Chamberlain joined WSDOT from the bike advocacy world with a mandate to develop a new division that puts active transportation at parity with other modes of transportation, including freight, transit and aviation. For her, the upswing in bike and pedestrian fatalities is particularly worrisome: One of her biggest goals is continuing an ambitious plan to eliminate traffic deaths .

“The safety numbers are going the wrong direction, she says. “In Washington in 2017, 22 percent of [transit] fatalities were people walking and biking, and people walking and biking is not 22 percent of our mode share, whether you think of it in terms of miles or times or number of trips. It is out of proportion to how much we're actually out there, and we're not the worst state in the nation, but we still have to turn the line around.”

As if to illustrate the danger on cue, we embark upon a steep downhill turn with traffic. I hug the shoulder, but Chamberlain takes the lane and chases momentum. She flicks her right hand toward metal grates in the road as she passes to make sure I spot them in my path. I find myself cautiously picking up speed.

Chamberlain became a “bike person” in earnest when she got interested in reducing her carbon footprint while living in Spokane. She ditched a 3.5-mile driving commute for bus rides and walks. “But that's a pretty stiff walk,” Chamberlain says. “And then [Spokane] built a bike lane in front of my house. I joke that I bike because I’m lazy.”

But it didn’t take long for Chamberlain to notice problems with her commute.

“Once I started biking to work in peak traffic, where there are more drivers on the road with me, I started thinking, ‘Well, this needs to be better,’ ” she says. A cycling mentor was on the board of the Bicycle Alliance of Washington (now Washington Bikes), a statewide advocacy group. “She was like, ‘You should join this, they work for better laws.’ And I said, ‘Oh, I'm all about that.’ ”

Bikes took over Chamberlain’s life. She changed careers, moved to Seattle, and ascended to executive director of Washington Bikes in 2012. In 2015, Chamberlain launched the now-annual Washington Bike Summit; later that year, she led the merger between Seattle-based Cascade Bicycle Club and Washington Bikes to create the country’s largest statewide bicycle club.

“Chamberlain is impressive — she manages to always have a pulse on what’s moving, the hot topic and new best practices. I'd describe her as a thought leader in this field,” says Alex Alston, state policy director at Washington Bikes. (WA Bikes is tasked with state-level, statewide policy work, while Cascade handles all of the merged clubs' advocacy work.) “She’s sharp and can communicate the benefits of active transportation for those who may never choose or see themselves as a walker or person who bikes.”

Right now, Chamberlain and Washington Secretary of Transportation Roger Millar are on a mission to make active transportation a viable alternative to using a car. Annual vehicle miles driven in Washington increased 4.8 percent between 2004 and 2016, and a 2017 National Household Travel Survey found that 76.8 percent of car trips were 10 miles or less.

“We drive most [short] trips because we think that's the cheapest most convenient way to do it and we need to change that story,” Millar says. “By giving people alternatives to jumping in their car, it's the cheapest way we have to create capacity on our system for people that need it.”

Millar’s fix centers on the concept of Complete Streets ideology , which asks that all modes of transportation be considered in street design to ensure the safety and efficiency of all users.

After years spent consulting with transportation departments and advocates across the state, Chamberlain identified a concrete goal to get the state closer to Complete Streets: “A complete, connected active transportation network statewide.”

“Connected networks” refer to pathways where people who use each mode of transportation have continuous right-of-way everywhere they need to go in a city, and can then connect to an intercity network. It already works this way for cars, which easily cross the state on designated car infrastructure. Connected networks extend the same privileges to other modes of transit, and help people switch easily between walking, driving, busing, and cycling over the same trip without interrupting commuters who choose different modes of transport — especially active ones.

This helps create safer and more efficient streets for cyclists and pedestrians. Chamberlain says planning has been historically reactive to crashes and focused on the individual roads and crossings where they occur. Instead, she wants traffic planners to make changes that consider their entire trip routes .

"If something is a problem, if that is what's contributing to collisions, you shouldn't just address that at the place where someone's already been hit,” Chamberlain says. “[You should] consider how people end up there in the first place; you might find a better spot to fix or a systemic problem.”