Announcing Tamika Butler as Keynote for 7th Annual Silicon Valley Bike Summit

Photo credit: Serena GraceUpdate June 20, 2017: Tamika Butler is now the Executive Director of Los Angeles Neighborhood Land Trust, stepping down from her position as LACBC.Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition is thrilled to announce Tamika Butler, Executive Director of the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition (LACBC), as the keynote speaker for SVBC’s 7th Annual Silicon Valley Bike Summit, August 8, 2017.Since starting at LACBC three years ago, Tamika has elevated the conversations around equity and social justice in the bike advocacy world. In an interview with Los Angeles Streetsblog, Tamika said if she could change one thing in transportation, “I would say, for all folks who want to ride bikes or take public transportation, that no matter whether or not they are doing it by choice, as a privilege, or because they have to for whatever economic reason, that there is infrastructure that is connected and makes sense.” This should be commonplace for all bike advocates and organizations. Expanding our work to be more equitable is something our organization continues to work on and we welcome Tamika’s perspective. We also look forward to bringing our partners and members into that conversation at the Bike Summit.In particular, Tamika will discuss challenges related to Vision Zero, a safety initiative that many bike and pedestrian organizations, including SVBC, are advocating for across the country. Los Angeles is one of the three major cities in California working on Vision Zero (San Jose and San Francisco being the others) and we can learn from LACBC’s experiences there. Inherent to Vision Zero are concerns over how an increase in enforcement will impact low-income communities and communities of color, which often experience a higher rate of collisions due to historic disinvestment in infrastructure, and where racial profiling has led to tragedy. Making sure Vision Zero work is rolled out in a way that respects, works for, and builds up the communities it serves is something that LACBC bakes in to everything it does. At the Summit we’ll discuss how advocates, city planners, and law enforcement can work together with local communities to address these challenges to create safer street environments.We look forward to hearing from Tamika and discussing these important topics with her. In the three years since she started at LACBC, Tamika has been a speaker at the California Bike Summit, the National Bike Summit, Alliance for Biking and Walking webinars, Smart Growth America’s Street Lights conference, NACTO Designing Cities conference, locally on Bike Life Radio, and more! In her talks, Tamika highlights a variety of key issues that LACBC focuses on and that resonate with us as we strive to be a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive organization. See more information about Tamika in her bio below.Register for the Bike Summit here.Interested in sponsoring the Summit? Email us.Tamika Butler bioTamika joined the LACBC staff as the Executive Director in December 2014. Prior to leading LACBC Tamika was the Director of Social Change Strategies at Liberty Hill Foundation, where she oversaw the foundation’s boys and men of color program and the foundation’s LGBTQ grant strategy. Before Liberty Hill, Tamika worked at Young Invincibles as the California Director. As the CA Director, she was responsible for the development of all of Young Invincibles’ programs in California. Tamika was responsible for building out Young Invincibles’ operations on the West Coast and grew the office to the largest regional office outside of their DC headquarters. She transitioned to policy work after litigating for three years as an employment lawyer at Legal Aid Society-Employment Law Center.She received her J.D. in 2009 from Stanford Law School, and in 2006 received her B.A. in Psychology and B.S. in Sociology in her hometown of Omaha, Nebraska. Tamika currently serves on the Boards of Directors of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, Lambda Literary, T.R.U.S.T. South LA, and New Leaders Council - Los Angeles, and is an advisory board member for the Legal Aid Society-Employment Law Center’s Fair Play for Girls in Sports program.