his coverage of communities of color throughout the United States in 2019. He was named the 2020 “podcast host of the year” by ADWEEK for his NPR audio memoir, California Love. California Love was also named one of the best shows of 2020 by Spotify, Apple, Amazon, and The Atlantic.
MODERATOR:
EVELYN BLUMENBERG is the Director of the Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies and a Professor of Urban Planning within the Luskin School of Public Affairs. Her research examines the effects of urban structure — the spatial location of residents, employment, and services — on economic outcomes for low-wage workers, and on the role of planning and policy in shaping the spatial structure of cities. Recent projects include analyses of trends in transit ridership, gender and travel behavior, low-wage workers and the changing commute, and the relationship between automobile ownership and employment outcomes among the poor.

The full recording can be found below.

Attendees of this event can claim up to 1.5 AICP CM units.
Claim Your Credits

Challenges Facing Public Transit Before, During, and After COVID-19
2021-03-22 12:30 - 14:00 (America/Los_Angeles)
UC ITS Webinar Series: Challenges and Opportunities Facing Public Transit
Public transit agencies are facing an existential crisis. Ridership is recovering, but it is only about half of pre-pandemic levels. Public health protocols have increased operating costs, while revenues — from both passenger fares and government subsidies — are down, in many cases dramatically. Current efforts are focused on how to stop the financial bleeding to ensure that public transit agencies can provide essential service and survive fiscally. But when or whether passengers, fare revenues, and government subsidies return to pre-pandemic levels remains an open question. Understanding the dimensions of these challenges and the opportunities to build public transit back better will require innovative thinking, collaboration with stakeholders and workers, and leadership. Experts from the UC Institute of Transportation Studies (UC ITS) will examine the challenges facing public transit operators large and small in California and the opportunities for recovery and renewal as part of a two-part webinar series.
Part I: Challenges Facing Public Transit Before, During, and After COVID-19
This webinar is the first in a two-part series exploring the challenges and opportunities facing public transit. UC ITS experts will review the challenges facing public transit operators leading up to and amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, including changes in ridership, deepening fiscal issues, and growing social challenges related to homelessness, sexual harassment, and safety. The webinar will conclude with insights of a recent scenario planning exercise exploring how to build public transit back better in light of these many challenges.

SPEAKERS:
Brian D. Taylor – Professor of Urban Planning and Policy, UCLA
Susan Shaheen – Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, UC Berkeley
Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris – Distinguished Professor of Urban Planning; UCLA
Jacob Wasserman – Research Project Manager, UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies

Find more information here.

Register

Key Considerations for Public Transit Moving Forward
2021-03-24 12:30 - 14:00 (America/Los_Angeles)
UC ITS Webinar Series: Challenges and Opportunities Facing Public Transit
Public transit agencies are facing an existential crisis. Ridership is recovering, but it is only about half of pre-pandemic levels. Public health protocols have increased operating costs, while revenues — from both passenger fares and government subsidies — are down, in many cases dramatically. Current efforts are focused on how to stop the financial bleeding to ensure that public transit agencies can provide essential service and survive fiscally. But when or whether passengers, fare revenues, and government subsidies return to pre-pandemic levels remains an open question. Understanding the dimensions of these challenges and the opportunities to build public transit back better will require innovative thinking, collaboration with stakeholders and workers, and leadership. Experts from the UC Institute of Transportation Studies (UC ITS) will examine the challenges facing public transit operators large and small in California and the opportunities for recovery and renewal as part of a two-part webinar series.
Part II: Key Considerations for Public Transit Moving Forward
This webinar is the second in a two-part series exploring the challenges and opportunities facing public transit. UC ITS experts will share key considerations for the recovery of public transit and for achieving the state’s broader vision for more sustainable, equitable, and cost-effective transportation. Topics to be addressed include: better serving the needs of mobility disadvantaged populations; leveraging new business models, technologies, and services to attract new riders; working more effectively with the private sector; protecting workers and jobs; and financing the future of public transportation.

SPEAKERS:
Susan Shaheen – Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, UC Berkeley
Evelyn Blumenberg – Professor of Urban Planning, UCLA
Susan Pike – Professional Researcher, Institute of Transportation Studies at UC Davis
Juan Matute – Deputy Director, UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies
Mike Manville – Associate Professor of Urban Planning, UCLA

Find more information here.

Register

2021 UCLA Arrowhead Symposium
2021-09-30 - 2021-10-28
Transit in TransitionThe 2021 UCLA Arrowhead Symposium Series: Transit in Transition considers the current state of public transit in the United States and transit’s options for the future. The pandemic accelerated the pre-existing trend of declining ridership. Transit agencies have built fixed route and rapid transit infrastructure to serve commercial centers and downtowns, but expanding remote work brings uncertainty to recovery of demand in these areas.
The more flexible bus is the workhorse of many transit systems, including Los Angeles, and has catered to lower-income transit users. An enhanced focus on equity often brings additional resources for the bus and meeting the public’s mobility needs through alternative shared mobility options.
How should transit agencies define success? Is it increasing ridership, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, decreasing traffic congestion, providing access to opportunities, or something else? And how do they achieve this success in the future, given broader socio-economic trends that impact transit use?
This event will feature five webinars between Sept. 30 – Oct. 28, 2021. Attendees are eligible to obtain AICP CM Credits.
Learn MoreSchedule of EventsSept. 30Oct. 7Oct. 14Oct. 21Oct. 28Sept. 30
Transit before and during COVID-19
THUR Sept. 30
12:30 p.m. – 2 p.m. PT
COVID-19 has exacerbated trends of increasing transit ridership and increasing costs that existed before the pandemic. What has happened? What changes will be short-lived? Which may change transit for the longer term?
Speakers: Regan Patterson, Brian Taylor, Kari Watkins
Learn more >>
Oct. 7
Money for Transit
THUR Oct. 7
12:30 p.m. – 2 p.m. PT
Transit’s finances have been temporarily boosted by a series of federal stimulus bills. California’s budget surplus has also provided additional funding for transit. But what happens after agencies exhaust these one-time infusions of funds?
Speakers: Asha Weinstein Agrawal, Robert Puentes
Learn more >>
Oct. 14
Transit for People
THUR Oct. 14
12:30 p.m. – 2 p.m. PT
Public transit exists to serve people and their mobility needs. This mission as a provider of social service includes addressing societal problems, like homelessness, that occur on transit, enhancing the safety of transit passengers, and ensuring that fares are not a barrier to meeting mobility needs.
Speakers: Tierra Bills, David Bragdon, Therese McMillan, Jessica Meany
Learn more >>
Oct. 21
Transit Now
THUR Oct. 21
12:30 p.m. – 2 p.m. PT

Hear from the Federal Transit Administration about relief specific programs and program changes that will assist transit agencies in their recovery. The past 18 months have brought some of the most significant changes to the FTA’s programs in the past 50 years. What is on the immediate horizon going forward? Doran Barnes, Executive Director of Foothill Transit, will offer a response.
Speakers: Veronica Vanterpool, Felicia James, Bruce Robinson, Doran Barnes
Learn more >>
Oct. 28
Transit’s Future
THUR Oct. 28
12:30 p.m. – 2 p.m. PT
We’ll present the results from two academic approaches to explore the future of public transit and public mobility: the UC ITS Resilient and Innovative Mobility Initiative and UCLA ITS work on the California 100 project.
Speakers: Susan Shaheen, Jeffrey Tumlin, Jacob Wasserman
Learn more >>

Transit in Transition @ UCLA
2022-04-01 09:00 - 17:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Covel Commons – Grand Horizon Room, 330 DeNeve Drive, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
UCLA Arrowhead Symposium: Transit in Transition @ UCLAAfter 2.5 years, we’re holding our first in-person event. The UCLA Arrowhead Symposium: Transit in Transition reconvenes at UCLA on Friday, April 1 after a successful online series this past fall.
Over the course of the 2021 series, we assessed the state of public transit in a time of intense uncertainty. We explored the pandemic’s impact on operations, examined the post-bailout financial landscape, discussed ongoing equity issues, and hosted a roundtable with federal officials, who relayed the Biden administration’s plans for resuscitating public transit. We closed with a look into the future: Will transit ever resemble its prior self? And is a return to “normal” even preferable — or is there something to be gained from an alternate path?
We will highlight the work from our UCLA ITS Public Transit Initiative and the University of California Institute of Transportation Studies Public Transit and Shared Mobility Recovery program.
Review Event Program & SpeakersRegister

The Legacy of Martin Wachs
2022-05-13 13:30 - 18:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | DeCafe Perloff Hall, 365 Portolo Plaza, Los Angeles, CA, 90095
For better than a half-century, Professor Martin Wachs was a leading educator, researcher, and influencer of transportation policy and planning at UCLA, UC Berkeley, and the RAND Corporation. This afternoon event will bring together some of his many former students, colleagues, and friends to reflect on his influence and legacy as a teacher and mentor, as a planning and transportation scholar, as well as his dedication to influencing policy and practice for the better.
UCLA DeCafe Perloff Hall
365 Portolo Plaza

Schedule of Events
This event will include a programmed portion with speakers, followed by a reception.
1:30 p.m. :: Welcoming Remarks & Reflection
Brian D. Taylor, Professor and Director, UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies
1:45 p.m. :: Marty’s Influence as Teacher and Mentor
Cornelius Nuworsoo, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo
Megan Ryerson, University of Pennsylvania
Paul Sorenson, Cambridge Systematics
Gian-Claudia Sciara, University of Texas, Austin
Moderator: Asha Weinstein Agrawal, San José State University
2:30 p.m. :: Marty’s Influence on Transportation and Planning Scholarship
Evelyn Blumenberg, UCLA
Genevieve Giuliano, University of Southern California
Jonathan Levine, University of Michigan
Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, UCLA
Moderator: Brian Taylor, UCLA
3:45 p.m. :: Marty’s Influence on Policy and Practice
Maria Mehranian, Cordoba Corporation
Ryan Russo, Oakland Department of Transportation
Robert Skinner, Transportation Research Board
Moderator: Donald Shoup, UCLA
4:30 p.m. – 6 p.m. :: Reception

Donations
For those interested, please consider donating to the UCLA Urban Planning Professors Emeriti Fellowship Fund in memory of Martin Wachs. Proceeds from this fund support student scholarships.
Make a Gift TodayHealth and Safety
In accordance with UCLA health and safety protocols, all attendees will be required to provide a photo ID and either proof of full vaccination status or negative COVID test (3 days for PCR tests and 1 day for antigen tests). These protocols may change to align with the most current campus policy.

California's Housing Crossroads
2022-10-16 - 2022-10-18 | UCLA Lake Arrowhead Conference Center, 850 Willow Creek Rd, Lake Arrowhead, CA, 92352, United States
California’s Housing Crossroads
The 32nd Annual UCLA Lake Arrowhead Symposium
High land costs, a shortage of homes, and income inequality have led to a cost-burdened population facing one of the nation’s worst housing crises, which is acutely felt in coastal job centers and near public transportation infrastructure.
Housing policy is complex, but the solutions to the housing crisis don’t need to be. At this year’s UCLA Arrowhead Symposium, we’ll focus on how to make these solutions happen in California.
This invitation-only symposium is the go-to event for an in-depth examination of the interconnected planning and policy issues around transportation, land use, and the environment. Regular registration fee of $1,195 includes access to programming, 2 nights lodging, all meals and receptions, use of venue facilities.
For more information about the event, along with scholarship opportunities to attend, please visit www.uclaarrowheadsymposium.org.

The Spatial Dilemma of Sustainable Transportation and Just Affordable Housing
2023-01-24 11:30 - 12:30 (America/Los_Angeles)
UCLA Housing, Neighborhood and Health Series: The Spatial Dilemma of Sustainable Transportation and Just Affordable Housing
Tuesday, Jan. 24
11:30 a.m. PST
Zoom webinar
California’s intense affordable housing crisis has highlighted the fundamental linkage between land use, transportation, climate policy, and equity. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the main contributor to climate change, is a priority policy goal for the state of California, and cutting vehicle miles traveled is a key mechanism for achieving this goal. In order to equitably achieve this reduction, it is critical that affordable housing options be situated in areas that facilitate less driving, through reliable access to public transit, walkability, and proximity to employment. These elements, among others, can combine to create more sustainable communities.
We hope you can join us for this research seminar where Dr. Ong will discuss his project that examines the spatial distribution of tenant-based Housing Choice Voucher (Section 8) units and Low-income Housing Tax Credit units to understand whether geographic patterns and trends are consistent with climate change and equity goals.
Find reports and briefs associated with this project here.
Featured Speaker
Paul Ong, PhD
Research Professor, UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs
Director, UCLA Center for Neighborhood Knowledge
Gilbert Senior Research Fellow, UCLA Ziman Center for Real Estate
This seminar is a joint endeavor brought to you by the UCLA Ziman Center for Real Estate’s Housing as Health Care Initiative and Gilbert Research Program in Real Estate, Finance and Urban Economics, the UCLA Center for Neighborhood Knowledge and the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies.

Biking while Black – Documentary Screening and Discussion
2023-02-07 18:30 - 20:30 UTC | James Bridges Theater, 235 Charles E Young Dr E, Los Angeles, 90095, United States
Biking while Black – Documentary Screening and Discussion
Tuesday, Feb. 7, 20236:30 – 8:15 p.m. PSTJames Bridges Theater
In a 30-minute documentary, BIKING WHILE BLACK: CONTINUING TO RIDE THROUGH DECRIMINALIZATION, DISENFRANCHISEMENT AND GENTRIFICATION incorporates narratives to dig deeper into solution-based storytelling and features the actions being taken by some of our leading Black bicyclists and BIPOC community-based organizations. Cast members are paving new roads to tackle the myths, the community safety conditions in Los Angeles, and celebrating Black joy on two wheels. Black and BIPOC lives continue to have an unseen connection to the realms of hope and resilience. Some of the key revelations that were spoken of during our interviews were on uplifting and educating our youth to become leaders and navigators in bicycling education and mechanics, safety education, and engagement, paired with mobility justice advocacy. The film connects these perspectives to transportation planning through speaking with agencies on the need to acknowledge, hire, and collaborate with community leaders who have been doing the work to help keep their multi-generational community members safe and informed. This second episode expands on the nine-minute short film, BIKING WHILE BLACK: HOW SAFE ARE BLACK LIVES BICYCLING?
Post-screening discussion with director Yolanda Davis-Overstreet, moderated by UCLA ITS Equity Research Manager Adonia Lugo.
More information: https://www.bikingwhileblack.com/
Read Panel RecapPanelists
Yolanda Davis-Overstreet
Yolanda Davis-Overstreet is a graduate of the Urban Sustainability Master’s Program at Antioch University. Her community service and consulting work revolve around community organizing and mobility justice, with a focus on pedestrian safety in communities of color. She is the founder of Ride in Living Color, a bicycling and mobility justice advocacy initiative that was started in 2011. Yolanda is a proud woman of color, mother, activist, and emerging social-justice filmmaker.
David Price
David Price serves as the current Director of Racial Equity for the Civil + Human Rights and Equity Department within the City of Los Angeles. In this role, he leads the Empowerment and Equity team, Peace & Healing Centers, Reparations Advisory Commission, and employs a policy equity analysis across City programs and policies. Prior to joining LA Civil Rights, David worked under Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, overseeing the Mayor’s Interfaith Collective and Mayor’s Youth Council, as well as organizing and delivering resources to hard-to-reach communities. David was born and raised in South Central Los Angeles.
Rev. Patricia Strong-Fargas
Rev. Patricia Strong-Fargas was born in Jacksonville, Texas, and is a proud mother of two and grandmother of four. She is a graduate of California State Dominguez Hills, and went on to complete her master’s degree in Biblical Studies at Bible Believers College & Seminary. Currently, Patricia serves as a pastor and community activist. She is a founder of Mother’s Against Hazing and an active member of PUSH (Parents United to Stop Hazing), Faith for Safer Streets, and many other impactful local organizations. Across all of her work, she brings a passion for serving others and fighting for equality and social justice.
Adonia Lugo (moderator)
Cultural anthropologist Adonia E. Lugo was born and raised in traditional and unceded Acjachemen territory and now lives and works in traditional and unceded Tongva territory in Los Angeles. Adonia began investigating transportation, race, and space during her graduate studies at UC Irvine, when she co-created the Los Angeles open street event CicLAvia and the organization today known as People for Mobility Justice. Since receiving her doctorate in 2013, Adonia has applied her research on “human infrastructure” in sustainable mobility advocacy and helped to define the concept of “mobility justice.” Currently, Adonia is the Equity Research Manager at the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies, a core organizer of The Untokening, and a recent appointee to the California Transportation Commission.

Accessibility, Social Equity, and Contemporary Policy Debates
2023-02-28 | California Nanosystems Institute, UCLA Campus, 570 Westwood Plaza, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
Part of the Martin Wachs Distinguished Lecture Series and Meyer and Renee Luskin Lecture Series.
Robert Cervero works in the area of sustainable transportation policy and planning. He has consulted on numerous transportation and urban planning projects worldwide, most recently advising long-range planning in Dubai and Singapore. His most recent book, Beyond Mobility, won the 2019 National Urban Design Best Book Award. Dr. Cervero was a member of Berkeley’s city and regional planning faculty from 1980 to 2016, where he twice served as Department Chair, was the inaugural holder of the Carmel P. Friesen Chair in Urban Studies, and directed both the University of California Transportation Center and the Institute of Urban and Regional Development. More recently he has held visiting faculty appointments at Tongji University in Shanghai and NYU-Abu Dhabi. During his doctoral studies in urban planning at UCLA, he worked under the supervision of his long-time mentor, Martin Wachs.
Martin Wachs’ seminal 1973 paper on accessibility as a social construct continues to influence urban planning policy and practice a half-century later. It also shaped a generation of research on, broadly speaking, the ‘transport-land use connection’, including my own. This talk probes a number of policy initiatives that implicitly aim to enhance physical access but for which social equity has been at best secondary and all too often an afterthought. Included here are regional jobs-housing balance initiatives, reverse-commute transit services, transit-oriented development (TOD), and formalization of public transport in a developing world context. Here I’ll revisit my own past work as well as that of others on such policy initiatives, drawing from global experiences, both empirically and inferentially. Policy reforms for advancing both physical access and social equity are reviewed and critiqued. The popularized movement toward the 15-minute city, for example, suggests a future of increased micro-mobility, creating new types of accessibility challenges, such as curb-access management. Implications of unfolding megatrends on accessibility and social equity in an increasingly resource-constrained, public-health conscientious world are discussed.

Check-in begins at 5:30pm with the discussion following at 6:00pm.
Public transportation: Big Blue Bus (Routes 2 and 17), Culver CityBus (Line 6), Metro
Ride-hailing locations: Gateway Plaza, Luskin Conference Center
On-site parking available for $14 (Lot 2, Lot 8)
The Luskin School of Public Affairs and the Institute of Transportation Studies at UCLA acknowledges the Gabrielino/Tongva peoples as the traditional land caretakers of Tovaangar (the Los Angeles basin and So. Channel Islands). As a land grant institution, we pay our respects to the Honuukvetam (Ancestors), ‘Ahiihirom (Elders) and ‘Eyoohiinkem (our relatives/relations) past, present and emerging.

Luskin Summit 2023: Our Research in Action
2023-04-19 | UCLA Faculty Club, 480 Charles E. Young Drive E, Los Angeles, California, 90095
UCLA ITS research will be featured at this year’s Luskin Summit, during a morning breakout session
CALIFORNIA’S ZERO EMISSIONS VEHICLE PLANS— NECESSARY, BUT INSUFFICIENT
California plans to phase out new gasoline vehicle sales starting in three years and will eliminate all sales by 2035. It’s a necessary step toward public health, equity and climate goals. But is it sufficient? The Institute of Transportation Studies at UCLA will lead a panel discussion about the consequences of rapid transportation electrification without addressing driving activity — and who is most likely to get left behind.
Information about the other breakout sessions and speakers can be found on the registration site.
OPENING AND CLOSING SESSIONS
Quality of Life Index
Former public official and current UCLA professor Zev Yaroslavsky will unveil the results of his eighth annual poll of Los Angeles County residents on their satisfaction with their lives across nine categories.
Closing Session on Homelessness
Ever-rising homelessness has been designated as an emergency by both the city and county of Los Angeles, yet roughly 70,000 unhoused people continue to sleep outside or in vehicles. Mayor Karen Bass and other elected officials have pledged to work together to address this complex issue in a compassionate, effective manner. What is actually being done? Get answers from some of the people directly involved in ensuring that shelter and supportive services are getting to those who need them most.
Register Here

UCLA Downtown Los Angeles Forum: Transforming Transportation
2024-03-21 | The California Endowment, 1000 Alameda St., Los Angeles, CA, 90012, United States
This in-person event showcased new research, analysis, and future research plans in TRACton: A Research Agenda For Just and Sustainable Transportation, a research and policy agenda that is a product of collaborative agenda-setting between UCLA researchers and members of community-based and advocacy organizations. Speakers and attendees pondered some of the pressing questions affecting transportation and land use in California:
How does a research agenda developed in collaboration by researchers and community advocates differ from the status quo for transportation research?
With an impending fiscal cliff and the continuing slog of post-pandemic ridership recovery, how will California transform public transit to achieve the state’s strategic vision of transit oriented development with less reliance on personal automobiles.
Climate change, housing affordability, unsafe roads, and the impending Olympic games all motivate the need to advance the pace and scale of transportation change. But achieving scale and agility require significant changes in public sector managerial approaches. What can transportation professionals do differently to transform transportation?
How can transit agencies overcome labor shortages that impair services and ridership?
What is known about racial injustices in siting freeways? What can communities do to repair the resultant harms?
EV adoption in California is taking off, but are environmentally-burned communities benefiting?
Claim Your CreditsAttendees who are members of the American Institute of Certified Planners can claim up to 4.5 CM credits from the American Planning Association’s website. Event #9286604.
Session RecordingsUCLA ITS is providing this video for archival purposes and for those who were unable to attend the event. The video is a low-resolution crop from a webcam at the venue. Spanish subtitles are included for the first two sessions on TRACtion.
Schedule

9:30 AM
Welcome
Juan Matute welcomes attendees and introduces the TRACtion process and its recommendations for researchers and policymakers in Los Angeles.

10 AM
TRACtion: A community-engaged research agenda for transportation sustainability and justice
TRACtion participants Oscar Zarate (community organizer), Andres Ramirez (mobility justice advocate), and Tierra Bills (Assistant Professor at UCLA) discuss the importance of partnering with communities to produce knowledge.

11:15 AM
TRACtion Research in Action
Researchers present work related to the TRACtion research agenda. In researching California’s transit labor recruitment and retention challenges, Jacob Wasserman and the research team found that pay raises are necessary but not sufficient to address labor shortages that impair services and ridership. Wasserman will discuss what else agencies should be doing. Manos Proussaloglou will present recent research into freeway planning choices made in California during the 1960s that displaced people of color and continue to reverberate today. Qiao Yu will share recent research on EV adoption in California that found improvements to air quality for everyone but have less impact in areas with existing environmental injustices.

12:15 PM
Lunch
Lunch is provided and attendees are invited to network and engage in discussions.

1:30 PM
Lessons Learned from Transforming Transportation: 2023 UCLA Arrowhead Symposium
Attendees of the 2023 UCLA Arrowhead Symposium on Transforming Transportation share key messages and lessons learned.

Sarah Jepson, Planning Director, SCAG
Emma Huang, Senior Consultant, InfraStrategies
Jody Litvak Executive Officer, Community Relations, LA Metro
Chelsea Richer, Principal, Fehr & Peers

2:45 PM
Transforming Transit in California
California State Transportation Undersecretary Mark Tollefson, ITS Senior Fellow and InfraStrategies Managing Partner Joshua Schank, and SCAG’s Partnerships for Innovative Deployment Manager Kate Kigongo discuss transit’s needs for transformation in California and offer solutions. Tollefson chairs California’s Transit Transformation Task Force, initiated by SB 125 to rethink funding and policies to set transit up for success well into the future.

3:45 PM
Closing Remarks
UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies Director Brian Taylor offers closing remarks.

4 PM
Reception
Attendees will gather in the outdoor courtyard with appetizers and beer, wine, and non-alcoholic beverages.

SpeakersSpeakers will be added once confirmed.

Assistant ProfessorTierra Bills

Senior ConsultantEmma Huang

Chief Planning OfficerSarah Jepson

Executive Officer, Community Relations (Interim)Jody Litvak

Deputy DirectorJuan Matute

Assistant DirectorEmmanuel Proussaloglou

Executive DirectorAndres Ramirez

Managing Principal and Senior FellowJoshua Schank

Professor and DirectorBrian Taylor

UndersecretaryMark Tollefson

Research Program ManagerJacob Wasserman

PhD Candidate, Department of Environmental Health SciencesQiao Yu

Director, Organizing and Advocacy, Building Equity and TransitOscar Zarate

Manager, Partnerships for Innovative DevelopmentKate Kigongo

PrinicipalChelsea Richer

Assistant ProfessorTierra Bills
Tierra Bills is an Assistant Professor of Civil Engineering and Public Policy at UCLA. Dr. Bills is a thinker, teacher, and researcher committed to advancing equity is transportation systems and policies. She has over 10 years of experience developing and advancing travel demand and equity analysis methods. She holds a B.S in Civil Engineering Technology from Florida A&M University, and M.S and PhD degrees in Transportation Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley.

Research Areas:Access to Opportunities, New Mobility, Transportation & Communities

Senior ConsultantEmma Huang
Emma Huang is a Senior Consultant at InfraStrategies, a strategic advisory firm. She supports transportation agencies with strategic planning, policy, and innovation. Her clients include Lane Transit District, DART, SamTrans, and Charlotte Area Transit System. Emma has published white papers and perspectives on innovative transportation issues, including microtransit, bus only lanes, and fareless transit. Prior to joining InfraStrategies, as a Manager with Metro’s Office of Extraordinary Innovation, Emma spent six years focused on advancing strategic initiatives for the agency. She has her MPP from UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs.

Chief Planning OfficerSarah Jepson
Sarah Jepson is the Chief Planning Officer at Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG), the nation’s largest Metropolitan Planning Organization. Her responsibilities include the development and implementation of the Regional Transportation Plan/Sustainable Communities Strategy, a long-range visioning plan that balances future mobility and housing needs with economic and environmental goals. Sarah also oversees the Regional Housing Needs Assessment, Federal Transportation Improvement Program, local funding programs and a comprehensive environmental analysis and compliance program. Prior to this role, she managed the agency’s Active Transportation Department leading the development of regional plans, funding programs and the Go Human Campaign. Sarah also served as the Sustainability Policy Manager for the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro) and worked on growth management planning for the King County Executive in Seattle, Washington. She started her career as a Peace Corps volunteer in St. Vincent & the Grenadines. Sarah received a BA in English from Miami University; and a Master’s degree in Public Policy from the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan.

Executive Officer, Community Relations (Interim)Jody Litvak
A Los Angeles native, Jody Litvak currently serves at LA Metro as Executive Officer for Community Relations leading a team focused on delivering the agency’s environmental and other planning studies, strengthening the agency’s partnerships with the 88 cities in Los Angeles County and other key stakeholders, as well as supporting an array of county-wide initiatives, bus and rail operations and more. She has a broad range of experience across the agency’s varied functions having worked in Operations, Planning, Government

Relations and others. She has been involved in some of the agency’s highest-profile efforts including the Sepulveda Transit Corridor, Purple Line Extension, NextGen Bus Plan, and the successful Measure R and Measure M efforts. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley, and a Master in Public Policy degree from the Harvard Kennedy School.

Deputy DirectorJuan Matute
Juan Matute, Deputy Director of the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies (ITS), leads research initiatives that bridge the gap between academic inquiry and practical transportation decision-making. As Deputy Director, Juan Matute leads UCLA ITS’s annual UCLA Arrowhead Symposium on urban and regional planning and is the Program Manager for the national Center of Excellence on New Mobility and Automated Vehicles.

At UCLA ITS, Juan spearheads research projects that delve into public transit, transportation finance, and governance. His interdisciplinary approach, rooted in problem-solving and systems thinking, enables him to unravel complex transportation challenges and develop effective solutions.

Juan’s dedication to public service extends beyond UCLA. He actively serves on various state, regional, and city committees, contributing his expertise to initiatives such as the Transit Transformation Task Force, Open Data/Big Data – Smart, and Connected SCAG Region Committee. Juan’s involvement in working groups and boards, such as the Los Angeles Parking Reform Working Group and the Downtown Santa Monica, Inc. Board of Directors, demonstrates his commitment to improving transportation systems at the local level.

Juan’s passion for transportation extends to the classroom, where he has taught numerous courses at the graduate and undergraduate levels at UCLA. His courses cover a wide range of topics, including transportation, environmental assessment, and climate planning.

Juan holds an MBA and Urban Planning MA from UCLA and a BA from Pomona College. He lives in Santa Monica, CA., where he and his wife Sirinya bike, walk, and use transit regularly with their son.

Research Areas:New Mobility, Parking, Public Transit, Sustainable Transportation, Transportation & Communities

Assistant DirectorEmmanuel Proussaloglou
Emmanuel Proussaloglou is Assistant Director of cityLAB, a multidisciplinary research center housed within UCLA’s Department of Architecture and Urban Design. Having received dual Master’s degrees in Architecture and Urban Planning from UCLA, his work interrogates the impact of public policy on the built environment with a specific focus on the design, provision, and distribution of affordable housing. Professionally, he has worked at think tanks such as the Brookings Institution and the Center for Neighborhood Technology. He has also worked in architectural offices like Perkins & Will and Sharif, Lynch; Architecture.

Executive DirectorAndres Ramirez
Andres Ramirez serves as the Executive Director of People for Mobility Justice. He also serves on LA County Metropolitan Transit Authority’s Policy Advisory Council, the Public Utilities Commission Disadvantaged Communities Advisory Group, and the Solar on Multifamily Affordable Housing (SOMAH) advisory council. He has over 15 years of experience advocating for Equity in DACs through community organizing and policy advocacy. Andres has a diverse policy expertise and a keen understanding of the strengths and needs of BIPOC communities. He has led multiple advocacy and organizing efforts assuring that land use, transportation, housing, and environmental policies are developed and implemented equitably. Some of the successful efforts he has led include: LADOT Community Ambassador program (Vision Zero), Electro Bici (Pacoima e-bike library), and South Central Power Up (South LA e-bike library)

Managing Principal and Senior FellowJoshua Schank
Joshual Schank is a Managing Prinicipal at InfraStrategies LLC, where he leads a practice focused on innovation, strategic planning, and technology. He is also a Senior Fellow in the Institute of Transportation Studies at UCLA, and a Research Associate at the Mineta Transportation Institute. Prior to joining InfraStrategies and UCLA, Dr. Schank was the first-ever Chief Innovation Officer (CIO) at LA Metro. Dr. Schank previously served as President and CEO of the Eno Center for Transportation, led transportation research for the Bipartisan Policy Center, and served as Transportation Policy Advisor to Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY).

Research Areas:New Mobility, Public Transit, Traffic, Transportation Finance

Professor and DirectorBrian Taylor
Brian D. Taylor, PhD, FAICP is a Professor of Urban Planning and Public Policy in the Luskin School of Public Affairs and Director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at UCLA. He teaches courses on transportation, land use, and urban form; public transit and shared mobility; and transportation economics, finance, and policy. Professor Taylor studies travel behavior and transportation equity, finance, history, and politics. His recent research examines falling public transit ridership, public sector responses to new transportation technologies, the socio-economic dimensions of travel behavior, the equity of increased local option sales taxes for transportation, the economic effects of traffic congestion, and the transportation policy and equity implications of the SARS-Cov-2 global pandemic.

Professor Taylor is on sabbatical during the 2022-23 academic year.

Research Areas:Access to Opportunities, New Mobility, Public Transit (lead), Traffic, Transportation & Communities,Transportation Health & Safety, Transportation Finance (lead)

UndersecretaryMark Tollefson
Mark Tollefson was appointed Undersecretary of the California State Transportation Agency (CalSTA) by Governor Gavin Newsom in December 2022. As Undersecretary, Mark advises the Secretary on CalSTA issues, programs and departments, and oversees personnel, fiscal and administrative functions, and planning.

Previously, Mark served as Governor Newsom’s Senior Counselor on Infrastructure and Fiscal Affairs and as a Deputy Cabinet Secretary. He held several positions at the California Department of Finance from 2007 to 2019. Mark earned a Master of Business Administration degree from California State University, Sacramento.

Research Program ManagerJacob Wasserman
Jacob Wasserman studies and manages research on public transit, the intersection of transportation and other social issues, and a range of mobility questions at the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies. With a background in transportation equity, finance, and demand management, Wasserman serves as the lead scholar of ITS’ Public Transit research program.

Prior to joining ITS, he worked for the Cities of Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New Haven on capital planning, vehicle miles traveled development review thresholds, budget process improvements, and active transportation. He also served as a Transportation Justice Fellow for BART Director Lateefah Simon, coordinating passage of the system’s Safe Transit sanctuary policy.

Wasserman has a Master of Urban and Regional Planning degree from the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, with concentrations in transportation policy and planning and in community economic development and housing, in the housing stream. He holds a bachelor’s degree in history and political science from Yale.

Research Areas:Public Transit, Transportation & Communities, Transportation Health & Safety,

PhD Candidate, Department of Environmental Health SciencesQiao Yu
Qiao Yu is a Ph.D. candidate at UCLA’s Department of Environmental Health Sciences, focusing on climate change mitigation, air quality co-benefits, Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) policy, and environmental justice. His work has contributed to the LA100 Equity Strategies Report and involves improving clean and equitable transportation for disadvantaged communities through California Climate Action funded projects.

Director, Organizing and Advocacy, Building Equity and TransitOscar Zarate
Oscar U. Zarate is a Director of Advocacy and Organizing at Strategic Actions for a Just Economy (SAJE), where he leads the organization’s built environment work, with a focus on improving the conditions of rental housing and public transit. Oscar serves as a council member on the LA County Metropolitan Transit Authority’s Community Advisory Council and is a Founding member of the City of Compton’s Tenant Union. He’s led successful grassroot efforts to establish new tenant protections in LA County and prevent fare hikes for Metro riders.

Before joining SAJE, Oscar was a UCLA Labor Fellow at SEIU Local 2015 and Teamsters Port Division, organizing truck drivers and long-term care workers. Oscar holds a BA in Political Science from UC Santa Barbara.

Manager, Partnerships for Innovative DevelopmentKate Kigongo
Kate Kigongo is the Manager of Partnerships for Innovative Deployment at Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG). Her career has focused on using technology, innovation, and pilot projects to improve transportation, urban design, and sustainability outcomes in California. Kate has worked for the City of West Hollywood, Los Angeles Neighborhood Initiative, and the Low Income Investment Fund. She is a double-Bruin, with a Master’s in Urban and Regional Planning and BA in Geography and History.

PrinicipalChelsea Richer
Chelsea is a Principal in Fehr & Peer’s Los Angeles office. Chelsea leads the Fehr & Peers companywide discipline group on Climate Change & Resilience. Much of her work focuses on policies and practices to enable mode-shift towards low-carbon modes – first/last mile planning, multimodal safety, VMT policy, active transportation planning, and transportation demand management (TDM). She also is passionate about gender equity on transit, working on local and national projects to advance that practice. She is a UCLA Luskin alum (MURP 2014) and has her bachelor’s degree in public policy from the University of Chicago.

Sponsors

Human Transit, Book Talk by Jarrett Walker
2024-04-18 | 2355 Public Affairs Building, 337 Charles E Young Dr E, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
Join us to celebrate the revised edition of Jarrett Walker’s Human Transit, Revised Edition: How Clearer Thinking about Public Transit Can Enrich Our Communities and Our Lives. The new edition will deepen its explanations about the basic principles of public transit, informed by his work as a network planning consultant. New topics include the problem with specialization; the role of flexible or “demand response” services; how to know when to redesign your network; and responding to tech-industry claims that transit will soon be obsolete. Finally, he added a major new section exploring the idea of access to opportunity as a core measure of transit’s success.

RSVP HERE

TransportationCamp LA 2024
2024-06-08 09:30 - 17:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, 337 Charles E Young Drive E, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
Register TodaySee Sponsorship OpportunitiesTransportationCamp LA is an open venue for sharing and learning about the region’s transportation issues and successes. TransportationCamp LA aims to be an open, forward-thinking event that brings together people of all facets of the transportation world.
TransportationCamp is not a formal conference — rather, as an unconference, it is driven entirely by attendees’ interests and experiences. At TransportationCamp, there is no set agenda prior to the event. Sessions are determined at the beginning of the day and are drawn from proposals and ideas that attendees submit. A session can be any format: a presentation, an open discussion, a demonstration, a panel, or even a group exercise or game.
TransportationCamp covers urban transportation issues in all their forms, including economic, social, public health, and environmental impacts.Session topics in the 2019 TransportationCamp LA ranged from “Congestion Pricing & Increasing Transit Ridership,” to “Mobility with Kids Under 5,” to “Latest Buzz from Cycle-friendly Cities” and change every year to reflect the latest research and questions of the moment.
Have thoughts on mobility and access for carless households in LA, or battery replacement and disposal strategies for transit agencies? Get your own session started here just with an oversized Post-It note.
This event is open to advocates, professionals, community members, and everyone passionate about mobility in Los Angeles and Southern California.
Past TransportationCamp LA PhotosThank You to Our Sponsors

Ciclovía at 50: Changing Street Cultures Across the World
2024-06-26
A Mini-Symposium from UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies
December 2024 marks the 50th anniversary of the ciclovía in Bogotá, Colombia, the original “open streets” event. Ciclovías close streets to cars and open them to people-powered mobility, creating what co-founder Jaime Ortíz Mariño calls the “world’s largest outdoor classroom.” The ciclovía covers over 75 miles every Sunday in Bogotá, and has spread to over 450 cities around the world. In this online event, we will hear from organizers in different cities about what the model has meant for their street cultures. Scholars will share their research on the event and its participants. Experts from the fields of public health and transportation will talk about the challenges and opportunities in funding non-infrastructure programming like this. Explore what cities around the globe have learned from the model, its role as a catalyst in changing street cultures in particular cities, and how ciclovías can help shift people to sustainable transportation.
Session 1: Ciclovía Legacies
In the first half of the mini-symposium, we’ll focus on telling the story. A moderated discussion with ciclovía creators will reflect on the goals of open streets models and how ciclovías have changed transportation culture in specific cities. Following this, there will be mini lectures from scholars who have studied ciclovías and similar events in different national contexts.

Worlding Bogotá’s Ciclovía (Sergio Montero): What have been the key dynamics and actors in the global mobilization or “worlding” of Bogotá’s ciclovía during the last 20 years?
Public Health Benefits of the Ciclovías Recreativas Program (Olga Sarmiento): What can we learn from quantitative analysis of the public health benefits of ciclovías around the world?
Assessing Women’s Participation in Ciclovía 50 Years On (Paola Castañeda Londoño): Sharing preliminary findings from a recently completed survey of over 500 people’s attitudes and patterns of use of ciclovía in Bogotá. The survey is meant to give us information about why women participate less than men.

Session 2: Case Study LA
This roundtable will explore Los Angeles’ CicLAvia as a ciclovía case study, exploring the skillsets, perspectives, and phases that build a successful event over time. Speakers will highlight the community, political, cultural, and planning components that have been part of LA’s experience.
Speakers

Romel Pascual (CicLAvia)
Frank Ching (LA Metro)
Tafarai Bayne (CicLAvia)
Jimmy Lizama (Re:Ciclos)

Session 3: Learning Together
The last portion of the mini-symposium will consist of a workshop where participants will choose breakout rooms and join a facilitated discussion.
Speakers

Co-Founder, ciclovíaJaime Ortiz Mariño

President, Community Arts ResourcesAaron Paley

Assistant Professor, Universidad de Los AndesPaola Castañeda Londoño

Associate Professor, University of Toronto, ScarboroughSergio Montero

Deputy Executive OfficerFrank Ching

Executive DirectorRomel Pascual

Chief StrategistTafarai Bayne

Professor, Department of Public HealthOlga Sarmiento

FounderJimmy Lizama

PhD candidate in Urban PlanningAndres F. Ramirez

Deputy DirectorJuan Matute

Staff ResearcherAdonia Lugo

Co-Founder, ciclovíaJaime Ortiz Mariño
Jaime Ortiz Mariño is a Colombian architect and activist who played a pivotal role in shaping urban mobility and community engagement in Bogotá. He is renowned for co-founding Ciclovía in Bogotá, Colombia in 1974 as part of PRO-CICLA. Ciclovía is a transformative weekly event that temporarily closes streets to motor vehicles, allowing people to walk, bike, and enjoy recreational activities. Ciclovías supports people-powered mobility, creating what co-founder Jaime Ortíz Mariño calls the “world’s largest outdoor classroom.” The ciclovía covers over 75 miles every Sunday in Bogotá, and has spread to over 450 cities around the world.

President, Community Arts ResourcesAaron Paley
Aaron Paley has been engaged with how Angelenos think about and use their city for more than four decades. Paley co-founded Community Arts Resources (CARS) with Katie Bergin in 1989 to “create unique experiences where art, culture, community and civic life collide.” Combining his deep knowledge of Los Angeles with an innovative approach to urban planning, Paley has been on the forefront of the field, bringing an innovative approach to conceptualizing and activating public spaces in collaboration with the communities they benefit. He and his firm have produced more than five hundred ephemeral events throughout the region that have expanded the way Angelenos perceive their own city. CARS pioneered the use of creative, temporary interventions to create new gathering places out of inhuman streets, parking lots, overlooked and in-between spaces, parks, sidewalks and vacant lots. As the founding director of CicLAvia, Paley helped usher in an era of car-free events in Southern California and was instrumental in turning LA County into the largest center for open streets events in the country. Paley has also been involved with permanent public space improvements from Honolulu to Houston including his insights for DTLA’s Grand Park which were integral to its creation. His leadership on public spaces, arts, culture, civic space and the intersection of all these areas contributes to the ongoing evolution of Los Angeles.

Assistant Professor, Universidad de Los AndesPaola Castañeda Londoño
Paola Castañeda Londoño is an Assistant Professor in History & Geography at Universidad de Los Andes, Bogotá, Colombia. She is a historian and geographer, who conducts research on cities and mobility with a focus on bicycle culture in Latin America. She is developing a research project on gender differences in the Ciclovía and a virtual exhibition in commemoration of the 50 years of the Ciclovía.

Associate Professor, University of Toronto, ScarboroughSergio Montero
Sergio Montero is Associate Professor of Geography & Planning and Inaugural Director of the Institute for Inclusive Economies and Sustainable Livelihoods (IIESL) at the University of Toronto, Scarborough. Prof. Montero is interested in place-based and inclusive approaches to reimagine local economic development and urban & regional planning. His research is often comparative and emphasizes thinking from the Global South and from the peripheries of economic development.

Deputy Executive OfficerFrank Ching
Frank has over 20 years of mobility and parking management experience and worked in both private and public sectors. He has been through every position in parking and mobility industry. In 2014, Frank was recruited by LA Metro to overhaul their parking program. Over 27,000 parking spaces spread out over 1,400 square miles along the Los Angeles County Transit System are currently under his administration. Although “Parking” is his first love, Frank has expanded himself with his forward-innovative thinking to oversee Regional Transportation Demand Management programs, Mobility Hubs Development and Programming, and Active Transportation Programs, and he continues to oversee all the Metro Parking Programs in 2017. Frank is the lead of LA Metro Open Streets Grant Program, which has funded CiCLAvia and other local events for the past 10 years. Since the inception of the program, Open Streets events have taken place in 38 different jurisdictions, and approximately 248 miles of street closures for these events throughout Los Angeles County.

Frank was awarded the 2010 CPPA Parking Professional of the Year, the City of Santa Monica wasawarded the 2011 CPPA Parking Program of the Year, and the Los Angeles Metro was also awarded the 2017 CPPA Parking Program of the Year under his leadership. Frank also received the National Parking Association Innovator of the Year Award in 2014. In 2018, his agency awarded Frank the Innovation Award of the Year. In 2022 and 2024, his agency also recognized him with the Equity and Inclusive Award of the Year.

Executive DirectorRomel Pascual
Romel Pascual is the Executive Director of CicLAvia, an LA-based non-profit organization focusing on community engagement and active transportation. CicLAvia has grown into the largest open streets program in the U.S., where over 2 million people have participated in 53 CicLAvia events on 275 miles of streets throughout the LA region since 2010. Prior, he served as the Deputy Mayor of Los Angeles in the Villaraigosa Administration, focusing on sustainability, energy, and social justice. As Deputy Mayor, Romel represented the City of Los Angeles on the Executive Committee for the C40 Large Cities Climate Group – the world’s largest cities working on climate change, the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference, and the 2012 Rio+20 – United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD). Romel was also the first Assistant Secretary for Environmental Justice from 2000-2004 for Governor Davis, where he led the efforts to develop the state’s inaugural environmental justice program. Under the Clinton Administration, Romel led USEPA Region 9’s Environmental Justice Program. Romel has worked at the community level with the Urban Habitat Program and the Asian Pacific Environmental Network (APEN) in the Bay Area.

Romel served on several non-profit boards, including the Board of Directors for the LA2028 Olympic Committee and the Advisory Board of UCLA’s Luskin Center for Innovation. In 2019, Romel received the UCLA Community Leader Award. He has a B.A. in Political Science from UCLA and a Masters in City and Regional Planning from UC Berkeley.

Chief StrategistTafarai Bayne
Tafarai Bayne is a Los Angeles native with extensive experience in the following areas: strategic planning and communications, promotion and outreach, constituency building, stakeholder education, project management, program development, marketing, and event production. He has worked on urban development and planning issues for 20 years with an emphasis on the dynamics impacting working class communities. He currently serves as Chief Strategist for CicLAvia. He also consults as a Strategic Advisor with Destination Crenshaw and as an Event Producer for Community Coalition. In 2020 he was appointed to the City of Los Angeles Recreation and Parks Commission, following a long stint on the City’s Transportation Commission.

Professor, Department of Public HealthOlga Sarmiento
Olga L. Sarmiento is a Professor in the Department of Public Health in the School of Medicine at Universidad de Los Andes (Bogotá, Colombia). Her transdisciplinary research focuses on the relationship between the built environment, policy, and health, with an emphasis on inclusive and sustainable community programs in Latin America. Dr. Sarmiento is currently the co-principal investigator on the SALURBAL- Climate (Urban Health in Latin America) project, The ESCALA project (Study of Climate Change in Informal Settlements), the implementation research project in Bogota and Maputto, On the Way to School project, and the GAC-PAQ project. She received a life distinction from the Ministry of Sports of Colombia and the Institute of Sports and Recreation of Bogotá (Colombia) for promoting healthy behaviors in Colombia through academic work, particularly on the Ciclovias of Colombia.

FounderJimmy Lizama
Over two decades ago, an epiphanous bicycle ride to work transformed Jimmy Lizama into an unwitting “Bicyclist.” Unyielding dreams of Angelenos bicycling everyday instead of driving filled his mind, lifted his soul and nourished his vision. Since then, he has traveled the world as a bike messenger – both in profession and in mission – employing bicycle power as his main form of expression, revolution and mobility.

Some Notable Contributions:

2000 – Founded the Bicycle Kitchen/La BiciCocina along with helping other co-ops as they got their start, namely the Bikerowave and the Bike Oven

2013 – Opened Relampago Wheelery, a small dynamo, wheel and bicycle culture space in Koreatown featuring La BiciParranda, a monthly karaoke community bike party

2018 – Was instrumental in organizing Bike!Bike!2018L.A., a community bike shop conference and with the help of volunteers, created the mobile karaoke, musical performance and public engagement bicycle stage known as el BiciCrófono

2019 – Relampago Wheelery awarded best bike shop by L.A. Weekly

2022 – Present, was awarded a grant from the Energy Foundation for Re:Ciclos, a recycled materials cargo bike fabrication program focused on creating a cargo bike library for local community members

PhD candidate in Urban PlanningAndres F. Ramirez
Andres F. Ramirez is a PhD candidate in Urban Planning at UCLA. His research interests include the politics of public space, insurgent planning practices, and Indigenous urban studies. In his dissertation, Andres examines Indigenous struggles for rights to the city in Bogotá Colombia. Prior to UCLA, Andrés worked as a writer and curator of architecture and urbanism. He is also the co-founder and director of PLANE–SITE, a content agency devoted to impact-driven communication about the built environment.

Deputy DirectorJuan Matute
Juan Matute, Deputy Director of the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies (ITS), leads research initiatives that bridge the gap between academic inquiry and practical transportation decision-making. As Deputy Director, Juan Matute leads UCLA ITS’s annual UCLA Arrowhead Symposium on urban and regional planning and is the Program Manager for the national Center of Excellence on New Mobility and Automated Vehicles.

At UCLA ITS, Juan spearheads research projects that delve into public transit, transportation finance, and governance. His interdisciplinary approach, rooted in problem-solving and systems thinking, enables him to unravel complex transportation challenges and develop effective solutions.

Juan’s dedication to public service extends beyond UCLA. He actively serves on various state, regional, and city committees, contributing his expertise to initiatives such as the Transit Transformation Task Force, Open Data/Big Data – Smart, and Connected SCAG Region Committee. Juan’s involvement in working groups and boards, such as the Los Angeles Parking Reform Working Group and the Downtown Santa Monica, Inc. Board of Directors, demonstrates his commitment to improving transportation systems at the local level.

Juan’s passion for transportation extends to the classroom, where he has taught numerous courses at the graduate and undergraduate levels at UCLA. His courses cover a wide range of topics, including transportation, environmental assessment, and climate planning.

Juan holds an MBA and Urban Planning MA from UCLA and a BA from Pomona College. He lives in Santa Monica, CA., where he and his wife Sirinya bike, walk, and use transit regularly with their son.

Research Areas:New Mobility, Parking, Public Transit, Sustainable Transportation, Transportation & Communities

Staff ResearcherAdonia Lugo
Cultural anthropologist Adonia E. Lugo was born and raised in traditional and unceded Acjachemen territory and now lives and works in traditional and unceded Tongva territory in Los Angeles. Adonia began investigating transportation, race, and space during her graduate studies at UC Irvine, when she co-created the Los Angeles open street event CicLAvia and the organization today known as People for Mobility Justice. Since receiving her doctorate in 2013, Adonia has applied her research on “human infrastructure” in sustainable mobility advocacy and helped to define the concept of “mobility justice.” Adonia is a Staff Researcher at the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies, a 2022 appointee to the California Transportation Commission, and a member of Los Angeles Walks’ advisory board.

Video Recording

Transit, Belabored: Issues and Futures for the Transit Workforce
2024-09-10
Transit only works as well as the workforce behind it — those who operate vehicles; those who keep them in order, clean, and secure; and those who plan and manage the network. Frontline transit work can be especially satisfying and secure — but also stressful or unsafe. The pandemic laid bare these realities, as transit agencies across the country lacked workers, leading to canceled service in the short term and delayed service restoration in the long term. Ultimately, transit workforce issues are transit rider issues.
Researchers, union organizers, and transit workers themselves will speak on the key workforce issues in the transit industry. Through both presentations and breakout discussions, speakers and participants together, from both the transportation and labor sectors, will work on ideas for how to improve transit work and secure it as a high-road job.
Session 1: Introduction to Transit Labor: Current Issues and Coming Concerns
Our opening conversation will explore the best practices and needed reforms to transform transit for the better. Join us in conversing with a research leader engaged in the big issues, solutions, and prospects for the future in transit labor, from operators to mechanics and white-collar employees.
Session 2: Organizing to Improve Transit Work
Hear directly from bus operators and those working with labor communities as they describe their view of what it takes to improve transit, starting with working conditions for the people that keep transit moving.
Session 3: Attracting and Building Transit Talent
This session will discuss how to attract and keep people in the transit workforce, through not just improvements on the job but also apprenticeship/workforce development programs to build a pipeline to the job.
Breakout Rooms: How Do We Make Transit Work a High-Road Job?
Participants will choose one of four Zoom breakout session rooms to join other attendees in discussing the following topics. A facilitator will help start the conversation with introductions and probing questions to spark new ideas from attendees.

Addressing Coming Concerns: Automation, fareless transit, microtransit, and more
Let’s Talk Dollars: Pay and benefits, balancing with other fiscal concerns and the fiscal cliff, housing costs, and more
Working Conditions and Hiring: scheduling and overtime, discipline, seniority, facilities, hurdles to hiring, and more
Not Just Driving the Bus: Safety, security, health, and homelessness

Claim Your Credits
Participants of the Transit, Belabored Mini-Symposium can claim up to 2.25 AICP CM credits.
Video Recording
Below is a recording of the presentation and discussion sessions. The breakout rooms were not recorded.
Speakers

Bus Operator/Contra Costa Labor Council DelegateBrandi Donaldson

Director of Strategic Research, Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU)Andrew Gena

Workforce Development Director, Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU)Jamaine Gibson

Project Director of POWER in Workforce Development, UCLA Labor CenterAna Luz Gonzalez-Vasquez

Director of CARE at Work, UCLA Labor CenterAndrea Slater

Director of Research and Policy, TransitCenterChris Van Eyken

Research Program ManagerJacob Wasserman

Program Specialist, UCLA Labor CenterVeronica Wilson

Bus Operator/Contra Costa Labor Council DelegateBrandi Donaldson
I have been an AC Transit Bus Operator for 8 years, actively involved in organizing transit riders and workers. I played a key role in the 2021 hazard pay campaign and continue to advocate for better conditions through the People Transit Alliance.

Director of Strategic Research, Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU)Andrew Gena
Andrew Gena is the Director of Strategic Research at the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU), the largest labor union representing transit and allied workers in the U.S. and Canada. His work supports collective bargaining, organizing, and special projects at all levels of the union. Recently, Andrew has focused on emerging issues such as on-demand microtransit and automated vehicle technology. Active in the labor movement for 19 years, he was previously a rank-and-file member of NABET-CWA Local 213 and UAW Local 2322, and a Senior Research Associate at UFCW. Andrew holds a Master of Science in Labor Studies from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Workforce Development Director, Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU)Jamaine Gibson
Jamaine Gibson is the Director of Apprenticeships and Workforce Development for the Amalgamated Transit Union International in Silver Springs, Maryland, where he is responsible for developing and implementing workforce programs for U.S. and Canada ATU locals along with their transit agencies. As a coach operator at Santa Clara Valley Transit Authority (VTA) in San José, California, he participated in the Joint Workforce Investment (JWI) program. Jamaine quickly became aware of the value and guidance that his mentor supplied and wanted to do the same in return. He became a mentor for new employees and was promoted to Apprenticeship Director for ATU local 265. As the Director he helped enroll over 400 new apprentices in four different apprenticeship programs at VTA.

Project Director of POWER in Workforce Development, UCLA Labor CenterAna Luz Gonzalez-Vasquez
Dr. Ana Luz Gonzalez Vasquez is the Project Director for POWER in Workforce Development. She has over 20 years of experience conducting quantitative and qualitative research and using a participatory and popular education approach to engage research participants. In 2006, Dr. Gonzalez Vasquez was the Project Manager for the National Day Labor Project, the first comprehensive study of day laborers and day labor worker centers across the nation––a project that (1) helped formalize worker centers as critical actors in economic justice nationwide; and (2) shed light on the workplace conditions of and labor law violations endemic to informal labor markets in the United States. In 2010, she co-authored a report on the prevalence of wage theft and workplace violations among low-wage workers in Los Angeles. In 2017, in partnership with the California Workforce Development Board (CWDB) and the UC Berkeley Labor Center, she co-led the High Road Training Partnership (HRTP) initiative. She is currently working with CWDB to develop an HRTP framework.

Before joining the Labor Center, Dr. Gonzalez-Vasquez was the Project Coordinator of the UC Irvine Community and Labor Project. At UCI, she conducted a wage theft study on low-wage workers in Orange County and was a lecturer at the Law School. Dr. Gonzalez-Vasquez earned a dual B.A. in Economics and Social Science, specializing in Public and Community Service, and a minor in Spanish from UCI. She earned her Master’s and Ph.D. in Urban Planning from UCLA.

Director of CARE at Work, UCLA Labor CenterAndrea Slater
Andrea Slater currently serves as the Director of CARE at Work with the UCLA Labor Center. Her background includes applied policy research and extensive time in the political arena as a political consultant. She has been a California-based community advocate and coalition builder since 2000, focusing on equity, accessibility, and voter engagement. Her outreach and relationship-building over the years has focused on communities impacted by economic disinvestment and environmental injustices. While serving as a staff member, consultant, and community advocate with organizations such as CORO, UCLA Labor Center, Common Cause, AAVREP, and SEIU, she has effectively advanced the concept of “opportunity for all” with an emphasis on increasing economic and educational opportunities for marginalized groups. She is a graduate of UCLA with degrees in Political Science and History and holds a Master’s in Public Policy from UC Irvine.

Director of Research and Policy, TransitCenterChris Van Eyken
Chris Van Eyken is a transportation planner dedicated to the development of environmentally sustainable cities. He is the Director of the Research & Policy at TransitCenter. Chris’s work has identified key obstacles to improved transit service and promoted the adoption best practices and needed reforms at American transit agencies. Chris has worked toward better transit as an agency staff member and as an advocate. He previously worked at MTA New York City Transit and the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy.

Research Program ManagerJacob Wasserman
Jacob Wasserman studies and manages research on public transit, the intersection of transportation and other social issues, and a range of mobility questions at the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies. With a background in transportation equity, finance, and demand management, Wasserman serves as the lead scholar of ITS’ Public Transit research program.

Prior to joining ITS, he worked for the Cities of Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New Haven on capital planning, vehicle miles traveled development review thresholds, budget process improvements, and active transportation. He also served as a Transportation Justice Fellow for BART Director Lateefah Simon, coordinating passage of the system’s Safe Transit sanctuary policy.

Wasserman has a Master of Urban and Regional Planning degree from the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, with concentrations in transportation policy and planning and in community economic development and housing, in the housing stream. He holds a bachelor’s degree in history and political science from Yale.

Research Areas:Public Transit, Transportation & Communities, Transportation Health & Safety,

Program Specialist, UCLA Labor CenterVeronica Wilson
Veronica develops projects to advance labor-climate initiatives at the UCLA Labor Center. She coordinates with government agencies, community partners, and researchers to advance action aimed at addressing and mitigating the impacts of climate change and advancing workers rights. Since 2021, she has served on a task force to provide recommendations for a strategy to support workers and communities impacted by the phase out of oil drilling and extraction in the City of Los Angeles and unincorporated areas of LA County. Her current focus includes a landscape analysis and mapping impacts of zero emissions transportation transition on workers in manufacturing, maintenance, and operations in California. Veronica helped organizers who led Transit Equity Day 2022, an annual, national effort featuring racial justice, labor, disabiliity rights among many more community organizations advocating for quality careers to ensure safe, reliable, climate-safe and affordable transit accessible to all.

Welcome to UCLA ITS
2024-10-08 17:00 - 19:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, 337 Charles E Young Drive E, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
Welcome to UCLA ITS
This event is for UCLA students, faculty and staff only.
RSVP Here
The UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies welcomes incoming and returning students, faculty, and staff for the start of the 2024-25 academic year. We aim to support a community of transportation scholars and provide students with resources, such as travel and research project support and transportation programming. Thus, we want to begin the year with a celebration to help our community get to know one another and to welcome the transition from Brian D. Taylor to Adam Millard-Ball as the Director of the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies.
Taylor has led UCLA ITS since 2001, playing a critical role in the institute’s expansion. Under his tenure, UCLA ITS has transformed from a small operation with limited staff and resources into a nationally influential research center with more than 75 scholars and staff conducting cutting-edge research in eight program areas. Incoming Director Adam Millard-Ball brings a wealth of experience in data science and climate change policy. He joined the UCLA Luskin School in 2021 and has recently served as acting director of UCLA ITS during the 2022-23 academic year. In that time, Millard-Ball oversaw the TRACtion: Transformative Research and Collaboration initiative, which brought together academic researchers and community advocates to identify barriers to a just and sustainable future for Los Angeles.

Wachs Lecture: Zero Fatalities, Zero Pollution, and Zero Disparities
2025-04-28 | UCLA James West Alumni Center, 325 Westwood Plaza, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
Lessons in Leading Mission-Based Innovation in Transportation: Zero Fatalities, Zero Pollution, and Zero Disparities
Part of the Martin Wachs Lecture Series and Luskin Lecture Series
During this session, Robert Hampshire will share several in-depth case studies of national significance on the role of innovation in roadway safety, aviation safety, supply chain disruptions, and unmanned aerial systems (UAS) drones. Based on firsthand experiences from leading the US Department of Transportation research and technology enterprise, he will highlight the role that a mission-focused approach to innovation can play in addressing some of our most important societal challenges. In order to eliminate transportation fatalities, pollution and carbon emissions, and to serve all travelers, a collaborative multi-stakeholder, multi-industry approach is required. He took this approach during his time as a political appointee and senior leader in the US Department of Transportation during the Biden-Harris administration.
About the Speaker
On January 20, 2021, Hampshire was sworn in and performed the duties of the Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology at the United States Department of Transportation, and served as the department’s Chief Science Officer, becoming the first to fill the role in over 40 years.
In this role he led the $2B research and technology portfolio of USDOT and agenda across all modes of transportation. His office included the Volpe National Transportation Systems Center (Cambridge, MA), Transportation Safety Institute (Oklahoma City, OK), Bureau of Transportation Statistics, and the Intelligent Transportation Systems Joint Program Office, the SMART grant program, University Transportation Centers grant program , Advanced Research Projects Agency for Infrastructure (ARPA-I), Climate Change Center, Office of Position Navigation and Timing (PNT) and Spectrum management, ant the Highly Automated Safe System Center of Excellence (HASS COE).
On Jan 21, 2025, Hampshire returned to his faculty position at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan. His research applies a blend of public policy, operations research, data science, and systems approaches to analyze novel transportation systems such as smart parking, connected vehicles, autonomous vehicles, ride-hailing, bike sharing, car sharing, as well as, pedestrian and bicyclist safety. His research focuses on environmental impacts, equity, and access to opportunities. His work has been cited widely, and covered by major press outlets. He has worked extensively with both public and private sector partners worldwide. He has also been a faculty member at Carnegie Mellon University and a visiting professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Hampshire received a PhD in operations research and financial engineering from Princeton University.

Abundance Policy for Transportation and Housing
2025-05-06
Abundance is an emerging policy framework that emphasizes addressing affordability through increasing supply, overcoming regulatory burdens, and promoting innovation. Housing policy researcher Paavo Monkkonen and transportation policy researcher Juan Matute from UCLA participate in the Abundance Policy Research Consortium, a UC Berkeley-based group working to develop an evidence-based, fundamentals-first policy agenda for California focusing on expanding access to 12 human essentials. In this event, these policy experts will present frameworks for identifying scarcity problems and policy levers to improve housing and transportation affordability and supply.
Nine in ten Californians live in megaregions with populations of 1 million or more. They are no strangers to the impacts of traffic congestion on their abilities to meet their areas of need: accessing jobs, education, healthcare, and other goods and services. California is in a cycle of auto-dependence that makes it hard for people to travel by car and hard to build new housing and buildings that bring people closer to their needs. Matute will present his view that escaping this scarcity trap and getting California moving again will require a targeted package of mobility abundance interventions.
California built fewer housing units in the 2010s than in any decade since the 1940s, when World War II constrained materials and labor. California has the highest rate of unsheltered homeless population and the second highest housing costs in the country. The political challenges to expanding California’s multi-family zoning beyond its current 5% of residential land area are well known. Professor Monkkonen will present reforms to zoning, building codes, and exaction as well as policies for development financing, co-ownership models, and new mechanisms to improve neighborhood support, which, taken together, will tilt the political balance towards support for more Californians in urban neighborhoods of California.
Speakers

Housing Data AnalystAaron Barrall

Deputy DirectorJuan Matute

Professor of Urban Planning and Public PolicyPaavo Monkkonen

NACTORyan Russo

Housing Data AnalystAaron Barrall
Aaron is a housing data analyst at the Randall Lewis Housing Initiative for the UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies, assisting faculty, students, and staff with data analysis and visualization. Before joining the Lewis Center, he worked as a private-sector urban planner, where he developed comprehensive land-use and housing plans. He has also held environmental-related roles at state and local government agencies.

Areas of Work:Housing Access, Environmental Justice

Deputy DirectorJuan Matute
Juan Matute, Deputy Director of the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies (ITS), leads research initiatives that bridge the gap between academic inquiry and practical transportation decision-making. As Deputy Director, Juan Matute leads UCLA ITS’s annual UCLA Arrowhead Symposium on urban and regional planning and is the Program Manager for the national Center of Excellence on New Mobility and Automated Vehicles.

At UCLA ITS, Juan spearheads research projects that delve into public transit, transportation finance, and governance. His interdisciplinary approach, rooted in problem-solving and systems thinking, enables him to unravel complex transportation challenges and develop effective solutions.

Juan’s dedication to public service extends beyond UCLA. He actively serves on various state, regional, and city committees, contributing his expertise to initiatives such as the Transit Transformation Task Force, Open Data/Big Data – Smart, and Connected SCAG Region Committee. Juan’s involvement in working groups and boards, such as the Los Angeles Parking Reform Working Group and the Downtown Santa Monica, Inc. Board of Directors, demonstrates his commitment to improving transportation systems at the local level.

Juan’s passion for transportation extends to the classroom, where he has taught numerous courses at the graduate and undergraduate levels at UCLA. His courses cover a wide range of topics, including transportation, environmental assessment, and climate planning.

Juan holds an MBA and Urban Planning MA from UCLA and a BA from Pomona College. He lives in Santa Monica, CA., where he and his wife Sirinya bike, walk, and use transit regularly with their son.

Research Areas:New Mobility, Parking, Public Transit, Sustainable Transportation, Transportation & Communities

Professor of Urban Planning and Public PolicyPaavo Monkkonen
Paavo Monkkonen is Professor of Urban Planning and Public Policy at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs. He researches and writes about how policies and markets shape urbanization, social segregation, and housing affordability in cities around the world. His scholarship ranges from studies of large-scale national housing finance programs to analyses of local land use regulations, and uses comparison to derive novel insights. Past projects include studies in Argentina, Brazil, China, France, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Mexico, and the United States.

Professor Monkkonen’s research has been published in outlets such as the Journal of the American Planning Association, the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, the Journal of Urban Economics, Urban Studies, World Development, and the Journal of Peasant Studies. At UCLA Luskin, Paavo teaches courses on housing policy, land value capture, applied microeconomics, research methods, and global urban segregation. He launched the Latin American Cities Initiative, Ciudades, to develop and deepen knowledge networks among students, educators, and professionals in the arena of urban planning and policy in South, Central, and North America.

Areas of Work:Housing, International Development, Latin America, Spatial Analysis, Urban Economics, Urban Public Finance

NACTORyan Russo
Ryan Russo is the Executive Director of the National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO), an association of North American cities and transit agencies. NACTO curates best practices, connects members, and advocates for cities to make bold, innovative, and people-first changes in urban transportation.

Ryan has 25 years of experience in transportation and city planning, executing some of the most transformative transportation changes in North America, including the U.S.’s first on-street parking-protected bike lanes and pedestrianizing Times Square. He served as the first Director of the Oakland Department of Transportation (OakDOT), where he led the new agency through its inaugural five years of operation. Under Ryan’s leadership, OakDOT quickly became a national model for incorporating equity into transportation planning, policy, programs, and operations. Previously, Ryan led the New York City Department of Transportation’s 500-person planning, engineering, and operating divisions staff.

UCLA Los Angeles Transportation Forum: Mega Events, Major Opportunities
2025-05-19 | The California Endowment, 1000 Alameda St., Los Angeles, CA, 90012, United States
At the October 2024 UCLA Arrowhead Symposium, participants discussed how to create enduring public benefits from hosting major worldwide events in Los Angeles. The UCLA Los Angeles Transportation Forum will gather attendees to continue the conversation, understanding areas of progress and what else needs to be done in two legacy areas: enhancing LA’s transit system and universal access including fixing the city’s sidewalks. The Forum will also include a session on the late Donald Shoup’s impact on practice.
Resources

Transforming Transit presentation

L.A. Sidewalks presentation

Denver Deserves Sidewalks presentation

Candace Cable sidewalk video

Claim AICP credits

Report from the 2024 UCLA Arrowhead Symposium: Mega Events, Major Opportunities

UCLA ITS Audio Edition episode
Event Recordings and PhotosPanel 1City of LA Office of Major Event's Daniel Rodman answers and audience question. Sat next to him is Seleta Reynolds and Jody Litvak. Transforming Transit PanelChief Innovation Officer at LA Metro opens up the Transforming Transit Panel. Alongside her is panelist Daniel Rodman, and UCLA's Jody Litvak. Audience QuestionsQ&A portion at the Los Angeles Transportation Forum: Mega Events, Major Opportunities. Keynote ConversationSupervisor Janice Hahn answers an audience question at the Los Angeles Transportation Forum: Mega Events, Major Opportunities. (Credit: David Franco) Keynote ConversationLA County Supervisor Janice Hahn, chair of Metro's Board of Directors, speaks to the audience. UCLA's Jim Newton is seated beside her. (Credit: David Franco) Keynote ConversationLA County Supervisor Janice Hahn, chair of Metro's Board of Directors, opens up the keynote conversation. (Credit: David Franco) Audience QuestionsQ&A portion at the Los Angeles Transportation Forum: Mega Events, Major Opportunities. (Credit: David Franco) Curbing Inaccessibility PanelJill Locantore presents about the city of Denver's need for improved public infrastructure. Curbing Inaccessibility PanelJessica Meaney speaks to the crowd. Madeline Brozen, deputy director of the Lewis Center, is standing at the podium. Curbing Inaccessibility PanelJessica Meaney speaks to the crowd, alongside panelists Jill Locantore, Natalie Sparrow, and Candace Cable. Curbing Inaccessibility PanelNine-time Paralympian Candace Cable answers an audience question during the Curbing Inaccessibility panel. Audience QuestionsQ&A portion at the Los Angeles Transportation Forum: Mega Events, Major Opportunities. Shoup and the City PanelUCLA's Michael Manville speaks to the audience alongside Greg Spotts, Ken Husting, Ann Cheng, and Nithya Raman. Shoup and the City PanelAn Cheng speaks to the audience alongside Greg Spotts, Ken Husting, Michael Manville, and Nithya Raman. Shoup and the City PanelGreg Spotts speaks to the crowd. Alongside him are UCLA's Adam Millard-Ball and Michael Manville, Ken Husting, Ann Cheng, and Councilmember Nithya Raman. AudienceView of the room at the Los Angeles Transportation Forum: Mega Events, Major Opportunities. Shoup and the City PanelUCLA's Adam Millard-Ball stands at the podium announcing the Shoup and the City panel. Shoup and the City PanelLA Councilmember Nithya Raman address the audience at the Shoup and the City panel. Audience QuestionsQ&A portion at the Los Angeles Transportation Forum: Mega Events, Major Opportunities. Audience QuestionsQ&A portion at the Los Angeles Transportation Forum: Mega Events, Major Opportunities. ScheduleSession
Description
Welcome
An overview of the from the 2024 Arrowhead Symposium and legacy planning progress.
Transforming Transit: The Power of Small Wins
Los Angeles Metro will soon open a $9.5 billion subway extension and is considering alternatives for a $10+ billion Sepulveda Corridor project . Despite the price tags of these megaprojects, Metro and local cities can make big changes with smart, small investments that can be accomplished quickly, improving transit and multimodal transportation before, during, and after the 2028 Games.

Daniel Rodman, City of LA Office of Major Events
Seleta Reynolds, Chief Innovation Officer, LA Metro

Keynote Conversation
Los Angeles County Supervisor Janice Hahn, currently chair of Metro’s Board of Directors, joins UCLA’s Jim Newton in a conversation about the 2028 Olympics and Paralympics and beyond as an opportunity for improving transportation in Los Angeles.
Curbing Inaccessibility: Fixing LA’s Streets and Sidewalks
Los Angeles will welcome the world’s most elite Paralympians for the first time in 2028. But rather than rolling out the welcome mat, the City has struggled to implement a legal settlement to make sidewalks ADA accessible. The Denver Deserves Sidewalks campaign resulted in a successful citywide vote to transfer responsibility for sidewalk repair from adjacent property owners to the city, for an annual fee. What prerequisites for capital planning and institutional structures could enable a similar measure in Los Angeles?

Candace Cable, Nine-time Paralympian and Consultant
Jill Locantore, Executive Director of Denver Streets Partnership
Jessica Meaney, Executive Director of Investing in Place
Natalie Sparrow, ADA Coordinator – Public Right-of-Way – City of Los Angeles

Shoup and the City: Impact and Legacy
Renowned UCLA Urban Planning Professor Donald Shoup changed how transportation professionals thought about parking, even if they didn’t read all 808 pages of his book, The High Cost of Free Parking. Shoup passed away in February 2025, but his ideas live on. Panelists discuss the impact of Donald Shoup on cities and his legacy for the transportation profession.

Michael Manville, Professor of Urban Planning at UCLA
Greg Spotts, Former Director, Seattle Department of Transportation
Ken Husting, Principal Transportation Engineer, Bureau of Parking Management
Ann Cheng, CEO, Ann Cheng Consulting, LLC
Nithya Raman, Councilmember, City of Los Angeles

Speakers

ConsultantCandace Cable

CEO of Ann Cheng Consulting, LLCAnn Cheng

Los Angeles County SupervisorSupervisor Janice Hahn

Principal Transportation EngineerKen Husting

UCLA ITS Senior FellowJody Litvak

Executive DirectorJill Locantore

ProfessorMichael Manville

Deputy DirectorJuan Matute

Executive DirectorJessica Meaney

Professor and DirectorAdam Millard-Ball

Blueprint Magazine EditorJim Newton

LA Metro Chief Innovation OfficerSeleta Reynolds

Senior MemberDaniel Rodman

ADA CoordinatorNatalie Sparrow

Former DirectorGreg Spotts

Councilmember, City of Los AngelesNithya Raman

ConsultantCandace Cable
Candace Cable consults with business and organizations on design opportunities that will include everyone. She uses her four decades as a historian, curriculum creator, speaker, writer, Paralympic and Olympic athlete and governance careers, and her Community and Human Rights advocacy to affect and change the status quo and culture. Her work supports our worldwide collective liberation and inclusion of her beloved Disability Community of which she has been a member since 1975.

CEO of Ann Cheng Consulting, LLCAnn Cheng
Ann Cheng is a planner focused on equitable transit oriented development, parking policy and community engagement transformation. She created www.GreenTRIP.org to catalyze low-traffic and parking housing through market and data tools adopted through the Bay Area and California. She currently consults on projects across the Bay Area to advance transit oriented communities with community, to grow and empower local leadership and serving as a Board Member for the Parking Reform Network.

Los Angeles County SupervisorSupervisor Janice Hahn
Los Angeles County Supervisor Janice Hahn joined the Metro Board of Directors in 2017, and since July has served as its Chair. From long-term goals like expanding transit options for the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games and bringing an overdue rail connection to the Southeast LA County communities she represents, to addressing urgent safety concerns today by installing physical barriers to protect bus operators and implementing a weapons detection pilot program now in its 2nd phase, Hahn has championed making Metro safer and more responsive to the needs of the hundreds of thousands of riders who depend on it, and the operators and staff who make it run.

Before joining the Board of Supervisors, Hahn served in Congress and on the L.A. City Council, where she has worked to expand access to mental healthcare, get guns off our streets, invest in our parks and libraries, and help guide our region through some of its toughest challenges.

Principal Transportation EngineerKen Husting
Ken Husting is the Principal Transportation Engineer for LADOT’s Parking Management. He is responsible for five parking divisions: Adjudication, Facilities, Meters, Operations, and Permits. Ken leads a team of over 100 engineering, technical and administrative staff charged with managing and maintaining citywide parking operations and infrastructure assets, including 111 parking facilities and 35,000 metered spaces and pay stations. His responsibility includes managing a combined annual revenue of $200 million from parking facilities, meters, and citations.

UCLA ITS Senior FellowJody Litvak
Jody Litvak is a Senior Fellow with UCLA’s Institute of Transportation Studies. She has over 35 years experience delivering major transportation and infrastructure projects and policies across greater Los Angeles, including as an Executive Officer at LA Metro. She is known for innovating community engagement tactics for planning, and has successfully developed and implemented strategies to build alliances and coalitions among public officials, opinion leaders and diverse stakeholders, often with competing interests. She has frequently been asked to present and guest lecture on these topics and is a long-time adviser to UCLA ITS for the annual Arrowhead Symposium. Early in her career, she worked for the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee helping to deliver the 1984 Olympic Games.

Executive DirectorJill Locantore
Jill Locantore is Executive Director for the Denver Streets Partnership, which advocates for the cultural and systemic changes necessary to reduce Denver’s unsustainable dependence on cars and to design communities that put people first. Previously, Jill was the Executive Director of the pedestrian advocacy organization WalkDenver, and also worked for the Denver Regional Council of Governments and the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, where she supported regional efforts to coordinate land use and transportation planning.

ProfessorMichael Manville
Michael Manville is Professor and Chair of the Department of Urban Planning at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs.

Deputy DirectorJuan Matute
Juan Matute, Deputy Director of the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies (ITS), leads research initiatives that bridge the gap between academic inquiry and practical transportation decision-making. As Deputy Director, Juan Matute leads UCLA ITS’s annual UCLA Arrowhead Symposium on urban and regional planning and is the Program Manager for the national Center of Excellence on New Mobility and Automated Vehicles.

At UCLA ITS, Juan spearheads research projects that delve into public transit, transportation finance, and governance. His interdisciplinary approach, rooted in problem-solving and systems thinking, enables him to unravel complex transportation challenges and develop effective solutions.

Juan’s dedication to public service extends beyond UCLA. He actively serves on various state, regional, and city committees, contributing his expertise to initiatives such as the Transit Transformation Task Force, Open Data/Big Data – Smart, and Connected SCAG Region Committee. Juan’s involvement in working groups and boards, such as the Los Angeles Parking Reform Working Group and the Downtown Santa Monica, Inc. Board of Directors, demonstrates his commitment to improving transportation systems at the local level.

Juan’s passion for transportation extends to the classroom, where he has taught numerous courses at the graduate and undergraduate levels at UCLA. His courses cover a wide range of topics, including transportation, environmental assessment, and climate planning.

Juan holds an MBA and Urban Planning MA from UCLA and a BA from Pomona College. He lives in Santa Monica, CA., where he and his wife Sirinya bike, walk, and use transit regularly with their son.

Research Areas:New Mobility, Parking, Public Transit, Sustainable Transportation, Transportation & Communities

Executive DirectorJessica Meaney
Jessica Meaney is the founder and executive director of Investing in Place, a leading voice for reimagining Los Angeles’ public realm—sidewalks, streets, and infrastructure. For two decades, Jessica has led efforts in LA to promote inclusive decision-making and equitable resource allocation in public works and transportation funding to create accessible and well maintained public spaces that enhance quality of life.

Professor and DirectorAdam Millard-Ball
Adam Millard-Ball is professor of urban planning at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, director of the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies, and affiliated faculty at the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability. His research and teaching focus on transportation and climate change, and on how data science can support urban planning research and practice.

Blueprint Magazine EditorJim Newton
Jim Newton is a veteran Los Angeles journalist and the founding editor of UCLA’s Blueprint magazine. Also an author, his biography of Jerry Garcia will be released by Random House on Aug. 5.

LA Metro Chief Innovation OfficerSeleta Reynolds
Seleta has 25 years of experience in transportation in both the public and private sector. As CIO of LA Metro, her responsibilities include delivering the mobility program for the 28 Olympic and Paralympic Games, as well as a mobility wallet and a strategy for transitioning the agency to a Zero Emission Bus fleet. Formerly, she was the General Manager for the Los Angeles Department of Transportation where she launched Vision Zero, a goal to get to zero traffic deaths, in Los Angeles after leading a similar effort in San Francisco. She is the founding chair of the Open Mobility Foundation, an open-source project to build digital infrastructure for the public realm and serves on the Executive Committee of the ITS America Board of Directors.

Senior MemberDaniel Rodman
Daniel Rodman is a senior member of the City of Los Angeles Office of Major Events, where he coordinates the city’s work on planning, operations, and legacy for the 2028 Olympic & Paralympic Games and 2026 FIFA World Cup. Dan works collaboratively with City departments and key stakeholders to deliver mega-events that are safe, successful, and fiscally responsible while maximizing economic opportunity and legacy investments for all Angelenos. Previously, Dan served as Deputy Director of Transportation for the LA Mayor’s Office and as a social worker with Street to Home Manhattan. Dan holds a master’s in urban and regional planning from UCLA and a bachelor’s from NYU.

ADA CoordinatorNatalie Sparrow
Natalie Sparrow is the City of Los Angeles’s ADA Coordinator for the Pedestrian Rights of Way, the city’s primary administrator on disability access for public pedestrian facilities. Her work spans across multiple city departments and includes policy development, oversight of technical compliance, and managing the fulfillment of the City’s $1.4-billion Willits Settlement Agreement. Natalie brings a wealth of knowledge to uniquely support this moment for the city and its residents, including 8 years of experience managing the accessibility of large scale temporary events and lived experience of disability as a child. Natalie is a Certified Access Specialist (CASp) and Certified ADA Coordinator. She has earned a Master’s degree in Public Health from Tulane University.

Former DirectorGreg Spotts
Greg Spotts most recently served as Director of the Seattle Department of Transportation (September 2022 through February 2025). Previously, Greg served the City of Los Angeles in various capacities from 2009-2022, including Director of Transportation Project Delivery for Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Assistant Director and Chief Sustainability Officer for StreetsLA.

Councilmember, City of Los AngelesNithya Raman
Nithya Raman (RAH-men) is an urban planner, a mother of two, an immigrant to America, and a member of the Los Angeles City Council representing District 4. She ran for City Council in 2020 and won a historic victory, becoming the first Asian American woman and the first South Asian ever to serve on the City Council. In March 2024, she was elected to her second term. Since taking office, Councilmember Raman has prioritized delivering people-centered and effective services for people experiencing homelessness, building more affordable housing, and moving with greater urgency to meet our city’s climate goals. She serves as Chair of the Housing and Homelessness Committee, Vice Chair of the Ad Hoc Committee on Governance Reform, and member of the Transportation and Energy and Environment Committees. She also represents Los Angeles on the Governing Board of the South Coast Air Quality Management District, and was recently nominated by Mayor Karen Bass to serve as Vice Chair on the LA County Executive Committee for Regional Homeless Alignment.

Candace CableConsultant

Candace Cable consults with business and organizations on design opportunities that will include everyone. She uses her four decades as a historian, curriculum creator, speaker, writer, Paralympic and Olympic athlete and governance careers, and her Community and Human Rights advocacy to affect and change the status quo and culture. Her work supports our worldwide collective liberation and inclusion of her beloved Disability Community of which she has been a member since 1975.

Ann ChengCEO of Ann Cheng Consulting, LLC

Ann Cheng is a planner focused on equitable transit oriented development, parking policy and community engagement transformation. She created www.GreenTRIP.org to catalyze low-traffic and parking housing through market and data tools adopted through the Bay Area and California. She currently consults on projects across the Bay Area to advance transit oriented communities with community, to grow and empower local leadership and serving as a Board Member for the Parking Reform Network.

Supervisor Janice HahnLos Angeles County Supervisor

Los Angeles County Supervisor Janice Hahn joined the Metro Board of Directors in 2017, and since July has served as its Chair. From long-term goals like expanding transit options for the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games and bringing an overdue rail connection to the Southeast LA County communities she represents, to addressing urgent safety concerns today by installing physical barriers to protect bus operators and implementing a weapons detection pilot program now in its 2nd phase, Hahn has championed making Metro safer and more responsive to the needs of the hundreds of thousands of riders who depend on it, and the operators and staff who make it run.

Before joining the Board of Supervisors, Hahn served in Congress and on the L.A. City Council, where she has worked to expand access to mental healthcare, get guns off our streets, invest in our parks and libraries, and help guide our region through some of its toughest challenges.

Ken HustingPrincipal Transportation Engineer

Ken Husting is the Principal Transportation Engineer for LADOT’s Parking Management. He is responsible for five parking divisions: Adjudication, Facilities, Meters, Operations, and Permits. Ken leads a team of over 100 engineering, technical and administrative staff charged with managing and maintaining citywide parking operations and infrastructure assets, including 111 parking facilities and 35,000 metered spaces and pay stations. His responsibility includes managing a combined annual revenue of $200 million from parking facilities, meters, and citations.

Jody LitvakUCLA ITS Senior Fellow

Jody Litvak is a Senior Fellow with UCLA’s Institute of Transportation Studies. She has over 35 years experience delivering major transportation and infrastructure projects and policies across greater Los Angeles, including as an Executive Officer at LA Metro. She is known for innovating community engagement tactics for planning, and has successfully developed and implemented strategies to build alliances and coalitions among public officials, opinion leaders and diverse stakeholders, often with competing interests. She has frequently been asked to present and guest lecture on these topics and is a long-time adviser to UCLA ITS for the annual Arrowhead Symposium. Early in her career, she worked for the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee helping to deliver the 1984 Olympic Games.

Jill LocantoreExecutive Director

Jill Locantore is Executive Director for the Denver Streets Partnership, which advocates for the cultural and systemic changes necessary to reduce Denver’s unsustainable dependence on cars and to design communities that put people first. Previously, Jill was the Executive Director of the pedestrian advocacy organization WalkDenver, and also worked for the Denver Regional Council of Governments and the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, where she supported regional efforts to coordinate land use and transportation planning.

Michael ManvilleProfessor

Michael Manville is Professor and Chair of the Department of Urban Planning at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs.

Juan MatuteDeputy Director

Juan Matute, Deputy Director of the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies (ITS), leads research initiatives that bridge the gap between academic inquiry and practical transportation decision-making. As Deputy Director, Juan Matute leads UCLA ITS’s annual UCLA Arrowhead Symposium on urban and regional planning and is the Program Manager for the national Center of Excellence on New Mobility and Automated Vehicles.

At UCLA ITS, Juan spearheads research projects that delve into public transit, transportation finance, and governance. His interdisciplinary approach, rooted in problem-solving and systems thinking, enables him to unravel complex transportation challenges and develop effective solutions.

Juan’s dedication to public service extends beyond UCLA. He actively serves on various state, regional, and city committees, contributing his expertise to initiatives such as the Transit Transformation Task Force, Open Data/Big Data – Smart, and Connected SCAG Region Committee. Juan’s involvement in working groups and boards, such as the Los Angeles Parking Reform Working Group and the Downtown Santa Monica, Inc. Board of Directors, demonstrates his commitment to improving transportation systems at the local level.

Juan’s passion for transportation extends to the classroom, where he has taught numerous courses at the graduate and undergraduate levels at UCLA. His courses cover a wide range of topics, including transportation, environmental assessment, and climate planning.

Juan holds an MBA and Urban Planning MA from UCLA and a BA from Pomona College. He lives in Santa Monica, CA., where he and his wife Sirinya bike, walk, and use transit regularly with their son.
Research Areas:New Mobility, Parking, Public Transit, Sustainable Transportation, Transportation & Communities

Jessica MeaneyExecutive Director

Jessica Meaney is the founder and executive director of Investing in Place, a leading voice for reimagining Los Angeles’ public realm—sidewalks, streets, and infrastructure. For two decades, Jessica has led efforts in LA to promote inclusive decision-making and equitable resource allocation in public works and transportation funding to create accessible and well maintained public spaces that enhance quality of life.

Adam Millard-BallProfessor and Director

Adam Millard-Ball is professor of urban planning at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, director of the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies, and affiliated faculty at the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability. His research and teaching focus on transportation and climate change, and on how data science can support urban planning research and practice.

Jim NewtonBlueprint Magazine Editor

Jim Newton is a veteran Los Angeles journalist and the founding editor of UCLA’s Blueprint magazine. Also an author, his biography of Jerry Garcia will be released by Random House on Aug. 5.

Seleta ReynoldsLA Metro Chief Innovation Officer

Seleta has 25 years of experience in transportation in both the public and private sector. As CIO of LA Metro, her responsibilities include delivering the mobility program for the 28 Olympic and Paralympic Games, as well as a mobility wallet and a strategy for transitioning the agency to a Zero Emission Bus fleet. Formerly, she was the General Manager for the Los Angeles Department of Transportation where she launched Vision Zero, a goal to get to zero traffic deaths, in Los Angeles after leading a similar effort in San Francisco. She is the founding chair of the Open Mobility Foundation, an open-source project to build digital infrastructure for the public realm and serves on the Executive Committee of the ITS America Board of Directors.

Daniel RodmanSenior Member

Daniel Rodman is a senior member of the City of Los Angeles Office of Major Events, where he coordinates the city’s work on planning, operations, and legacy for the 2028 Olympic & Paralympic Games and 2026 FIFA World Cup. Dan works collaboratively with City departments and key stakeholders to deliver mega-events that are safe, successful, and fiscally responsible while maximizing economic opportunity and legacy investments for all Angelenos. Previously, Dan served as Deputy Director of Transportation for the LA Mayor’s Office and as a social worker with Street to Home Manhattan. Dan holds a master’s in urban and regional planning from UCLA and a bachelor’s from NYU.

Natalie SparrowADA Coordinator

Natalie Sparrow is the City of Los Angeles’s ADA Coordinator for the Pedestrian Rights of Way, the city’s primary administrator on disability access for public pedestrian facilities. Her work spans across multiple city departments and includes policy development, oversight of technical compliance, and managing the fulfillment of the City’s $1.4-billion Willits Settlement Agreement. Natalie brings a wealth of knowledge to uniquely support this moment for the city and its residents, including 8 years of experience managing the accessibility of large scale temporary events and lived experience of disability as a child. Natalie is a Certified Access Specialist (CASp) and Certified ADA Coordinator. She has earned a Master’s degree in Public Health from Tulane University.

Greg SpottsFormer Director

Greg Spotts most recently served as Director of the Seattle Department of Transportation (September 2022 through February 2025). Previously, Greg served the City of Los Angeles in various capacities from 2009-2022, including Director of Transportation Project Delivery for Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Assistant Director and Chief Sustainability Officer for StreetsLA.

Nithya RamanCouncilmember, City of Los Angeles

Nithya Raman (RAH-men) is an urban planner, a mother of two, an immigrant to America, and a member of the Los Angeles City Council representing District 4. She ran for City Council in 2020 and won a historic victory, becoming the first Asian American woman and the first South Asian ever to serve on the City Council. In March 2024, she was elected to her second term. Since taking office, Councilmember Raman has prioritized delivering people-centered and effective services for people experiencing homelessness, building more affordable housing, and moving with greater urgency to meet our city’s climate goals. She serves as Chair of the Housing and Homelessness Committee, Vice Chair of the Ad Hoc Committee on Governance Reform, and member of the Transportation and Energy and Environment Committees. She also represents Los Angeles on the Governing Board of the South Coast Air Quality Management District, and was recently nominated by Mayor Karen Bass to serve as Vice Chair on the LA County Executive Committee for Regional Homeless Alignment.

Sponsors

Beyond Copenhagen: Walking and Cycling Success Stories Worldwide
2025-06-23
A Mini-Symposium from UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies Monday, June 23, 2025 How can cities encourage more people to walk and cycle — and to do so in safety? In this mini-symposium, we highlight success stories from cities around the world, looking beyond the well-known models of Copenhagen, Denmark, and Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Session 1: What research tells us
New research from UCLA, C40 Cities, and the Institute of Transportation and Development Policy demonstrates how scaling up ambitions for bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure can help achieve substantial climate change and health benefits at the global scale. Adam Millard-Ball will present new research from UCLA, in partnership with Google, that provide data-driven guidance on how to encourage active transportation in cities around the world. It draws on travel data from more than 11,500 cities in 121 countries, worldwide.
Session 2: Sharing city experiences
This session brings together planners from three cities that exemplify successful planning for walking and cycling in different contexts.
Session 3: Learning Together
The last portion of the mini-symposium will consist of a workshop where participants will choose breakout rooms and join a facilitated discussion.
Speakers

Camila HerreroSenior Manager, Walking and Cycling

Camila is the Walking and Cycling Senior Manager in the Climate Solutions and Networks team, leading the active mobility network of 35+ cities in all continents and regions to foster walking and cycling solutions through peer-to-peer exchange and technical assistance.

Camila has been a cycling advocate in Mexico City. Prior to C40, she contributed to diverse programmes and projects for international organisations such as the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy in Mexico, the Inter-American Development Bank, and BYCS, as well as regional and local governments in Latin America. Her work has focussed on the intersection between cities and sustainable mobility, climate change, and gender.

Camila graduated from the National Autonomous University of Mexico with a BSc in International Relations and an MSc in Urban and Economic Geography from Utrecht University.

Bartek KomorowskiTeam Leader, Street Design Practices

Bartek Komorowski is an urban planner by training and has worked in the field of active mobility for 18 years. He holds degrees in Cognitive Science (B.Sc.) and Urban Planning (M.U.P.) from McGill University. He is currently a team leader at the City of Montreal Urban Planning and Mobility Department. His team is responsible for developing and disseminating street design guidelines that embody the City’s policies with respect to sustainable mobility, road safety, universal accessibility, and climate change adaptation.

Prior to joining the City, Bartek spent 7 years as a Project Leader in the research and consulting department at Vélo Québec, Canada’s largest cycling advocacy organization. He is a coauthor of Vélo Québec’s 2020 design manual, Aménager pour les piétons et les cyclistes (Planning and Designing for Pedestrians and Cyclists).

Bartek is a member of the Active Transportation Integrated Committee (ATIC) of the Transportation Association of Canada (TAC) and a board member of the Winter Cycling Federation (WCF), which organizes the international Winter Cycling Congress.

Adonia LugoStaff Researcher

Cultural anthropologist Adonia E. Lugo was born and raised in traditional and unceded Acjachemen territory and now lives and works in traditional and unceded Tongva territory in Los Angeles. Adonia began investigating transportation, race, and space during her graduate studies at UC Irvine, when she co-created the Los Angeles open street event CicLAvia and the organization today known as People for Mobility Justice. Since receiving her doctorate in 2013, Adonia has applied her research on “human infrastructure” in sustainable mobility advocacy and helped to define the concept of “mobility justice.” Adonia is a Staff Researcher at the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies, a 2022 appointee to the California Transportation Commission, and a member of Los Angeles Walks’ advisory board.

Adam Millard-BallProfessor and Director

Adam Millard-Ball is professor of urban planning at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, director of the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies, and affiliated faculty at the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability. His research and teaching focus on transportation and climate change, and on how data science can support urban planning research and practice.

D. Taylor ReichPrincipal, Ives Street

D. Taylor Reich (they/them) is principal of Ives Street, a research and consulting firm working on the next generation of travel demand modeling through multimodal access-to-destinations measurement. Previously they were the Global Data Science Manager at the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy and a Fulbright scholar in Amman, Jordan. Taylor is the author of the Atlas of Sustainable City Transport.

Eng. Moses N. KuiyakiTransport Planning Mobility and works sector for Nairobi County

Eng. Moses N. Kuiyaki graduated from JKUAT university in 1998 with a degree in civil engineering and has been working in Nairobi City County for over 18 years in the Transport Department of the Mobility and Works sector.

He has been involved in formulation of various plans, policies, programs and projects. These include Nairobi NMT policy, Nairobi City County Transport Act and regulations, Nairobi bus network plan, NMT expansion programs, first and last mile connectivity programs. He, and his team, are currently working on the NMT master plan for Nairobi City.

Christopher BianSoftware Engineer at Google

Chris is a Staff Software Engineer at Google, and was a core member of the team that launched Environmental Insights Explorer (EIE) in 2018. Chris’ work focuses on producing useful tools and datasets that enable climate action, including mobility-related topics of transportation emissions, EV charging, active mobility, and other key sustainability efforts. He is most energized when engaging directly with institutions to enable greenhouse gas inventories and climate interventions, as well as collaborating with researchers on insights that can help organizations accelerate their action on climate change.

Eliane Horschutz NemotoSustainable Mobility Expert at ICLEI

Eliane Horschutz Nemoto is a Sustainable Mobility Expert at ICLEI. She graduated in Environmental Management and holds a doctoral degree in sustainable mobility at Université Paris-Saclay. Previously, she worked as a Researcher on topics addressing the sustainability assessment of automated vehicles, and socio-technical transitions in mobility. At ICLEI she is currently involved in several projects addressing push and pull policies for modal shift, data to empower cities to achieve their mobility goals, and measures for co-design and redistributing urban spaces to foster active and sustainable mobility, green spaces, and quality of life.

Cary BearnSenior Manager, Multimodal Design and Programs NACTO

Cary manages NACTO’s multimodal design and related work, supporting members working on street design, safety programs, shared micromobility, and community engagement. Recently, Cary led the development of the NACTO Urban Bikeway Design Guide, Third Edition, which supports planners and engineers in planning, designing, and implementing high-quality, connected, and equitable bikeway networks.

Andrea RodríguezOperational Manager of Micromobility, City of Buenos Aires

Andrea Rodríguez has a background in civil engineering and has found urban planning and public management as a space where she can understand how cities transform and how urban policy decisions impact everyday life. She has led initiatives related to urban planning and infrastructure design for active mobility. Andrea currently works as Operational Manager of Micromobility at the Ministry of Infrastructure of the Government of the City of Buenos Aires, specializing in sustainable mobility, public space, and integrated urban policies.

A Celebration of the Life and Work of Donald Shoup
2025-10-03 | UCLA Meyer and Renee Luskin Conference Center, 425 Westwood Plaza Los Angeles, CA 90095, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
Join the Department of Urban Planning and UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies as we celebrate and remember the life and work of distinguished professor of urban planning, trailblazing advocate for parking reform, gifted teacher, and friend to generations of UCLA students, faculty and staff, Donald Shoup.
Friday, October 3, 2025
UCLA Meyer and Renee Luskin Conference Center
Centennial Ballroom AB
UCLA Campus
2:00 – 3:30 pm: The Shoup Doctrine Book Talk and Launch of the UCLA Center for Parking Policy
4:00 – 6:00 pm: Celebration of Donald Shoup’s life and work (light refreshments)
Learn more about Don’s vast accomplishments, read some of his writings, view tributes from far and wide, and share your own memories on the UCLA Luskin tribute page for Don.

Lecture Series: The Story of Peter Gallegos with Peter Chesney
2025-10-07 | Live Stream
Perloff Lecture Series on 100 Years of Transportation Research
Presented by UCLA Urban Planning and UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies
The Story of Peter Gallegos with Peter Chesney
Join us for a lecture based on original research documenting the experiences of Peter Gallegos, a blind Native American. Peter moved to Los Angeles from a Great Plains reservation with his seeing-eye dog. This talk will explore his mobility challenges and what happened after his dog was tragically killed by a hit-and-run driver.

DR. PETER CHESNEY is a graduate of UCLA’s Ph.D. program in history. Now he is a postdoctoral fellow at Vanderbilt. At UCLA, he received a certificate in Urban Humanities alongside students in architecture and urban and regional planning. Later he participated in two Luskin Center for History & Policy research teams, which co-authored policy papers entitled “People Are Simply Unable to Pay the Rent” and “A Century of Fighting Traffic Congestion in Los Angeles (1920-2020).”

Lecture Series: The Making of Modern Los Angeles with Nick Patsaouras
2025-10-21 | Live Stream
Perloff Lecture Series on 100 Years of Transportation Research
Presented by UCLA Urban Planning and UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies
The Making of Modern Los Angeles with Nick Patsaouras
Nick Patsaouras will chronicle his role in modernizing Los Angeles’s transportation infrastructure, particularly his efforts in spearheading the development of the region’s subway and light rail lines and advocating for bus services. As an insider, he navigated the complex landscape of clashing egos, political maneuvering, and compromise to significantly shape the city’s transit systems.
Nick Patsaouras is the author of The Making of Modern Los Angeles. He is a former Board Member of the Southern California Rapid Transit District and the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, where he was instrumental in advancing bus transportation. The Patsaouras Transit Plaza at the MTA Gateway Center/Union Station East is named in his honor.

NICK PATSAOURAS received a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from California State University, Northridge. He established an electrical engineering company in Los Angeles and designed a wide range of projects, including commercial, industrial, educational, residential, medical, institutional, religious, and entertainment. Nick has been actively involved in civic life for over 40 years. He ran for Mayor of Los Angeles in 1993 envisioning “Transportation as a Catalyst in Rebuilding LA” after the devastating 1992 LA riots. He served on the Board of Zoning Appeals, the Board of the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro), and the Board of the LA Department of Water and Power, helping guide infrastructure and planning policy in Los Angeles. As president of the Southern California Rapid Transit District, he helped plan the transportation network for the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles. He is the author of “The Making of Modern Los Angeles.”

Lecture Series: Indigenous Transportation Knowledge with Adonia Lugo
2025-10-28 | Live Stream
Perloff Lecture Series on 100 Years of Transportation Research
Presented by UCLA Urban Planning and UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies
Indigenous Transportation Knowledge with Adonia Lugo
Local Indigenous groups have shaped the Los Angeles region’s landscape and mobility for over 10,000 years, a stark contrast to the brief, yet transformative, period of colonial settlement marked by intensive resource extraction and sprawling road networks. To envision alternative transportation futures, Adonia Lugo has collaborated with stewards of traditional Indigenous knowledge. This talk highlights their knowledge of the past and perspectives on how indigenous knowledge can shape the future of LA’s transportation systems.
Cultural anthropologist ADONIA E. LUGO was born and raised in traditional and unceded Acjachemen territory and now lives and works in traditional and unceded Tongva territory in Los Angeles. Adonia began investigating transportation, race, and space during her graduate studies at UC Irvine, when she co-created the Los Angeles open street event CicLAvia and the organization today known as People for Mobility Justice. Since receiving her doctorate in 2013, Adonia has applied her research on “human infrastructure” in sustainable mobility advocacy and helped to define the concept of “mobility justice.” Adonia is Equity Research Manager at the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies, a core organizer of The Untokening, and a recent appointee to the California Transportation Commission.

Lecture Series: Fighting Traffic Congestion a Century Ago with Brian Taylor
2025-11-04
Perloff Lecture Series on 100 Years of Transportation Research
Presented by UCLA Urban Planning and UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies
Fighting Traffic Congestion 100 Years Ago with Brian Taylor
Professor Brian Taylor delivers a talk and presentation on proposals between 1920 and 1940 to fundamentally redesign the street system, transit system, and highway system in LA to cope with burgeoning traffic — why they mostly failed, and why LA is the worse for it today. These stories are excerpted from Taylor’s book, The Drive for Dollars, the story of the interplay between finance, freeways, and urban form in the 20th century and their enduring impact on American cities and neighborhoods in the 21st.
Additional reading: A Century of Fighting Traffic Congestion in Los Angeles: 1920 – 2020
BRIAN D. TAYLOR, PhD, FAICP is Professor of Urban Planning and Public Policy in the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs. He is the Director Emeritus of the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies. He studies travel behavior and transportation equity, finance, politics, and history. He has recently studied falling public transit ridership; public sector responses to new mobility services; the travel of Millennials, high-school students, and same-sex households; the rise of local sales taxes for transportation; and the economic effects of traffic congestion. He was recently named one of the Top 10 Academic Thought Leaders in Transportation by the Council of University Transportation Centers, and honored as a National Associate by the Transportation Research Board of the National Academies. And perhaps most importantly, Professor Taylor is a former staff member of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission.

Eliminating Minimum Parking Requirements: Stories from Cities Across the Country
2025-11-18
A Mini-Symposium from UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies
Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2025
In 2005, UCLA Professor Donald Shoup published “The High Cost of Free Parking,” revealing the shaky foundations of minimum parking requirements and explaining how these mandates cause problems far worse than the one they were intended to solve. Since then, more than 100 U.S. cities have eliminated any requirements to provide a minimum number of parking spaces from their zoning code, with hundreds more lifting their parking requirements in key areas like commercial corridors and historic downtowns. In this online event, planners, public officials, researchers, and advocates whose cities were among the first to eliminate parking requirements will share their experiences. Speakers will share why their cities chose to end parking minimums, the new development and opportunities these changes have made possible, and the lessons they’ve learned along the way. After the speaker sessions, attendees are invited to participate in breakout room discussions to share their experiences and consider the effects of parking policies in their own communities.
Session 1: Sharing City Experiences
In this session, we’ll hear from local leaders about why their cities eliminated minimum parking requirements and see examples of new housing and small businesses that resulted from the policy change.

Sara Bronin, former Planning Commission Chair, Hartford, Connecticut
Daniel Volland, City Council Member, Anchorage, Alaska
Aaron Qualls, former Planning and Community Development Director, Sandpoint, Idaho

Session 2: Sharing Knowledge and Resources
In this session, we’ll continue exploring local success stories. We’ll also learn about research and resources that can help planners and community leaders understand what to expect after eliminating minimum parking requirements and navigate what Professor Shoup and others have identified as next steps.

Daniel Hess, Professor of Urban and Regional Planning, University at Buffalo
Evan Manvel, former Land Use, Transportation, and Climate Mitigation Planner, Oregon Department of Land Conservation and Development
Tony Jordan, President, Parking Reform Network

Session 3: Learning Together
The last portion of the mini-symposium allows attendees to connect with speakers and other attendees in small-group facilitated discussions.
Claim Your Credits
Attendees who are members of the American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP) can claim up to 2.25 CM credits from the American Planning Association’s website.

CLAIM HEREVideo Recording
Speakers

Sara BroninFounder & Ceo of National Zoning Atlas

Sara C. Bronin is a Mexican-American architect, attorney, professor, and policymaker whose interdisciplinary work focuses on how law and policy can foster more equitable, sustainable, well-designed, and connected places. She wrote Key to the City: How Zoning Shapes Our World (W.W. Norton), and she founded and directs the National Zoning Atlas, which aims to digitize, demystify, and democratize information about zoning in the United States. She also served as Chair of Hartford’s Planning Commission.

Daniel B. HessProfessor

Daniel Hess is a professor in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Buffalo. Hess served as chairperson of the Department of Urban and Regional Planning from 2017 through 2022. Central to Hess’s research is addressing interactions between housing, transportation, land use, and other public concerns. He develops new pathways for understanding the complex socio-economic and ethnic landscape of cities and spatial inequalities. He also explores equal access to resources from urban neighborhoods, focusing especially on the changes in gay neighborhoods and the LGBTQ+ population diffuses to other metropolitan locations. Hess has authored papers studying the effects of parking reform.

Tony JordanPresident of Parking Reform Network

Tony Jordan is a nationally recognized champion for rethinking parking policies. Inspired by reading The High Cost of Free Parking, he founded Portlanders for Parking Reform in 2015 and went on to co-found the Parking Reform Network (PRN) in 2019. As PRN’s president, Tony leads a dedicated team and frequently presents at public meetings and conferences, including SXSW and YIMBYtown. He lives car-free in Portland, Oregon, with his family, enjoying multi-day bike trips and strategy board games when he’s not advocating for smarter parking policies.

Evan Manvelformer Land Use, Transportation, and Climate Mitigation Planner

Evan Manvel has spent three decades working on programs and policies to cut climate pollution. At the State of Oregon, he led the creation and adoption of Oregon’s revolutionary parking reforms, led several publications including Oregon’s Parking Management Jump Start Guide and “Lizard Brains on Planning,” and worked with several cities to reform parking management. He previously worked for some of the northwest’s leading conservation organizations and serves on the Parking Reform Network board.

Daniel VollandAnchorage Assembly Member

Daniel Volland represents District 1, which includes the urban core of Anchorage, on the Anchorage Assembly. He is passionate about housing abundance, active transportation, and public health. He is also an optometrist, small business owner, and dog dad.

Aaron QuallsSenior Project Manager

Aaron Qualls, AICP, is a senior project manager with SCJ Alliance Consulting Services, working out of SCJ’s downtown office in Sandpoint, Idaho — located within a historically remodeled building made possible by off-street parking reform. Aaron is a Strong Towns contributor, former president of APA ID, and the former Planning and Community Development Director for the City of Sandpoint. Aaron enjoys collaborating with diverse stakeholders, community members, and decision-makers to find common ground on even the most complex issues. Serving for over 14 years as a city official in both the private and public sectors, he has developed and implemented a wide variety of data-driven and community-focused plans within the Inland Northwest.

100 Lecture Series: L.A.’s transportation and infrastructure is broken. We can fix it. with Michael Schneider
2026-01-28 10:30 - 11:45 (America/Los_Angeles) | Live Stream
Perloff Lecture Series on 100 Years of Transportation Research
Presented by UCLA Urban Planning and UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies
L.A.’s transportation and infrastructure is broken. We can fix it.
Michael Schneider, a Los Angeles native, traded his car for a bicycle over a decade ago. Since then, Michael has become politically active; as the founder of Streets For All, his organization has had a dramatic impact on L.A. — from passing Measure HLA in 2024 to flipping the L.A. City Council to making and changing laws in Sacramento. In this talk Michael will go over a brief history of L.A. from a transportation point of view, talk about Measure HLA, the current state of street safety and multimodal transportation in the city, and discuss what needs to change to make L.A. functional, safe, and multimodal for all.
MICHAEL SCHNEIDER, a lifelong Angeleno and car enthusiast, gave up his car a decade ago and started using a bicycle to get around the car capital of the country. This radical change opened his eyes to the impacts that car dominated cities have on our happiness, our freedom, and our kids. A tech entrepreneur turned political activist, Michael has raised millions to get the right people elected in Los Angeles and California, and in 2024 led the campaign to pass a ballot measure that will forever change LA.

100 Lecture Series: Strategic Innovation for L.A. Transportation with Seleta Reynolds
2026-02-04 10:30 - 11:45 (America/Los_Angeles) | Live Stream
Perloff Lecture Series on 100 Years of Transportation Research
Presented by UCLA Urban Planning and UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies
Strategic Innovation for L.A. Transportation
Seleta Reynolds has over a decade of experience as a transportation executive in Los Angeles. From her time as the General Manager of the Los Angeles Department of Transportation to her current role as Metro’s Chief Innovation Officer, overseeing the Office of Strategic Innovation, Reynolds has developed a comprehensive perspective on transportation in Los Angeles. This perspective and approach to innovation are invaluable as Los Angeles prepares its transportation system to host global mega events.
SELETA REYNOLDS has 25 years of experience in transportation in both the public and private sector. As CIO of LA Metro, her responsibilities include delivering the mobility program for the 28 Olympic and Paralympic Games, as well as a mobility wallet and a strategy for transitioning the agency to a Zero Emission Bus fleet. Formerly, she was the General Manager for the Los Angeles Department of Transportation where she launched Vision Zero, a goal to get to zero traffic deaths, in Los Angeles after leading a similar effort in San Francisco. She is the founding chair of the Open Mobility Foundation, an open-source project to build digital infrastructure for the public realm and serves on the Executive Committee of the ITS America Board of Directors.

Paving Over How Much Paradise? With Professors Lewis Lehe and Michael Manville
2026-02-10 11:00 - 12:00 (America/Los_Angeles)
An Event from the UCLA Center for Parking Policy
Tuesday, February 10th, 2026
Paving Over How Much Paradise?
With Professors Lewis Lehe and Michael Manville
Join us for a virtual event to hear Professors Lewis Lehe of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Michael Manville of UCLA discuss how parking shapes our cities — how much land is devoted to parking, how researchers measure its footprint, and what we give up in exchange for so much parking.
Following their presentations, Ellen Schwartz, manager of the UCLA Center for Parking Policy, will introduce a new synthesis summarizing research on the impacts of parking infrastructure, the effects of minimum parking requirements, and what happens when cities repeal them.
After the presentations, Adam Millard-Ball will moderate a speaker Q&A and audience discussion.
RegisterClaim Your Credits
Attendees who are members of the American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP) can claim up to 1.00 CM credits from the American Planning Association’s website. (Link forthcoming)
Speakers

Lewis LeheAssistant Professor

Lewis Lehe is an Assistant Professor in the Transportation Systems group of the Civil and Environmental Engineering department at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. His research areas include transportation pricing, urban traffic, traffic theory, and transportation economics. His work has been published in journals spanning planning, economics, and transportation research methodology.

Dr. Lehe earned his B.Phil. in Mathematics-Economics from the University of Pittsburgh, an M.A. in Transport Economics from the University of Leeds (UK), and both an M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley.

Michael ManvilleProfessor and Co-Director of UCLA Center for Parking Policy

Michael Manville is a Professor of Urban Planning at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs and Co-Director of the UCLA Center for Parking Policy. His research areas are transportation, land use, and housing, and the interrelationships between those. He has particular interests in road and parking pricing; the determinants of driving and transit use; and the influence of land use regulations on the supply and price of housing. His work has appeared in journals of planning, economics, urban studies, and sociology.

Dr. Manville holds an M.A. and Ph.D. in Urban Planning from UCLA Luskin. Before joining UCLA, he was an Assistant Professor of City and Regional Planning at Cornell University.

Ellen SchwartzManager, UCLA Center for Parking Policy

Ellen Schwartz manages the UCLA Center for Parking Policy. Before joining ITS, Ellen worked as a Curb, Mobility, and Parking Planner at Walker Consultants, where she advised public sector clients on transportation and land use plans, including parking management frameworks and development review policies. She also brings public sector experience, having worked on various policy and planning initiatives with the City Manager’s Office in Mountain View, California, and the Planning Division in Fremont, California.

Ellen holds a Master of Urban and Regional Planning from the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, with a concentration in Transportation Policy and Planning, and a Bachelor of Science in Spanish from Wisconsin Lutheran College.
