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About Kristopher

Kristopher Fortin Grijalva is the Transportation Program Director at Oregon Environmental Council

Kristopher (he/him) hails from Alhambra, CA, also known as the entry point into Los Angeles County’s San Gabriel Valley. It was here, in a multiracial suburb of Asians (60 percent) and Latinos (30 percent), Kristopher grew up walking, bicycling and taking the public bus to elementary school, high school, and community college. For the past 13 years, Kristopher has worked as a multicounty journalist and active transportation advocate. As a reporter, a majority of which was spent at Streetsblog Los Angeles and California, he worked to hold decisionmakers to account and highlighted work by community members trying to better their communities and their built environment. As a community advocate, he worked with groups like People for Mobility Justice in Los Angeles, CA as an education and outreach specialist, and helped to found and lead Santa Ana Active Streets (SAAS) in Santa Ana, CA, a majority Latine city. During his tenure with SAAS, Kristopher advocated for active transportation and mobility justice in the predominantly low-income, majority renter, and majority-minority city. He assisted in developing outreach strategies and carrying out activities for Santa Ana’s Central Santa Ana Complete Streets Plan, Santa Ana’s Active Transportation Plan, and education and encouragement activities through the City’s Bicycle and Pedestrian Safety Program.

Kristopher led and supported the implementation of more than 40 community events, and programs annually, which included bike rides, bike classes, community walks, app-based bike and walk tour guides, pedestrian and bicycle safety workshops, bike helmet and light distributions events, pop-up planning events at street intersections, resources fairs, educational fairs, and hands-on school-aged pedestrian and bicycle education. Kristopher also led and supported the implementation of citizen planning projects which included training residents in data collection and analysis, walk assessments, action planning, photo-video qualitative data collection, and stakeholder meetings. Toward the end of his tenure, Kristopher, SAAS staff and community partners successfully advocated for Santa Ana’s first artistic crosswalk in the Willard neighborhood, a majority Latine, immigrant and renter community that has been historically underrepresented, rent burdened and impacted by environmental injustices.

Kristopher enjoys bicycling, long distance train rides, cooking or learning how to cook Mexican and Honduran food, journaling, engaging with thriving diasporas, and getting to know every neighborhood cat, corner store market, and local business within a 2-mile radius.

Email: [email protected]
Phone: 971.343.1508