Jaime 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.

Aaron 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.

Paola 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.

Sergio 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.

Frank 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.

Romel 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.

Tafarai 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.

Olga 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.

Jimmy 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

Andres 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. 

Juan 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.

Adonia 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 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.