This year, Our Streets attended the NACTO Designing Cities Conference hosted by the National Association of City Transportation Officials—right here in Minneapolis.
Having the conference take place in our home state felt especially meaningful. Minneapolis specifically became the host site and a living case study: a place where transportation decisions, community organizing, racial justice, public memory, and multimodal innovation all intersect in deeply visible ways.
We returned energized, challenged, and deeply inspired by what’s possible when cities prioritize people over cars, community over convenience, and justice over institutional inertia.
Across workshops, technical sessions, artist-led programming, and community conversations, one theme consistently emerged: transportation is never just about transportation. It is about democracy, belonging, safety, memory, and the future we choose to build together.
Build a world that all of our communities deserve.
Deborah archer, president of alcu
As part of the conference, Our Streets staff joined planners, engineers, advocates, artists, and public officials from across the country who are working to redesign streets and public spaces around care, access, and connection. We wanted to share a few reflections and highlights from what stayed with us most.
One of the conference’s most powerful moments came during Deborah Archer’s closing keynote that many of us are carrying with us:
I know this work is hard, I know it can feel like progress is fragile — it is. I know it can feel like progress is incomplete — it is. And it is perpetually under threat, but I also know this, every safer street you design, every community you reconnect, every system you reimagine, and every time you ask harder questions, you are building the infrastructure of justice.
Of a vibrant, multi-racial democracy. Not metaphorically, literally. Democracy is not what just happens at the ballot box, it is how we live together, how we move through space, how we share resources, how we design the systems that determine who can access opportunity and who cannot.
How we recognize one another as belonging, as deserving, as worthy.
So yes, this is a difficult moment but it is also a defining one. The question is not whether you endure, you will endure. The question is whether you will rise to meet this moment. Whether you look at the systems you’ve inherited, the highways through Rondo….the sidewalks never built in Ferguson, the surveillance cameras proposed in Beaver Creek, and decide to build something different. Something more just, something more inclusive, something more connected, something more humane.
The communities you serve will not stop believing it’s possible. And their belief is the most powerful force in this work. So please go back to your cities, and build a world that all of our communities deserve.
Her words grounded so much of the conference in a deeper truth: streets are not neutral infrastructure. They reflect values and priorities. They shape who belongs, who feels safe, and who gets access to opportunity.
Bring Back 6th: Walking Through History and Possibility
One of the experiences we were most proud to share was actually from outside the conference. We facilitated our very own walkshop focused on the Bring Back 6th campaign and the future of Olson Memorial Highway.
Because the conference was hosted in Minneapolis, attendees had the opportunity to experience firsthand the stories and histories that continue to shape transportation justice conversations in our region.
Together with our partners at World Resources Institute (WRI)’s New Urban Mobility Alliance (NUMO), we explored the lasting impacts of the highway construction on communities in Minneapolis—particularly the destruction and displacement caused by urban renewal and freeway expansion. NUMO, in partnership with Our Streets, coalition partners, and residents, led the creation of the anti-displacement and community benefits.
During the walking tour, we visited the historic Sumner Library and viewed Lament for a Lost Intersection, a hand-drawn map by Clarence Miller. The piece offers a powerful visual remembrance of a neighborhood fractured by highway infrastructure and urban planning decisions that prioritized speed and vehicle throughput over human connection and community continuity.
Standing together in those spaces reminds us that transportation policy is never abstract. It leaves physical and emotional imprints on neighborhoods for generations, but it also reinforces that communities continue to organize, imagine, and fight for reparations.
Inside the Sessions: Small Changes, Big Possibilities
Carly attended several sessions focused on practical transportation solutions and transformative policy shifts happening across the country.
One standout session, Getting to Go: Transit Agency and Public Works Partnerships, highlighted how much cities can accomplish using existing traffic signal infrastructure alone. Transportation officials discussed tools like green extensions, phase insertion, phase rotation, signal coordination, and signal priority to improve transit reliability and prioritize buses, pedestrians, and cyclists.
Representatives from Portland, Oregon, shared how they improved transit speed and safety despite limited space and funding by rethinking curb use, implementing no-turn zones, and coordinating directly with freight and business stakeholders. Rather than centering conversations around vehicle counts, they framed projects around the number of people already using buses and bikes—and the number of ridership and bikers in the future.
The reframing matters.
Another session, I Like Big Bikes, explored how cities are adapting to the rapid growth of e-bikes and commercial cargo bikes. Officials from Massachusetts, New York City, and Boston discussed everything from redefining vehicle classifications based on speed rather than device type to creating secure cargo bike parking and improving crash data collection.
What stood out most was how proactively some cities are planning for multimodal futures before problems escalate.
In Building Something Bigger Than Ourselves, speakers openly discussed the realities of trying to advance transformative transportation projects from within public agencies. Panelists spoke candidly about bureaucratic barriers, political pressure, and systems designed to preserve the status quo. But they also emphasized the importance of partnerships with community-based organizations and advocates pushing from the outside.
One quote that resonated deeply: “Equity helps rural folks too.”
Community, Memory, and George Floyd Square
Another meaningful experience was the dedicated BIPOC breakfast facilitated by NACTO. The gathering created intentional space for connection, reflection, and solidarity among transportation professionals and advocates of color working across the country.
A particularly moving presentation came from Alexander Kado, who spoke about the ongoing community engagement and decision-making process surrounding George Floyd Square.
One line from his presentation stayed with us: “Hate killed George Floyd and love created George Floyd Square.”
Kado walked through the complexities of balancing transportation access, memorialization, community healing, and justice. He emphasized the importance of authentic engagement and honoring what communities themselves define as safety, remembrance, and care.
It was especially powerful to have this conversation happen in Minneapolis itself—in a city still actively grappling with what justice, accountability, public space, and healing look like in practice.
The Role of Artists in Transportation Justice
One of the most refreshing and inspiring parts of the conference was how deeply art was woven throughout the programming.
There were drop-in sessions for a sewing circle and block printing led by local artists. Artist panels explored relationships between creative practice and civic life. One workshop focused entirely on how artists help bridge transportation agencies, public works departments, and community members.
Too often, transportation conversations are framed as purely technical. But artists help people imagine what else is possible. They create spaces for grief, joy, storytelling, memory, and collective visioning. They are not an “extra” to community engagement.Instead, they are often essential connectors within the ecosystem itself.
The conference made clear that artists are not simply contributors to public space; they are builders of public life.
Returning Home Inspired
Even though the conference took place in our own backyard, we left with a renewed perspective on our city and the work ahead.
We were inspired by the breadth of work happening across the country to create safer, more welcoming environments for pedestrians, transit riders, and cyclists, and communities historically excluded from transportation decision-making. But we were equally reminded that Minneapolis has an important role to play in shaping that future.
The work ahead remains difficult. But gatherings like the NACTO conference remind us that we are part of a much larger movement. One committed to building transportation systems that are more just, more connected, and more humane.
Thank you to PolicyLink and McKnight Foundation for making it possible for us to attend NACTO.