The Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) hosted their annual General Assembly on May 1st in Palm Desert, CA. Themed Beyond Boundaries, the conference drew representatives from 191 cities and six counties and included topics centered on micro mobility, technology opportunities from the green economy, and unleashing the power of data. The General Assembly is an important platform to discuss regional transportation planning challenges and opportunities. But instead of convening diverse community perspectives and local government innovative transportation planning, it highlighted private business trends, largely through homogenous panels of private industry leaders. Fortunately, the sustainability awards luncheon did showcase six environmental justice, active transportation and climate action projects from diverse parts of the SoCal region.

On a more promising note, SCAG’s Go Human campaign held a pre-conference event geared towards elected officials and decision makers, which included a far more diverse set of panelists ranging from local public officials to community based organizations and businesses. The Traffic Safety Symposium provided a forum for educational resources and hosted panel discussions on equity in enforcement, public education campaigns, outreach strategies, and mobility technology. Speakers in the first panel highlighted the critical importance of outreach, data collection and infrastructure investment in historically underserved communities, particularly communities of color, rural and low-income communities. Speakers in panel two discussed strategies for driver safety education and how cities are managing challenges related to micro mobility trends. We look forward to more traffic safety symposiums because they are equally participatory and engaging.