Schedule board at Transportation Camp, a national unconference for transportation professionals. Photo by M.V. Jantzen on Flickr.

Next Saturday, June 20, join Greater Greater Washington and urbanist organizations in the DC region to up your smart growth game at StreetsCamp 2015.

After 50 years of being auto-centric, our region still has too many dangerous streets, too many surface parking lots that could be housing for new neighborhoods, and too many schools or Metro stations that are unsafe or too hard to walk to.

The groups that advocate to counter this through smart growth and sustainable transportation can’t weigh in on every neighborhood detail on their own.

StreetsCamp is a one-day summit where you’ll learn background on key issues and advocacy skills to help create change in your community. You’ll also get a chance to meet many of our contributors and commenters in real life and connect with people who share similar goals for the region.

The event is $20, which includes lunch. The day will be jam packed with expert-led panels on topics you’ve read about on Greater Greater Washington, including best practices in street design for walking and cycling, zoning, how we can improve transit in our region, safe routes to school, and transportation equity. There will also be panels on how to blog and organize a campaign.

Share what you learn

We know not everyone can attend, so we’re making sure to compile StreetsCamp’s most salient lessons here on the blog.

We need your help to do that, though: we’re asking everyone to tweet facts and tips you pick up in each session with the hashtag #streetscamp. When you tweet, consider whether others would learn from what you’re sharing: for example, “Two-way streets can be safer than one-way streets” fits that bill, while “We’re talking about two-way vs. one-way streets” doesn’t.

We’re also recruiting volunteer curators, and they’ll pull the top tips together and turn them into Greater Greater Washington posts. If you’re willing to help, shoot kelly@smartergrowth.net an email.

The details matter, and that’s why it’s essential that more people become informed and engaged in the business of working with their neighbors for safer, more sustainable, more equitable ways of getting around and living together.

We hope to see you there!

Tagged: csg, events, urbanism

Kelly Blynn is a former DC resident and an advocate for sustainable transportation and equitable development. She is now a graduate student in the Masters in City Planning program at MIT and a co-founding member of the pedestrian advocacy group All Walks DC.