Think City Education Society presents
The Way We Move A Metro Vancouver Conference on Transportation
A public conference bringing together civic leaders, planners, advocates, educators, community organizations, and residents to examine how transportation can become safer, more reliable, more affordable, more accessible, and more connected across Metro Vancouver.
Conference details
- Date
- Time
- 9:30 am to 3:00 pm
- Location
- SFU Harbour Centre 515 West Hastings Street, Vancouver, BC V6B 5K3
- Accessibility
- Fully accessible venue. Accessibility accommodations are available upon request.
About the conference
A public conversation about how Metro Vancouver moves
Transportation is more than a route, schedule, road, bike lane, or station. It shapes how people reach work, school, care, services, community, opportunity, and home.
The Way We Move convenes experts, organizations, community leaders, residents, and policymakers to exchange perspectives on transportation and city planning, with a special focus on Metro Vancouver.
Through speaker presentations, public dialogue, storytelling, workshops, and practical learning, the conference will explore how mobility systems affect economic opportunity, public health, accessibility, regional connection, climate resilience, and the everyday experience of moving through the region.
- Transit reliability
- Affordability
- Safety
- Accessibility
- Regional connectivity
- Climate resilience
- Mobility equity
- City planning
Conference line-up
Featured speakers
Hear perspectives from municipal leadership, transportation planning, public policy, transit advocacy, and Indigenous community planning.
Featured speaker
Lon LaClaire
General Manager of Engineering Services City of Vancouver
Lon LaClaire leads the City of Vancouver’s largest department, overseeing essential public infrastructure and services including streets, transportation, water, sewers and drainage, solid waste, and district energy.
- City building
- Public infrastructure
- Transportation leadership
Read Lon LaClaire’s biography
Lon LaClaire is the General Manager of Engineering Services at the City of Vancouver and is passionate about city building. With approximately 2,200 staff, an annual operating budget of $500 million, and a further $300 million in capital expenditure, he is responsible for the design, construction, operation, and maintenance of the city’s public works infrastructure.
Engineering Services also carries planning and regulatory responsibilities and plays a central role in Vancouver’s day-to-day functioning. Before becoming General Manager, Lon worked in the City’s Transportation Division for more than 20 years, including five years as Director of Transportation.
He completed his undergraduate degree at Concordia University in 1993 and a master’s degree in Transportation Engineering and Structures at the University of Calgary in 1996.
Featured speaker
Adam Hyslop
Transportation planning and demand management UBC Campus & Community Planning
Adam Hyslop leads UBC’s transportation planning and demand management work and supports the university’s technical involvement in the planned Millennium Line UBC SkyTrain Extension.
- Transportation planning
- Demand management
- Rapid transit
Read Adam Hyslop’s biography
Adam leads UBC’s transportation planning and demand management efforts and oversees the university’s technical involvement in project development for the planned Millennium Line UBC SkyTrain Extension.
Before joining UBC in 2017, Adam worked at TransLink, supporting the development of regional infrastructure plans and projects. He is a Registered Professional Planner, lives in East Vancouver, and commutes by e-bike as much as possible.
Featured speaker
Denis Agar
Executive Director Movement: Metro Vancouver Transit Riders
Denis Agar advocates for expanded, useful, and reliable public transit and for a stronger organized voice for transit riders across Metro Vancouver.
- Transit advocacy
- Bus reliability
- Rider organizing
Read Denis Agar’s biography
Denis Agar is the Executive Director of Movement: Metro Vancouver Transit Riders. He believes expanded public transit can transform cities and help address social, economic, and environmental challenges.
Denis previously worked at TransLink for 10 years, finding ways to make bus routes more useful and reliable. In 2023, he left TransLink to start Movement, modelled on transit-rider organizations in Toronto and New York. Its goal is to build a major organized bloc of transit riders and demonstrate the public support for transit investment.
Featured speaker
Andrea Reimer
Adjunct Professor of Practice UBC School of Public Policy and Global Affairs
Andrea Reimer brings nearly two decades of public leadership in Vancouver and Metro Vancouver, with deep experience in urban policy, community planning, transportation, land use, sustainability, and democratic participation.
- Urban policy
- Regional planning
- Public participation
Read Andrea Reimer’s biography
Andrea Reimer is an Adjunct Professor of Practice at UBC’s School of Public Policy and Global Affairs and was the school’s first Policy Practitioner Fellow. She has been a strong public voice in Vancouver and the region for almost two decades, focusing on green, reconciled, and engaged communities and on making government more accessible to the public.
Andrea began her public work as a community organizer. She was elected to the Vancouver School Board in 2002 and later served three terms on Vancouver City Council. During her decade on Council, she helped lead initiatives connected to sustainability, reconciliation, and community planning.
Her municipal and regional work included housing, transportation, and land-use issues. After leaving municipal politics, Andrea received a Loeb Fellowship at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, where she studied and taught urban policy and democratic renewal.
Her community service has included board work across civic, financial, and democratic organizations. Her honours include the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Award and the World Green Building Council Chairman’s Award.
Featured speaker
Rachel (Sagastas) Wuttunee, BA, MCRP
Indigenous rights, human rights, environmental advocacy, and community planning
Rachel Sagastas Wuttunee is an Anishinaabek planner and advocate with 20 years of experience spanning Indigenous rights, human rights, environmental activism, education, community planning, and systemic change.
- Indigenous community planning
- Systemic equity
- Urban Indigenous relations
Read Rachel Wuttunee’s biography
Rachel Sagastas Wuttunee is Anishinaabek from Kitchenuhmaykoosib and a Bear Clan member. She currently works on the traditional lands of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh peoples. She holds a bachelor’s degree in First Nations Studies and a master’s degree in Community and Regional Planning, specializing in Indigenous Community Planning.
Rachel has worked with Indigenous communities across Canada, advocating for inherent rights and serving first as a youth representative and later in leadership roles. Her work spans advocacy, education, music composition, motivational speaking, and community planning.
Guided by Elders, she has focused on systemic barriers affecting marginalized groups, including young people in foster care, people leaving the justice system, and people navigating mental-health transitions.
Rachel joined the City of Vancouver in 2019 and contributed to work including Indigenous Equity Data: Substance Use, Mental Health, and Wellness. As a Social Policy Planner, she helped implement recommendations from the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. In 2023, she became Senior Manager of Urban Indigenous Relations, leading work connected to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and MMIWG2S.
She remains committed to integrating Indigenous knowledge into her work and to advancing gender safety and systemic change.
Participatory programme
Workshops and community sessions
Build civic knowledge, examine mobility through different lived experiences, and identify practical ways to participate in decisions that shape the region.
Workshop
Civic engagement and navigating local government
Women Transforming Cities works to shift social, economic, and political power so that equity-deserving communities can help reshape who cities are built by and for.
This workshop will explore civic engagement, navigating local government, and campaigning. Participants will learn how city council decisions are made and how residents can take part in urban-planning decisions.
Facilitator
Florence Li
Florence Li is an educator with a background in grassroots organizing and anti-racist advocacy. She works to cultivate safer learning spaces where curiosity, civic literacy, critical thinking, and collective unlearning can thrive.
Read Florence Li’s biography
A former college teacher with experience in academic and community settings, Florence aims to be the supportive guide she once needed in order to speak, ask questions, and participate with confidence.
Through collective unlearning, civic literacy, and knowledge sharing with Women Transforming Cities, she hopes participants can imagine beyond what they believed was possible and contribute to systemic change.
Workshop
Healthy, age-friendly, and walkable transportation
BEST Mobility, founded in 1991 as Better Environmentally Sound Transportation, is a non-profit organization advancing healthy and sustainable transportation across British Columbia.
Facilitator
Dr. Beverley Pitman
Beverley Pitman holds a PhD in Urban and Regional Planning from UCLA and has spent nearly 20 years leading healthy-aging initiatives with United Way British Columbia.
Read Dr. Pitman’s biography
Beverley has played a key role in advancing seniors’ transportation and mobility in British Columbia, including co-creating the Seniors on the Move initiative and the Provincial Working Group on Seniors’ Transportation.
She continues to support the Aging in Motion grant and advance age-friendly transportation initiatives across the province.
Facilitator
Mary Wilson
Mary Wilson is a pedestrian advocate and community leader from New Westminster who has spent years championing safer, more walkable neighbourhoods across Metro Vancouver.
Read Mary Wilson’s biography
Known as “Multi-Modal Mary,” she helped bring Jane’s Walk to New Westminster, co-founded the New Westminster and Burnaby Walkers’ Caucus, and served on the city’s Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee.
Through persistent grassroots leadership, Mary has helped elevate walking as an essential part of the transportation system and encouraged residents to connect with their communities on foot.
Community session
The Vancouver Community Bike Network: Furthering transportation justice
The Vancouver Community Bike Network brings together Our Community Bikes, Kickstand, and The Bike Kitchen to share resources and build capacity for a more diverse and inclusive cycling community.
By giving bicycles a second life, the network helps expand transportation access for people across the region and supports community-based approaches to cycling, repair, education, and transportation justice.
- Our Community Bikes
- Kickstand
- The Bike Kitchen
The final presentation or screening title and the names of any individual presenters should be added once confirmed.
Who is invited?
Every experience matters
A better regional transportation system must be informed by many different experiences, not only by one mode of travel or one kind of expertise.
Think City welcomes night workers, elders, high school students, people with disabilities, low-income residents, immigrants, people experiencing homelessness, and people navigating substance-use challenges.
Drivers, cyclists, pedestrians, transit users, taxi users, rideshare users, workers, families, community organizations, planners, policymakers, and transportation professionals are all encouraged to participate.
- Transit users
- Drivers
- Cyclists
- Pedestrians
- Students and elders
- Workers and families
- Community organizations
- Planners and policymakers
Access and participation
Planning to attend?
SFU Harbour Centre is a fully accessible venue. Accessibility accommodations are available upon request to help participants attend comfortably.
For questions about participation opportunities or accessibility, please contact Patricia Schavarosk.
Registration
Reserve your place at The Way We Move
Join speakers, facilitators, organizations, and residents for a day of learning and public conversation about transportation in Metro Vancouver.
- Date
- Saturday, September 5, 2026
- Time
- 9:30 am to 3:00 pm
- Venue
- SFU Harbour Centre, Vancouver