Montgomery County Bicycling Conference, Saturday May 14th

Last October, I did a presentation with Casey Anderson to the Montgomery County Civic Federation, about improving the environment for biking in suburban places generally and Montgomery County specifically.

There wasn't nearly enough time and I had to seriously truncate my presentation.

I challenged them, saying something like "There's a lot to this topic, more than we can do tonight, and if you really want to improve biking in Montgomery County, how about doing a longer set of sessions on a Saturday, and we can get into it in more depth."

Peggy Dennis, the President of the Montgomery County Civic Federation, took up the challenge, and this upcoming conference is the result. Because we didn't organize it with enough advance notice, we didn't get the plenary speakers we were trying for--but hopefully the conference will become an annual event, and there will be opportunities to get those great speakers that we were seeking. And yes, Casey and I will be doing a session...

There will be an opening session, a round up of presentations by agencies, including the Maryland State Highway Administration, which controls most of the major roads (arterials) in the county, the presentation by Casey and myself, which leads into a practical action planning session focused on repositioning bike planning and infrastructure towards achieving real gains in the suburban context, and an optional post-lunch bike tour of some of the infrastructure present in Rockville.