Summit Recording
Clean and Just Transportation Summit 2021
The third in our 2021 six-part community-built online education and collaboration series.
Clean and Just Transportation August 2021 Summit Recording



9:00 land acknowledgement/welcome  Cheryl Davila & Amos White, CEMTF

Keynote speeches:  How do we accelerate the phase out of gasoline cars and the adoption of electric vehicles?

9:15--Assemblymember Phil Ting--San Francisco, 19th Assembly District

9:30 -- Dan Sperling, Director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at UC Davis and member of the California Air Resources Board

9:45- 10:45 Encouraging Transit, Walking, Biking

Facilitator:  Yusra Arub, UC Berkeley Urban Studies student

Speakers:

  • Chirag Rabari--Metropolitan Transportation Commission, Plan Bay Area Implementation Team
  • Jovanka Beckles--AC Transit Board member
  • Jenn Guitart--California Bicycle Coalition
  • Peter Miller--San Francisco Taxi Workers Alliance, AFL-CIO

10:45 - 11:45  Electrification of Transportation

      Facilitator:  Elena Engel, 350 Bay Area Transportation Team

      Speakers:

  • Carleen Cullen--Drive Clean Bay Area
  • Lily Cohen--No New Gas Campaign
  • Tim Sasseen, Ballard Power Systems, Fuel Cell Expert
  • Dr. Gil Tal, Electric Vehicle Center, UC Davis

11:45 - 12:00   Toolkit for Transportation Actions by Cities/Counties

     Jack Lucero Fleck, CEMTF steering committee & 350 Bay Area Transportation Team

    Closing remarks--Cheryl Davila

link to presentation slide decks for all speakers.


Speaker and Panelist Biographies




Cheryl Davila 

CEMTF Founder & Chair

CEMTF Fundraising Committee

Former Councilmember 


As a Council Member for the City of Berkeley, Cheryl was a champion for the climate. Under her leadership the Climate Emergency Declaration passed unanimously in June 2018 which was the sixth in the world. Now over 2006 governments around the world have since declared climate emergencies. Cheryl founded CEMTF in 2019. Did you know the prohibition of natural gas infrastructure in new buildings came out of the CEMTF? True. 


Assemblymember Phil Ting

California Assembly District 19 (San Francisco)


Phil Ting has been a true climate champion in the State Assembly, introducing far reaching and creative bills to combat the climate crisis in many ways, including phasing out fossil fuel vehicles.  As Chair of the Assembly Budget Committee he is well positioned to support funding for clean alternatives to polluting transportation.


Amos White 

Vice Chair CEMTF

Founder and Chief Planting Officer 

Committee Member California Urban Forestry Advisory Committee CalFIRE

www.100Ktrees4humanity.com 


Amos White is Founder and Chief Planting Officer with 100K Trees for Humanity. He chairs the Climate Emergency Mobilization Committee of CASA - the City of Alameda's environmental task force, where he co-authored the City of Alameda 2019 Climate Emergency Declaration Resolution. 


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Dan Sperling

UC Davis, Institute of Transportation Studies,

California Air Resources Board


Dr. Daniel Sperling is Distinguished Professor of Civil Engineering and Environmental Science and Policy, and founding Director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California, Davis (ITS-Davis). He holds the transportation seat on the California Air Resources Board and served as Chair of the Transportation Research Board (TRB) of the National Academies in 2015-16. 

Chirag Rabari

Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC)/ Association of Bay Area Governments(ABAG)

 

Chirag Rabari serves as a Principal Planner in the Regional Planning Program at MTC and ABAG. As project manager for the Plan Bay Area 2050 Implementation Plan, he is charged with developing the near-term actions MTC/ABAG can take to implement the bold transportation, housing, economic, and environmental strategies included in the Bay Area’s long-range regional plan.


Jovanka Beckles

AC Transit Board member

 

​​Jovanka Beckles was elected in November 2020 to serve on the AC Transit Board of Directors. She has worked as a counselor, youth educator, team builder and strategist, client advocate, crime prevention specialist, housing case manager for the homeless, and mental health specialist for 32 years and has been a small business owner in the City of Richmond.  She also served her community as a Richmond City Councilmember for 8 years and is active in numerous community organizations.  

Ms. Beckles is committed to working with riders and workers to build a universally accessible, emission-free transit system that the public deserves.

Carleen Cullen

Drive Clean Bay Area

Cool the Earth


Carleen is the founder and executive director of Cool the Earth, a nonprofit that has motivated over 500,000 families to reduce carbon footprint, and Drive Clean Bay Area, a collaborative of 75 cities, NGOs and agencies educating and motivating drivers to make their next car electric. The collaboration recently launched national campaigns with the U.S. League of Women Voters and the International Rotary.  She is honored to have served as policy advisor for electrifying transportation during Governor Newsom’s gubernatorial campaign.

Lily Cohen

No New Gas campaign

 

Lily is a 22-year-old environmental engineering student at Humboldt State University and works directly with 350 Bay Area’s mobilizing team to create change in her community. She is actively in a lawsuit against Costco and her local city council for trying to build a 28 pump gas station on pristine wetlands in Novato. She will be discussing her work to stop construction of new gas stations all across the country with her No New Gas campaign. Learn more at NoNewGas.com.

 

Jenn Guitart

Development Director, California Bicycle Coalition


Jenn is the Development Director at the California Bicycle Coalition, which advocates for state policy to promote bicycling and walking, with the purpose of creating more equitable, healthy, prosperous, sustainable, joyful communities. When she’s not working to make California a better, more bikeable place, she enjoys playing music and making funny music videos (like this one about the need for climate action).


Peter Miller

San Francisco Taxi Workers Alliance, AFL-CIO

Executive Board


Peter Miller has driven a cab on and off since 2001.  He is a member of the executive board of the San Francisco Taxi Workers Alliance AFL-CIO, and a San Francisco Labor Council delegate representing taxi workers, he serves on the Labor Council's Subcommittee on Climate Action.  Peter graduated from SFSU with a bachelor's degree in Geography with a dual concentration in Natural Resources Management and Geographic Information Analysis.


Dr. Gil Tal

UC Davis Electric Vehicle Center


Dr. Tal is leading projects on the future need for electric vehicle infrastructure, and the correlation between charging infrastructure, travel behavior and the demand for EV’s. He is currently leading research on a number of projects including a study on local planning and deployment of electric vehicle infrastructure, a multi-state study of new plug-in vehicle buyers, and a study on the secondary market of plug-in vehicles in California.


Tim Sasseen

Market Development Manager

Ballard Power Systems


Tim started his work in hydrogen over 20 years ago, leading heavy duty decarbonization projects across the fuel cell product lifecycle in Ballard’s Engineering, Commercial Sales and Field Service departments.  Outside of Ballard, Tim has worked extensively in wind energy on mid-sized wind turbines, megawatt-scale power systems, and advanced power converters.  Tim has a Masters degree in Electrical Engineering, and earned his MBA at UCSD while working in microgrid design and renewable generation project development.