In the comments section yesterday, our friend Jessica Meaney joked that we should all get the day after CicLAvia off to read all the stories and check out all the pictures that people post. Since we haven't even gotten a resolution authored to that effect at City Hall, Streetsblog decided to scour the web for some of the best coverage of Sunday's car-free party to make your reading a little easier.
My favorite story comes from Los Angeles Times columnist Sandy Banks. If the purpose of events such as CicLAvia isn't just to let people have a great time outside, but also to convince people sceptical of the Livable Streets Movement of the validity of our cause, we could find no better test case than a writer who last appeared on Streetsblog for attacking the Wilbur Avenue Road Diet.
Not only did her presence at last month's insane public meeting convince her to give the Diet a second chance, CicLAvia seems to have convinced her that riding a bike to get from point a to point b isn't such a cray idea and that designing streets that are safe for all users is a good one.
Mission accomplished.
Another great piece on the larger social value of CicLAvia comes from our old friend Fred Camino at The Source. Camino writes, in what is clearly labeled an opinion piece, that:
...it served as a depressing reminder of the hierarchy of priorities here in L.A. and many other American cities. Cars own the streets. Everyone else is literally pushed to the curb...The success of CicLAvia proves that it doesn’t have to be this way and that the hierarchy is wrong. Over 100,000 people took to the seven-mile route yesterday on bike, foot, skateboard, rollerblade, stroller and other contraptions that aren’t spelled c-a-r... And I imagine if 100,000 cars took to that seven mile route yesterday there would be a lot more grimacing and cursing than the smiling camaraderie I witnessed.
Another old friend, Zach Behrens, interviewed four families for his new site at KCET. What was the common thread between four very diverse families that "drove" them to CicLAvia? Safety. When parents feel its safe for their kids to ride the street, they're a heck of a lot more likely to let them out to do so.
And now for some pictures:
The "Skipper" of the Eagle Rock Yacht Club joked that the event gave him a sore butt, but he also posted a great photographic montage of the event which included a lot more than just dodgeball.
Another great group of photos came from Streetsblog contributer Brigham Yen, who also wrote about the empowering and transformational nature of his first CicLAvia.
So these were my five favorite stories from the hundreds of articles covering CicLAvia. If there's any I missed, let me know and we'll get them in tomorrow's Today's Headlines roundup. If you haven't gotten enough CicLAvia yet, join us at our fundraiser on Friday for the unveiling of our Streetfilm on CicLAvia II.
