Sophia Benner 

APBP Board of Directors Candidate Statement

Sophia Benner 
Urban Design Principal Planner
City of Austin

Please briefly describe your current position and how your work relates to the bicycle/pedestrian field: 
For the past two years I have pivoted into urban design. Working as a Planner Principal for the City of Austin’s Urban Design team, I manage the Downtown Density Bonus Program and five Regulating Plans that also have density bonus components. A day in the life looks like discussing activation, curb cuts, and local culture and context with development teams. While I am not working directly on active transportation planning and implementation as before it feels very important to carry my bike/ped lens with me into a role that has a critical impact on the land use and streetscape in the most dense neighborhoods of Austin. The experience of a pedestrian or bicyclist begins and ends with land use and it has been an exciting and challenging journey to ensure pedestrian- and bicyclist-first design.

Why do you want to serve on the APBP Board of Directors? What do you hope to gain over the term of your Board Membership?
I want to continue serving as a Board member so that I can help elevate issues I think are relevant in our field, specifically racial equity and what it means to implement that. I helped establish the APBP Equity and Inclusion Committee and my relationship with that committee and the overarching work is something I value deeply. As a Board member, I will continue to examine all of our actions and goals with an equity lens.

Please describe your goals for APBP and how your leadership on the Board will benefit the association. 
One goal is to dive deeper into understanding racial equity in transportation and create recommended approaches and guidelines that cities can refer to on how to implement racial equity. Another goal is to promote the development of bicycle-supportive infrastructure, including bicycle parking. I am very excited to have written the first equity section in the soon-to-be published APBP Bicycle Parking Guidelines update and would like to help promote the new guidelines and incorporate these into the larger conversation of how to equitably support active transportation through supportive infrastructure investments.

Past volunteer/leadership positions with APBP: 
APBP Board Member | 2021 – present
APBP Bike Parking Guidelines Task Force | present
APBP Equity & Inclusion Task Force | 2019 - 2021
APBP Mentor | 2021 - present

Past volunteer/leadership positions with other organizations: 
University of Texas Dean’s Ambassador | 2011-2013
University of Texas Community and Regional Planning Student Organization President | 2012- 2013
Vision Zero Citizen Task Force | 2015-2015
City of Austin Bicycle Advisory Council member | 2013-2017, Vice Chair | 2015, Chair | 2016
Board Member of Redline Parkway Initiative | 2017 - 2018
Co-chair of the Austin Transportation Department Equity Action Team | 2020 – 2022
Design Commission staff liaison | 2022 - present