Chicago, IL-August 19, 2005 - The Chicagoland Bicycle Federation announces registration is open for its inaugural, two-day Southland-Calumet Area Healthy Streets & Trails Workshop on Friday, September 16 and Saturday, September 17 at the Eisenhower Fitness & Community Center in Lansing, IL. The Workshop gives transportation planners, municipal leaders and community activists an opportunity to learn about improving bicycling and walking conditions in their communities. The Workshop will focus on programs to encourage bicycling, trail-based economics, Safe Routes To Schools and current trail initiatives. Participants will engage with their peers while learning cutting-edge ideas and tactics for low-cost bicycle planning, effective grant writing and on-street/off-street bikeway design.

Friday's sessions focus on planning, easy-to-execute initiatives and opportunities for municipalities. The keynote presentation covers the Grand Illinois Trail and the American Discovery Trail by scheduled speakers George Bellovics, Illinois Department of Natural Resources, and Mitch Barloga, Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission. Saturday's workshops focuses on grant writing tips and a comprehensive survey on trail projects in the Southland region.

A ground breaking ceremony of the Pennsy Greenway, a 15-mile multi-use trail in Lansing, will be presented by the Lan-Oak Park District in downtown Lansing on Saturday at 12:30 p.m. Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. is scheduled to deliver a keynote message and a 20-mile Unity Ride through local trails, neighborhoods and ecologically rich areas of the Calumet Region follows the ceremony. The Unity Ride will be lead by local bicycle groups Folks on Spokes and C-4.

Registration to the Southland-Calumet Area Healthy Streets & Trails Workshop at the Eisenhower Fitness & Community Center 2550 178th St. in Lansing, IL is available online at www.biketraffic.org/workshop or by calling (312) 427-3325. Registration for both days of the Workshop is $40. For just $55, participants can attend both days and receive a year-long membership to the nonprofit Chicagoland Bicycle Federation. Participants interested in attending just Saturday's sessions pay $15.

The Healthy Streets & Trails Workshop is produced by the Chicagoland Bicycle Federation and its partner agencies in the Southland and NW Indiana including; Northwest Indiana Regional Planning Commission, Lan-Oak Park District, South Suburban Mayors and Managers Association, Chicago Southland Convention and Visitors Bureau, League of Illinois Bicyclists, and C4.

The Southland-Calumet Area Healthy Streets & Trails Workshop's premier sponsor is the engineering firm of Robinson Engineering LTD., and is sponsored in part by the Village of Lansing, Traffic Guard, URS, Cody/Braun & Associates, BF&S, the Openlands project ad the National Park Service.

For more information visit www.biketraffic.org.