CicLAvia one of GOOD Magazines Top Ten Ideas

Walking Distance: Notes on the Modern Neighborhood

GOOD Magazine’s columnist Kyla Fullenwider’s Walking Distance column has a new article entitled Neighborhood Pride: Ten Ideas To Boost Block Spirit. Among quite a few excellent ideas (gardens,  potlucks,  and even treehouses!) her third idea specifically calls for CicLAvia in Los Angeles:

3. Make every Sunday a block party.

Sundays are lazy time, and the worldwide movement Ciclovia has taken advantage of our weekend sloth. “There’s less traffic on Sunday,” says [Joe] Linton, one of the organizers of cicLAvia an initiative to bring the car free days to the car capital of the world. Aside from the obvious benefits of music and picnics in the street, letting the bikes take over can be a boon to the local economy. “Many local shops see their business double,” Linton says.

Read the rest of the article here. CicLAvia thinks this is GOOD!

CicLAvia Time!

As we set the schedule for CicLAvia, we ask ourselves, “How many hours should CicLAvia last?”, “What time will most people arrive?”, and “How late will people want to stay?”

For guidance, we researched other cities’ ciclovia programs. What we found is a range of start times between 7 A.M. and 10 A.M. and end times between 1 P.M. and 3 P.M.

Our current plan follows the Bogota model of 7 A.M. to 1 P.M. but I wonder if that window is ideal for Los Angeles. Would 9 A.M. to 3 P.M. work better? Both time frames are 6 hours long. Yet, the later time would allow for travel to CicLAvia and slow Sunday morning breakfasts.

What do you think? What time works best for you?

CicLAvia Support in Boyle Heights

Yesterday's Boyle Heights Neighborhood Council meeting

Yesterday, Joe Linton, Campaigns Director for C.I.C.L.E. presented on behalf on the CicLAvia steering committee at the regular monthly meeting of the Boyle Heights Neighborhood Council. This presentation was to make the board aware of what a ciclovia is and that there are plans underway for it to grace their neighborhood as early as this summer if all goes well. One route under discussion would take the ciclovia along First Street from Downtown L.A. all the way to Soto Street.

No decision was scheduled or made last night. The BHNC board expects to consider a motion to support CicLAvia at next month’s meeting.

A number of boardmembers expressed support of the ciclovia idea, and support for increased bicycling to increase healthy activity in their neighborhood. Boardmember Jose Aguilar read a letter he had been forwarded from Carlos Morales, co-founder of the Eastside Bike Club and motivating force behind The Voice newspaper. Here’s the letter in its entirety:  

EASTSIDE BIKE CLUB

January 27, 2010

Dear Neighbor,

My name is Carlos Morales Founder of the EASTSIDE BIKE CLUB and the Publisher and Editor of THE VOICE Community Newspaper. Our club was formed in June, 2008 with the purpose of making the Northeast Los Angeles communities of Boyle Heights, Lincoln Heights and El Sereno a healthier one. We are showing families in these communities the benefits of bike rides. Our communities encompass a very high number of obese / diabetes stakeholders, I for one am one of them. We are one of the only bike clubs in the City of Los Angeles that host two community bike rides every week, year round. We have children as young as six years old and senior citizens at the age of seventy six years old that actively participate in our rides and have seen positive benefits of bike riding.

I am writing to you today on behalf of our 350 community bike club members to support the efforts of hosting a cicLAvia in Boyle Heights.

The benefits of holding such an event in Boyle Heights provide many positive elements to this community. It supports a healthier lifestyle, it bonds communities and families. It is great for local businesses, restaurants and coffee shops. It will bring the type of National as well as International attention that Boyle Heights needs. Boyle Heights will be protrayed as a model community for othe neighborhoods in the City of Los Angeles and across the country to follow. It is already happening in other parts of the world. I was in Chicago several years ago and started to see them organize there with positive results.

As Publisher and Editor of THE VOICE Newspaper, We will support such an effort as well.

Neighborhood Councils sometimes make decisions only after a brief presentation due to time restraints. I seldom write letters of recommendation, perhaps two a year, when I do write one, it is because I believe 100% that a project will be beneficial to the community at large. The project will accomplish that, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND this project. I ask that you consider my recommendation to support such an effort in Boyle Heights.

My sincerest gratitude.

Carlos Morales
Co-Founder
EASTSIDE BIKE CLUB
“Chapulin” -
Ride to Live, Live to Ride

Rampart Village Neighborhood Council supports CicLAvia

At tonight’s meeting, January 19th 2010, the full Rampart Village Neighborhood Council voted unanimously to support CicLAvia. Rampart Village is located south of the 101 Freeway, east of Vermont Avenue, north of 6th Street and west of Rampart Boulevard. It’s directly south of the East Hollywood Neighborhood Council which already voted to support CicLAvia.

CicLAvia advocates are making the rounds to various stakeholders along a tentative route that would extend from East Hollywood through MacArthur Park and Downtown into Boyle Heights, more-or-less similar to the draft route shown here. We’re going to various Neighborhood Councils, business groups, religious institutions, and others. If you’re part of a stakeholder group in this corridor, and you’d like a presentation, contact us and we’ll send someone out!

Here’s the full text of the RVNC resolution:

Whereas ciclovía events have been successful in other cities throughout the world and the United States, and
Whereas ciclovía events offer healthy recreational activities for park-poor neighborhoods, and
Whereas ciclovía creates a safe environment for social interaction and for getting around by bicycle and on foot, and
Whereas ciclovía promotes environmentally-friendly alternative transportation, and
Whereas ciclovía events are good for increasing foot traffic for local businesses, and
Whereas the Rampart Village neighborhood is well-suited for a ciclovía route,

Therefore be it resolved that
The Rampart Village Neighborhood Council supports the CicLAvía planning committee’s proposed pilot ciclovías to be held in the summer and fall of 2010, and
Such support from the neighborhood councils, both within and adjacent to the proposed route, will aid the CicLAvía planning committee in garnering city support and funds to make ciclovía events a reality in Los Angeles.

CITY LABS next weekend – January 23rd

Join us at CITY LABS , a community service fair organized by Sonja Rasula. Over 50 community organizations, including CicLAvia, will be in attendance, recruiting volunteers and spreading the word about how to have a positive impact in the LA community.

Splitting the Street

Ciclovia cyclists in Bogota Colombia. Photo by Aaron Paley

The original ciclovia in Bogota Colombia takes advantage of streets with median islands. Many of their 80 miles (!!!) of weekly street closures take place on one half of a street with a raised median – or one fourth of a four-part street – as shown above. Cars drive on one side of the median, bicyclists and pedestrians cruise the other side. That raised concrete provides a barrier similar to protected bicycle lanes, also called cycletracks – common in Europe, but fairly limited in the U.S. (so far, they’re popular in New York City and Portland, Oregon and coming soon to Long Beach.)

Are there similar median-ed streets in Southern California that you think could make for good cicLAvia material? Let us know what streets you’d like to see - in the comments below.

Here’s another nice photo of the split street ciclovia from Bogota:

Bikes and pedestrians on the left, cars on the right - in Bogota. Photo by Aaron Paley

Bogota also use various cones, signs, etc. for partial and full street closures/openings. Another Bogota ciclovia photo below:

Cone-type barriers used for ciclovia partial street closure - in Bogota, Colombia. Photo by Aaron Paley.

And a couple more photos from Guadalajara, Mexico, too:

Ciclovia-style closure in Guadalajara. Photo by Aaron Paley.

Another street closure barrier from Guadalajara, Mexico. Photo by Aaron Paley.

UCI Highlights Lugo’s CicLAvia Efforts

Adonia Lugo

The University of California at Irvine (UCI) website has an article showcasing anthropology graduate student Adonia Lugo. Lugo was one of the first people to begin the push for hosting ciclovia in Los Angeles. She’s still very much at the core of the cicLAvia team. Below is an excerpt from UCI’s site; click here for the full article. (Additional recommended reading : Lugo’s blog Urban Adonia.)

“There’s a very strong bias against non-car travel in Southern California,” Lugo says. “Honking and shouting by drivers can be intimidating, but knowing your rights as a cyclist and safe riding skills can help build confidence on the road.”

Bicycling, she notes, improves people’s health and fitness, does not pollute the environment and fosters social interaction in a way not possible when drivers are cocooned inside motor vehicles.

Lugo co-founded cicLAvia, a coalition of bicycling advocates, artists and academics who propose that motor vehicles be intermittently banned from certain streets in Los Angeles. The group was inspired by the ciclovía (bike path) culture of Bogotá, Colombia, where major thoroughfares are closed to car traffic on Sundays and opened to pedestrians, cyclists, street performers and vendors.

New Orleans, No Stranger to CicLAvia

 

Photos by Stephen W. Villavaso

Along the south shore of Lake Pontchartrain, Lakeshore Drive becomes a one-way street every weekend and holiday. One half of the street is opened up to pedestrians, cyclists, and anyone else not using a motorized vehicle. While growing up in Lake Vista, I never questioned the weekly road closure on the Lakefront. I simply viewed this as another place where I could skateboard. I remember the excitement my friends and I shared when they laid fresh asphalt. It never seemed odd that the roads could be a place to play. After all, New Orleans is known for street parties. Can traffic impacts be a reason to cancel Mardi Gras? Can convenience and mobility trump tradition and culture? Think of Halloween on Frenchmen, New Years on Orleans Ave, and all the countless smaller street parties which define life in New Orleans.    

Villaraigosa wants to “close down some streets” on Sundays

Sharp-eared Aurisha over at LACBC noticed that Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa made some surprising comments on greening LA during a radio interview today.

Speaking about ideas he’s gotten from the Copenhagen conference, he had this to say:

“In the area of bicycling I’ve got to do a better job and the city’s got to do a better job… we’re planning to… close down some streets in the city. We’re going to give people, probably on a Sunday, an opportunity to just take over streets. Much as we took over the freeways you remember on the 110.”

That sounds a lot like cicLAvia to me, Mayor!

The freeway comment is referring to ArroyoFest, the memorable event that opened the historic 110 freeway to people several years ago. Coincidentally or not, Bob Gottlieb, one of the movers and shakers behind ArroyoFest recently wrote an opinion piece in the LA Times also extolling the virtues of a ciclovia in LA.

How to Pronounce Ciclovía

I don’t know about the rest of you, but after all this print media, I’ve been hearing a lot of novel pronunciations for our beloved Ciclovía. Here’s a quick guide for the proper accepted way to pronounce it:

” seek – low – VEE – uh “

To actually hear it pronounced correctly try listening to this streetfilm or this discussion on KPCC.

For our campaign for ciclovía in Los Angeles, we’re calling ourselves CicLAvía which we pronounce “seek-law-VEE-uh.”

CiclovíaI don’t know