Somerville Mayor To Speak At 2022 Designing Cities Conference

SOMERVILLE, MA — Somerville Mayor Katjana Ballantyne, along with Mayor Michelle Wu of Boston and Mayor Sumbul Siddiqui of Cambridge, will attend and give keynote speeches at the 2022 Designing Cities Conference on Wednesday, Sept. 7, hosted by the National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO).

The leaders of the three cities, which are jointly hosting the conference from September 7-10 and are all NACTO members, will discuss recent bold and creative transportation interventions, as well as their advocacy for investing in state-of-repair work to increase the safety and resiliency of the region’s infrastructure.

Recent major accomplishments of the Boston region include a major overhaul of the region’s bus network, a pilot program for fare-free buses, an extension of the MBTA Green Line, and a “Cycling Safety Ordinance” in Cambridge that has jump-started construction of the city’s nationally-recognized protected bike lane network.

"I was a transit and affordable housing activist long before I became an elected official,” Ballantyne said in a statement. "Now, I'm proud that my administration is making bold investments in pedestrian safety, bus infrastructure and protected bike lanes, and we are helping the MBTA push the Green Line Extension across the finish line. We look forward to celebrating our partnership with Boston, Cambridge and NACTO at the conference this September.”

“The conference is an opportunity to both honor the hard work of transportation leaders during these difficult past few years and to roll up our sleeves together for the work ahead,” Corinne Kisner, Executive Director of NACTO, said in a statement. “We’re so excited to have these three groundbreaking mayors with us as we celebrate the innovation and change they—and all of our member cities—have created on our streets.”

Designing Cities 2022 will take place at the Hynes Convention Center, as well as across the cities of Boston, Cambridge, and Somerville. To learn more about this year’s convening, visit NACTO.org/conference.