Pasadena Draft Bike Master Plan Supports Ciclovías

Pasadena's Draft Bicycle Master Plan

This week, on Tuesday February 23rd, the city of Pasadena hosted a public meeting to unveil its draft Bicycle Master Plan and to receive public input. The plan includes listings of facilities, programs and policies that the city plans to implement over the next 10 years. The public input at the meeting included overwhelming support for implementing more facilities and programs to make Pasadena even more bike-friendly, though a few commenters expressed concern over the city’s plan for “emphasized bikeways” (which is what Pasadena is calling what other cities call “bike boulevards.”)  

The draft Pasadena Bicycle Master Plan states (page 87 of the PDF file online) in section 6.8 Promotional Campaigns:

Bike events: The City will continue its successful annual ride around the Rose Bowl (Figure 6-9) to encourage bicycle riding. The City also holds an annual Bike Week Pasadena to encourage people to cycle to work and other destinations. The City will condsider initiating a “cyclovia” [sic] where streets are closed to cars for bicycles and pedestrians.

CicLAvia (the group behind this website) is primarily working with the city of Los Angeles to bring ciclovía (the recurring car-free event started in Bogotá) to Los Angeles. Various cities hosting ciclovía create their own name for it. In Miami, it’s “Open Streets.” In San Francisco it’s “Summer Streets” … etc. We’re happy to hear ciclovía interest from Pasadena… though we’re going to suggest that they might spell it “ciclovía” or maybe make up their own name – how about “ciclodena” or “ciclopasa” or “pasavia”? 

CicLAvia’s long-term vision for ciclovía in Southern California includes an extensive network of regular street festivals connecting various municipalities. We’re looking forward to it someday possibly rivaling Bogotá’s regular weekly 80-miles long ciclovía network!