Join APBP in Detroit This Summer!

Save the date and make plans to join us in Detroit, Michigan, August 12-14, 2024 for the APBP Conference! The Conference will be held at in downtown Detroit just minutes from the Detroit Riverwalk.

Join colleagues, friends, advocates and experts for excellent training that will take your work and your career to the next level. With informative and exciting mobile sessions taking you into the field on foot, bike and transit, you'll get to explore Detroit while experiencing the fully realized designs presented in the classroom. We look forward to seeing you this summer at the APBP Conference in Detroit! 

The call for proposals is now closed! Proposal submitters will be notified of the status of their proposal no later than May 24, 2024. 

Interested in financial support to attend the APBP Conference? APBP has several scholarship opportunities available. Click here for more information and to apply for a scholarship. The deadline for 2024 scholarship applications is May 2, 2024.

Learn more about Detroit:
Detroit has a unique transportation history. Its strong 1890s bicycling community launched the American auto industry. To accommodate motordom, Detroit went all in on freeways, often routing them through its African-American neighborhoods. These freeways fueled sprawl and helped shift the city’s tax base and population to the suburbs. This left Detroit with a surface street network built for 2 million residents, but with just only 640,000 in 2020. Wide roads with low traffic volumes have made it easier to justify road diets and Complete Streets, while encouraging large social group bike rides. Reduced traffic and industrial activity is also enabling the removal of freeways and conversion of abandoned rail corridors to greenways.

The City of Detroit has seized this opportunity and has made bicycling and pedestrian infrastructure investment a key tool for revitalizing its downtown, neighborhoods, retail strips, parks, and more. Detroit is restoring much more than its envious bicycling past and so far, this is largely happening under the national radar.

During this time, Detroit has become the heart and soul of American Black bike culture. It has over 80 bike clubs with the vast majority being African-American led, including many women-led. These bike clubs defy the myths of who rides bikes while playing a critical role in getting more Detroiters on bikes and living healthier, happier lives. With Detroit’s Slow Roll on hiatus, the clubs have filled the ride calendar with inclusive, social rides that we would incorporate into the APBP conference.

While the city is re-embracing its transportation roots, it’s also looking forward. Mobility innovation is a major focus in Detroit, but especially around the Ford Motor Company’s investments at Michigan Central - “an inclusive, vibrant and walkable 30 acres anchored by the iconic Michigan Central Station, with hands-on, tech-enabled innovation labs and workspaces, testing infrastructure, restaurants, retail, event and exhibition space, public art, indoor/outdoor collaborative space, and open plazas.” It will begin to open mid-2023.

The City of Detroit is launching a Transportation Innovation Zone to attract and more readily permit mobility innovation. With help from a $25 million RAISE grant, MDOT is reconstructing Michigan Avenue through the TIZ that will include new mobility features as well as non-motorized and transit infrastructure. This presents a great opportunity to discuss the benefits and potential conflicts as new mobility meets old.