I am a Bay area native who graduated this past May from USC's SPPD program with a Masters in Urban Planning. While in LA, I worked for the LADOT Bike Program and created their APA award-winning social media strategy & blog. I am especially interested in bike planning, Safe Routes to School, outreach, engagement, and facilitation (especially through the use of new technology & social media). I am extremely excited to be back in Oakland, and equally excited to join the team at Alta.
Christopher Kidd is a planner at Alta’s Berkeley office. His experience ranges from transportation planning, to land-use planning, to community outreach, coupled with a strong base in the use of social media and online community facilitation. Christopher has worked with the Los Angeles Department of Transportation’s Bike Program, the Los Angeles City Planning Department, multiple Los Angeles City Council offices, and has strong roots in Oakland’s policy, planning, and advocacy communities.
Christopher has a strong passion for bicycle & pedestrian planning, serving as a nexus of improvements in land use, public health, economic development, community vitality, and safety. Christopher has volunteered with several transportation advocacy non-profits and served on multiple planning advisory boards. He enjoys creating a broad base of public facilitation and involvement in the planning process through special attention to community needs and the creation of engaging public content.
Recent Projects
City of Los Angeles Bicyclist Anti-Harassment Ordinance, Los Angeles, CA
While at the LADOT Bike Program, Christopher created a multimedia campaign to grow support for the first-in-the-nation Bicyclist Anti-Harassment Ordinance. Christopher was responsible, in partnership with the office of LA City Council Member Bill Rosendahl, for the planning and execution of a multiplatform media campaign designed to both bring attention to the ordinance and to educate the public on its necessity. The campaign included outreach and media utilizing Wordpress, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, local blogs, and print media. The ordinance was unanimously adopted by the City Council in the summer of 2011.
LADOT Bike Program Social Media Strategy, Los Angeles, CA
Created for the LADOT Bike Program, the social media strategy was based around using multiple platforms (Wordpress, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr) for the purpose of facilitating communication & improving relations with the Los Angeles bicycle community. The LADOT Bike Blog acted as an outreach, engagement, and education tool, demystifying the operations at LADOT and building consensus for upcoming projects. Christopher’s social media strategy helped build trust and cooperation in an environment that was once extremely hostile. Christopher was awarded the Distinguished Leadership Award – Student Planner by the Los Angeles APA Chapter and the California APA Chapter for his social media work with LADOT.
EBBC Media & Outreach Strategy, Berkeley, CA
The East Bay Bicycle Coalition recently embarked on a restructuring of their social media and outreach strategy. Christopher reorganized the way EBBC communicated with the bicycle community in the East Bay, created content for their website, and redesigned their quarterly newsletter. As a result, the EBBC experienced sharp increases in the number of people they were able to reach online and substantially increased their online visibility.
