CicLAvia Announces Route, Asks for Help

September 12 is going to rock.  The “M’s” are Metro rail stops along the CicLAvia.

How long do you think it would take to bike from the Bicycle Kitchen in East Hollywood to Hollenback Park on the other side of the I-5 on East 4th Street?  What if the streets were closed to cars and open to bicyclists and pedestrians?

Yesterday, via a video on Kickstarter and later in the evening on their blog, CicLAvia announced the streets and “route” that will be closed on September 12 for Los Angeles’ first “open street festival.”  CicLAvia will feature 7 miles of streets in six communities without cars stretching from Boyle Heights to East Hollywood running right through the heart of Downtown Los Angeles.

Remember, CicLAvia isn’t just about a party, although the event should be great fun.  It’s also about giving people that don’t think about living car-free or car-reduced lives a chance to live, for a day, the kind of lives so many Streetsbloggers enjoy.  Similar festivals have been held in cities such as San Francisco, Portland and New York City and helped move those cities towards a cleaner transportation policy and Livable Streets.

You can read a full description of the route at the CicLAvia blog and it’s really a must-read if you have any interest in the topic.  While the video on Kickstarter is amazing, they point of the video is to raise $7,000 for CicLAvia.  At the end of its first day, it had raised almost $3,000 of it.