CicLAvia Expands in October, Forgoes July
May 24, 2011 at 5:03 pm Joe Linton 36 comments
CicLAvia 10-10-10
CicLAvia has exceeded all expectations. When the streets were opened last October and again in April, Angelenos of all ages, shapes and sizes flooded in. CicLAvia connected the city in an entirely new way.
Due to overwhelming success, and the need to expand, CicLAvia and the city of Los Angeles have decided to focus our energies on expanding the CicLAvia route on October 9, 2011 and to forgo the announced July 10, 2011 date.
With such huge crowds in April, Los Angeles experienced its first bicycle traffic jams! CicLAvia and city staff have decided to expand the route to accommodate the overwhelming demand. The goal is to allow all participants to share the road. This includes pedestrians, skaters, wheelchair users, and, of course, all kinds of cyclists – from beginners to experienced. Due to lead-time for planning and permitting, it was too difficult to re-tool for July, and it would be difficult to focus both on October expansion and anticipation of even bigger crowds in July. So, July is off the table, and October is going to be bigger and better than ever.
For October 9th 2011, we plan to:
- expand the existing route by introducing new spurs:
1. South L.A. (including Fashion District, Central Avenue and Exposition Park)
2. Additional Boyle Heights neighborhoods
and maybe new connections with El Pueblo and Chinatown - introduce new features, areas, and signage that will better welcome more families and pedestrians
- include more music and other activities along the route
- revamp and expand the CicLAvia website
- and a few more surprises still in the works!
And since a lot of us already have July 10th on our calendars, we figured we’d plan to do something fun that day… though not quite as big a production as CicLAvia. We’re planning to host a preview ride to introduce Los Angeles to the new October route spurs. The streets won’t be closed. It won’t be CicLAvia, but it will be a chance for Angelenos to gather and bike and explore parts of our city that we may not be as familiar with.
CicLAvia 4-10-11
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CicLAvia 
1. July CicLAvia Canceled; October is a Go | Blogging.la | May 24, 2011 at 5:19 pm
[…] the bad news: Earlier rumors from Twitter are true. There will be no CicLAvia this July. Bike all you want, but the cars ain’t […]
2.
Streetsblog Los Angeles » Today’s Headlines | May 24, 2011 at 7:06 pm
[…] CicLAvia Announces October Expansion and July Cancellation (CicLAvia) […]
3.
Liliana Vasquez | May 24, 2011 at 7:46 pm
BOOOOO! not a good reason to cut back on a perfect summer outing. You could have plan this idea for next year Ciclavia but to cancel such a positive event in the summer is thumbs down. I as a full time rider can’t express my disappointment more seems to me that we have only had 2 so far and already the talk of changing this and that without at the very least a full year’s experience under the belt seems foolish. But what else can we do but wait till the fall…BOOOO again..summer seems just so ripe for such an event
4.
Pete V. Natividad | June 30, 2011 at 3:10 pm
Calma, calma !!! … ladies and gents … make love not war.The July ride is not TOTALLY cancelled. The ride will go on minus the vehicle traffic stops, which if you choose to participate, you will simply be compelled to share the streets with vehicular traffic in orderly fashion, and it will also give you the usual challenging invite to practice your bicycle riding skills and street traffic rules. I know, I know, cicLAvia is not supposed to be that … maybe scheduled input meetings, discussions … and even voting on issues and possible implementation of these and suggestions … may help. One thing that would surely help, is more volunteering, to polish and speed things up a bit … petevn
5.
Michael Bratkowski | May 24, 2011 at 9:23 pm
No July!!!!!! Boooo!!! Hissss!!! 😦
6.
Marino | May 24, 2011 at 10:03 pm
Not like. Ciclavia should be smaller and more frequent.
Monthly or even better weekly.
Making it huge and biannual, you are duplicating the Marathon.
That’s not what we need.
7.
Evan | May 25, 2011 at 8:47 am
If you feel free to complain like this, I sure hope that you’ve donated a lot of money to CicLAvia…because bitching over something that people have put a lot of their own time and effort into for the good of the city would be really boorish. Actually, I take it back…even if you have contributed a lot of your own money to CicLAvia, complaining like this is poor form.
8.
greg | May 25, 2011 at 3:59 pm
Your complaining about complaints is poor form. Why don’t you explain why you think it was a good decision to cancel the July event?
9.
Evan | May 26, 2011 at 9:25 am
greg–where did I say it was a good idea? My point is just that I think that if you aren’t actively working on CicLAvia, then I don’t think complaining about July being canceled is your right. Work to make CicLAvia better and more often.
Even though I’m disappointed, I’m not going to write “that’s not what we need,” or say that this is “foolish”, or even boo or hiss the people that have worked so hard to make the two CicLAvias such awesome events. They’ve earned my trust. I’m not going to turn around and complain when something like this happens.
10.
Maneesh | May 25, 2011 at 9:11 pm
I believe the long term plan is make it large AND frequent, just like the original Ciclovia in Bogota. By expanding now seems like the planners are trying to avoid overcrowding issues which could derail CicLAvia all together. Taking a long term approach may suck for this summer, but it will ensure that CicLAvia will be great for years to come.
11.
Ezra | June 15, 2011 at 5:24 pm
Great point Maneesh, if they don’t expand now, the event will get so crowded that people won’t be able to move freely, and that’s a big turn off. At the last even, I sat through FIVE lights to get through one intersection at one point–that to me is not fun–and it’s only going to get worse unless the route is expanded to meet the space requirements of the fast growing demand!
12.
Joe | May 24, 2011 at 10:30 pm
Bummer.
Since the lead-in time is so long, shouldn’t we be planning for January as well?
13.
Joe Linton | May 26, 2011 at 9:02 am
We are starting to plan for April 2012… and looking at how many we can realistically do next year.
14.
walkeaglerock | May 24, 2011 at 11:08 pm
I made plans for the July one because I can only attend cicLAvia if it’s in the summer… oh well. I’ll join the ride that’s still going to happen. Thanks for making LA awesome
-Severin
15.
Evan | May 25, 2011 at 8:48 am
I really hope that anyone complaining about this will be sure to put in their own time to help CicLAvia grow so it can be held more frequently.
16.
Marcotico | May 25, 2011 at 9:12 am
July 10th: day time Critical Mass along Ciclavia route!
17.
Josh | May 25, 2011 at 10:47 am
Aww, that’s a shame!
I hope it wasn’t the grousing of a few entitled pedestrians that made you drop the July one. April was AWESOME.
18.
Joe Linton | May 26, 2011 at 9:22 am
Josh – Though I agree with you that April was awesome… I want to strongly caution you about blaming pedestrians. Pedestrians were definitely not to blame for cancelling July.
CicLAvia is for everyone! Everyone. I think it’s important for cyclists to chill out and welcome pedestrians, wheelchair users, skaters, etc.
I am going to be blunt and will maybe regret it – but if anything it was “entitled” cyclists that have been an issue at CicLAvia. I think that fast-moving cyclists, disrespectful of non-cyclists and even slow-moving cyclists (ie: kids, families), caused some collisions in April. It’s important that cyclists don’t just act like many drivers – we need to show respect for and to get along with others… to create a safe, welcoming, egalitarian space in our streets.
I don’t want to dwell on the negative – CicLAvia has been awesome for nearly all the participants – whether on foot, bike or other… and there were not a lot of problems in October or April. It works really well… but please be mindful that we’re all in this together and we really can share and enjoy together.
19. Ciclavia Update | Culver City Bicycle Coalition | May 25, 2011 at 2:54 pm
[…] CicLAvia Expands in October, Forgoes July […]
20.
greg | May 25, 2011 at 4:06 pm
I agree with the majority of the comments here. What an unfortunate decision to cancel the July event. Bummer.
We need the momentum. We need these events to become more regular. Can we add other dates to replace July? December?
21.
Joe Linton | May 26, 2011 at 9:08 am
We definitely want to do more – but it takes a lot of resources – from both city and non-profit… If you want CicLAvia to be more regular – please volunteer, donate and/or sponsor.
22.
Joe | May 26, 2011 at 9:45 am
The overt reason for cancelling July was described as “too many people”.
But I’m hearing through the rumor mill and by reading between the lines that the real reason is, “not enough money”.
Perhaps if you were to state unequivocally what’s going on, it might be easier to drum up support — both monetary, and political support for having LA foot more of the bill. It’s pretty outrageous that LA will be sponsoring 363 days of cars and only 2 days of bikes this year.
And, by the way, April and October were both awesome. Thank you.
23.
JC | May 26, 2011 at 10:31 am
To get slightly off-track, I’m curious about whether there’s also been discussion to extend CicLAvia along 4th Street toward Park La Brea. With all the discussion of turning that street into a bike boulevard it seems like an obvious (and relatively easy) extension.
24.
Joe Linton | May 26, 2011 at 11:02 am
We’re looking to do additional expansion in 2012.
I love 4th Street and ride it a lot and really want to see a great serious bike-priority bike boulevard implemented there… but I think that CicLAvia works best on commercial streets. When we block a lot of driveways on residential streets like 4th, we get some concerns from folks who drive on Sundays. 4th is not out-of-the-question, but we’ll look at it, and other expansion options in that area soooon.
25.
Marino | May 26, 2011 at 12:17 pm
To those who who say we shouldn’t criticize… Where I come from liars flatter, friends criticize.
As for the suggestion for smaller, weekly Ciclavias look at the Joe just posted about San Francisco’s Sunday Streets. That’s exactly what they do and they use volunteers instead of cops at crossings saving a bunch of dough.
Maybe Los Angeles is too bureaucratic to do something small. I am not faulting the organizers, I’m faulting the process required by the city to get things like this done. It seems like the city bureaucracy knows how to do the Marathon and movie shoot street closures and it’s demanding the same type of procedures which are time consuming and costly.
As for those who advocate 20-30 mile routes I think the money and effort should go to permanent bike trails instead of twice a year events.
26.
Stuart White | May 28, 2011 at 12:08 pm
Total let down by the planners of this event. Poor leadership. I also would like to know what is the real reason it was cancelled. Bureaucratic baloney. Sorely dissapointed.
27.
denwanai | May 29, 2011 at 7:38 am
It takes Money, money and MONEY to run an event. If CicLAvia had a big pockets sponsor then the fundraising, recruitment and training of volunteers would be less onerous for the dedicated group of CicLAvia volunteers. Don’t complain – just ask how you can help to make the next one happen.
28.
Richard Nieto | May 30, 2011 at 9:12 pm
At 72 years of age, it has been over 50 years since I last rode a bike, but I have been riding now so I can join the next event in October – this after seeing the May event on TV; see you there
29.
Gabe Hernandez | June 6, 2011 at 3:55 pm
Let’s make sure SOME massive bicycle-related event happens in July along the planned route. If the numbers are there, cars or no cars, we’ll be safe!
30.
Lloyd Xmas | June 29, 2011 at 12:06 pm
Rats! Was really looking forward to Ciclavia on July 10th. The last two were much fun I’m tempted to just ride the route that day anyway, but as a casual cyclist I’m a tad worried about being turned into roadkill. Dilemna, dilemna..
31.
Joe Linton | June 29, 2011 at 12:11 pm
Come on the community ride with us that day! No roadkill!
32.
Lloyd Xmas | June 29, 2011 at 1:18 pm
Maybe not roadkill, per se, but I do envision chaos. And while I understand that certain elements of the bike culture here in L.A. fancy themselves as anarchists of sorts that would love nothing more than to create chaos on the streets, like I mentioned before, I’m a casual cyclist and am thinking a mass, unorganized ride will be counter productive to what CicLaVia’s trying to accomplish, maybe even putting future rides in jeopardy. Thoughts?
33.
Joe B | June 29, 2011 at 1:28 pm
Lloyd@31: Certain elements of the car culture fancy themselves as anarchists as well, and they actually SUCCEED in creating chaos on the streets every single day. I don’t see why the carnage of a mass bike ride would be any worse than the unorganized mass auto disaster that we experience on a daily basis.
34.
Lloyd Xmas | June 29, 2011 at 3:06 pm
^Touche… Touche, indeed. I see what you’re saying, as I commute from the beach cities to Downtown five days a week, hence my ‘casual cyclist’ moniker. However, thanks to your very descriptive reply and your reminder of just how chaotic those very streets can be, I’m even more wary of joining the ride as I’m now envisioning carnage along with chaos. As in the carnage that results from an anarchist driver plowing his or her evil automobile through a mass of unorginized, albeit righteous, bike riders. I understand the more cyclists that turn out the better my chances are of not being part of the carnage, so perhaps I’ll try to recruit more cycle soldiers for the cause/martyrdom. But then I suppose that would increase the chaos level, thereby evening out the odds of this Russian Roulette on wheels I’m considering partaking in. Darn it, now I’m really stumped.
35.
pamela gagan | July 13, 2011 at 5:11 pm
What a fiasco!!! Why plan an event just to cancel it at the last minute. I mean Im on mailing list and i had no idea July 10th had been canceled. I traveled to the downtown area by train from the valley and found nothing on Heliotrope. Nobody, no notice, no warning. Just automobile traffic! I am extremely disappointed at the organizers this event. Why cave in to pressure from community members who do not appreciate an event such as this? These are people who only care about what is convenient for themselves. It is myopic to not see how this enhances the quality of life for all Los Angeles residents.
36.
erg79 | July 13, 2011 at 7:01 pm
By “last minute”, you mean more than a month’s notice wasn’t enough? Check the date of this post.
Also, I got an email from CicLAvia on June 29th that the next full CicLAvia wasn’t going to be until October.
BTW, there was a big group ride that started at Hollenbeck Park, and from what I’ve read and saw, it looked like great fun.