Some thoughts:

1. Its amazing how different the city feels just by swapping cars for bikes. I often complain about LA’s shabby, car-centric built environment – strip malls, too many curb cuts, an overabundance or parking structures, etc. While I think those complaints are valid, none of that stuff really bothered me yesterday. The lack of constant engine noise, fumes, and danger made a much bigger difference in how the streets feel than the other things I mentioned. In other words, “its the cars, stupid!”

2. Every CicLAvia is an affirmation to me of how amazing the people of this city are. Their beauty, diversity, creativity, and zest for life. i seriously feel rejuvenated just for having spent the day outdoors with such amazing folks.

3. It was really crowded yesterday. I’ve heard a few estimates on the headcount ranging from 150,000 to 500,000 people. Even at the low end, that’s just an insane number. It seems like no matter how much they lengthen the route, it just fills up again. We never need to worry about whether each CicLAvia will be successful. That’s just a given. We just need to ask “how large do we want CicLAvia to be?” Because the sky is the limit.

4. Speaking of congestion, I know they need to account for cars being able to traverse the city, but they really ought to open up both sides of Venice Blvd. if the do this route again.

5. That tall bike was REALLY tall. Like 20-25′. Crazy.

It was bad even before Venice. I mean, downtown is always crazy, 7th was bad, even Alvarado was bad.

What a great day for a ride to the beach, but I would say that this one didn’t feel as open ended as previous iterations. Maybe because it seemed that all the movement was going from downtown to Venice that if felt like a course instead of the open streets festival I’m used to riding. I think a simple remedy would be to close ALL of Venice so as to loosen the bottlenecks at the crossing points and provide more space for spontaneous activities.

Best of times. Worst of times. It was exhilarating. It was disheartening. The participation was incredible. The gridlock was incredible.

Unfortunately not having the day to myself just to enjoy the entire route and instead having to be in Hawthorne at 1 p.m., I was forced to bail out after not making it across Arlington in the span of three green lights — this after it took me an hour to go from downtown to the Mid-City area.

Let me repeat that: 60 minutes to go 5.5 miles. That’s what cars are for.

My support for CicLAvia is unwavering. My adulation for its organizers borders on idol worship. But it has become an event whose magnitude dictates changes be made so future ones are encouraging rather than discouraging.

While I’d like to see the routes closed off fully to any vehicular cross traffic, a compromise would be to train the traffic control officers at the various open intersections to keep the route open to bikes longer to better facilitate flow rather than stop-and-go.

My main concern is that Ciclavia is too long and showed the worst of the “bicycle freeway” complaints along the straightaways that I complain about, yet in some sections like through Culver City there were too many crossings. Since the hard core cyclists and folks that want to beat the heat bike in the morning, I’d extend it two or three hours in the AM direction. There is little traffic that would be affected and the road cyclists can get their head start.

One issue with this Ciclavia is that there were a markedly reduced number of walkers. In past events you’d have some power walkers in the street and quite a few people strolling either on the street or in the sidewalk. Much less of that, perhaps of the length. A few more skateboarders and rollerbladers but just a lot of bikes. The Expo Line is also not a high capacity bicycle carrier, unlike the subway. So there were long backups on that end.

Also there was a disregard of a lot of folks who cut on the left, on the other side of the cones, to jump the line. They get in the way of oncoming traffic and this is unsafe. It’s fine if you want to ride on the left to bypass traffic and get a jump start in the light but many people bypassed the queue and found themselves facing heavy bike traffic coming towards them. Fortunately there were no major issues I saw. The cyclists seemed to respect LAPD more than the poor volunteers yelling, but at the key locations there needs to be cops issuing tickets for bicyclists that jump the line on the other side of the cones.

I think the mandatory dismount zones were a plus to force people to slow coming down the hill. Perhaps a compromise of dismount zones at the hubs and fewer road crossings… Every mile or two instead of almost every half mile (with designated pedestrian crossings spaced in between them) would be better. A lot of folks chose to ride eastbound on Venice in car traffic just to avoid the crush.

The Wilshire route should be more conducive to walkers, skaters, etc since it is only 7 miles long. Long term the better Ciclavias are those in a cross formation with equal or nearly equal sized legs. That reduces the tendency to see it as a route that must be completed, rather than a linear park.

I felt the same about downtown. The traffic cops were letting a reasonable amount of bikes through each crossing point, not just following the traffic signals. Also, it seemed like less crossings on 7th. Downtown was great for me in the early part of the day. The crossings on Venice were tougher, usually taking trhee light cycles to get through.

Only complaint was that the car-crossings created some huge bottlenecks, especially for westbound cyclists. This is a basic result of there being SO many cyclists, and not enough room.

I think Ciclavia has reached a popularity level that it is worthy of some additional resources. This event really needed both directions of Venice Blvd to be made available to cyclists.

We started at the Grand traffic circle in Venice, and went just beyond the Culver City Hub. We saw how awful the backup was for westbound cyclists when we were heading eastbound past Culver City. It was enough to convince us to leave the Ciclavia route when we were headed back westbound to avoid the pileups. (We diverted south to Washington Blvd and cycled amongst the cars until we got back to the Culver City Main St. Hub, when we returned to Venice Blvd.)

Even so, in the early afternoon as we were headed back to the beach, there were several car crossings where we had to wait up to 3 light cycles before we were able to make it across and continue the ride.

Don’t get me wrong, it was still wonderful to be outside amongst the other cyclists, but I think this event is mainstream enough now that we can no longer skimp on the roads: we need big boulevards, in both directions.

I hear the next one is on Wilshire. Good. We need that much space.

In the morning most traffic was westbound. East bound traffic was a third to a half of westbound traffic, at least until I took my break in Mar Vista.

Oh my Lord, a David Galvan comment. I feel like it’s 2009.

I had something of a rough CicLAvia weekend. The bucket bike completely broke down on Friday, and Josef (hat tip http://flyingpigeon-la.com) actually converted it to a single speed bike for a short term fix because the long term one was going to take a lot of time. Then on the morning of, the back tire burst about 100 yards into the route, with baby girl sleeping in the front. If the Dan Rodman and the folks at Bikerowave weren’t geniuses the day would have involved a lot of pushing a bicycle. As it was, when we finished at the MV Farmer’s Market I was ready to roll at slow speed again. Dan called the burst tire a sign of freakishly bad luck. I never felt like more of a VIP in my life than these two titans of local advocacy giving up so much of their free time so I could do CicLAvia with my wife, mom and kids…both kids.

Sincere thanks.

Despite the smiles from WalkLAvia, it did seem to be more of a bike event than ever this time, with hundreds of cyclists pulling off into the hubs. I only visited two…slow speed bike, remember?, Mar Vista and Culver City. Both put on excellent shows.

I agree with the comments that next time they should open all of Venice. I know the CicLAvia team would love to do that. We just need to get the city to agree.

PS – I caught site of LADOT GM Jaime De La Vega taking a quick breather right next to Bikerowave, and I know he was at the presser downtown. That means someone at LADOT is well aware of the congestion issues on the north side of Venice Blvd.

I think downtown was better because it wasn’t the focal point with “arms” headed in several directions. On the other hand, bicyclists seemed very confused on what to do when the light turned green.

Interesting, thanks for sharing. I think the long route may have created a much different experience for each participant depending on where you came from and what time you hit a given point. Right away in the AM, there was a TON of westbound traffic those of us eastbound were riding against. I’m thinking at the time we hit downtown it may have reached its lightest load.

I don’t blame you in the least for getting out of it this time. I wouldn’t have risked having a kid in it either.

i agree.

Some requests for next time:

1. Please over- rather than underestimate the number of participants: Part of the idea of CicLAvia is to get more people out on bikes and enjoy the City that way. This goal is much easier reached if riding during the event actually is enjoyable and not an exercise in stop-and-go traffic. We ended up getting off the route to make some time so we could still have lunch in the local business we had planned to visit and were never able to get all the way to Venice because of the congestion on the route.

2. Open both directions of the road if CicLAvia uses this route again so the event is more enjoyable: The idea of a City-to-Sea route is unbelievably appealing. And aside from allowing people to see their City from the point of view of a cyclist, it would have been a great opportunity to show them that it is perfectly feasible to ride their bikes to their Sunday outings at the beach on a more regular basis. As it was it was too slow to convey the closeness of the beach and dangerous in many places because of the congestion. An event like this will attract a large number of the people who are not used to riding in traffic or don’t care much for those around them. Organizers need to provide enough room so that people can actually move. If too many of the riders swerve without first checking their surroundings when there is no room for others to avoid them tends to show people that cycling is dangerous rather then enjoyable.

3. The LAPD really needs to better train their cops: The Mayor may be convinced of the benefits of cycling but the cops sure aren’t. I’ve seen before where DTLA cops tried to give motorists all the wiggleroom in the world and at the same time refused to enforce the rights of cyclists. They tried to do the same again yesterday at the end of the event. We were riding down Main toward Union Station when cops came driving down the wrong way on Main, blocked the bike lane (!) and tried to order cyclists off the street and onto the sidewalks. When asked they said that’s because there were still too many cyclists on the streets. Really? So when the event ends, all that changes is that the normal rules of the road apply again on the route with bicyclists staying on the bike lane to the extent possible and stopping for red lights. The end of the event does not mean that cars get handed superior, or even exclusive, rights to the street.

Thanks to everyone who has shared their experiences and thoughts about CicLAvia! It is so encouraging to read your comments and invite other readers to chime in.

Juan and I rode from Santa Monica to the Culver City hub this time on our bikes. We have walked and used our Xootr Scooters at previous CicLAvias. It was a little stressful for me to be riding in such large platoons of bicycles because I had to be extremely vigilant of not stopping suddenly and of riding in a straight line (surprisingly difficult when you are going very slowly!). It was gratifying to see so many families and youth; it was also fascinating to see LA’s diverse populations integrated in a contained space, a departure from our racially and socioeconomically segregated landscape. We tried to make a point of stopping to businesses other than restaurants since they often do not make much money during CicLAvia. We did enjoy stopping by the Google Field Trip app booth.

I look forward to seeing how the event evolves over time. The event so clearly exemplifies how much latent demand and interest our residents have in riding a bicycle. It makes events like Santa Monica’s Kidical Mass so important — our kids deserve multiple opportunities throughout the year to participate in social group rides too.

Shawn Zeke tweets that hizzoner was “loudly complaining” about not having eastbound Venice:

https://twitter.com/decoder303/status/326395236978946048

The Netherlands started a large increase in building bicycle paths in their cities after a decade of protests that started with the motor fuel shortages in 1974.

Its unlikely that there could be a large sustained amount of protests in favor of bicycling in Los Angeles in the near future. But, CicLAvia does give a counter argument to ‘LA is different than other cities, people will not ride bicycles for transportation here.’ Or, ‘I never see any bicycles.’ Bringing a mass of bicycles to areas of the city that insist that every inch of road space has to be open to automobiles could be a game changer in terms of political support. I like to call it the meat tenderizer to soften up the tough resistance to installing bikeways.

CicLAvia not only enables people in Los Angeles to see bicycle riding in large numbers like there is in the Netherlands, but it also gives them the opportunity and perhaps inspiration to try riding a bicycle on the street. The more people participate in CicLAvia, the greater the quantity of drivers there will be who have ridden a bicycle on the street. This will give more support for taking away space from motorists to install bicycle infrastructure.

There is still a large segment of people who bicycle in Los Angeles that have never heard of CicLAvia. I always try to talk to people in the San Fernando Valley who I meet bicycling when the event draws near and the overwhelming majority of them have never heard of it. Imagine how much larger the number of bicycles will become at CicLAvia as the event becomes more widely known in Southern California.

Echoing many of the concerns of many commenters… It was SO CROWDED. I wouldn’t want it any other way, but it needs to be planned in a way to make it less dangerous. Especially at the car crossing intersections. I went from MacArthur Park to Mid City and back (I volunteered so they had me running errands) in the time it took to go from Mid City to Culver City. Especially around Culver, there were so many crossings in a short distance that it took forever… Some lights took three turns before I made it through which isn’t what CicLAvia is meant to be about. I know the West Side probably clamored for all these crossings, but it made the situation worse for all parties, drivers and participants alike. Combine the crowds with the Burning Man types riding their novelty tall bikes that are unwieldy and difficult to maneuver with the 3 year olds with training wheels/parents and you have a recipe for serious injuries.

I want to reiterate my idea for the next CicLAvia on this route: East vs. West dance off at mid-city. Capture it or livestream it and have a voting to determine which side of the city wins.

About the bike pile-ups: this actually made it super safe for those of us with kids and a few long stops on Venice and in DTLA are okay. However, waiting through 4 or 5 light cycles with nothing to do but look at the people stuck around you is really not that fun.

There is a lot that could have been done (with a bigger budget, I am sure) at the choke points.

I really think walking the route is the next big thing. Bikes are okay, but in these numbers and with this sort of silly forced waiting thing going on I think more needs to be done to get us all walking or jogging the route.

It’s certainly not about speed. This is a pedestrian event with bicycles, not a bicycling event. But there was a new level of gridlock and wrong-way bicycling. That’s what I was describing as “bad”.

This was a little frustrating to me as well. We spent a couple hours just trying to bike out to Venice from downtown, got to Culver City and realized there was no way we were making it out to Venice and back in the remaining time and congestion. We ate lunch in CC and headed back towards downtown around 2:30 with a decent sized group of random ppl. As we got close to downtown, the police were driving down Venice going westward with a car and group of motorcycles, blocking a good 3/4 of the total street (including all the west bound lanes and part of the eastbound lanes) saying the event was over. I get it was over, but it wasn’t as if everyone trying to bike back towards downtown was just going to *poof* disappear because it was over- many of us were trying to get back to downtown to get to the Metro station. A couple of cars ended up on Venice mixed in with the bikes once the streets reopened and I think they were rather confused about what to do with such a mob of cyclists surrounding them. I’m not sure what the best was to deal with the end of the event is, but it seems somewhat awkward with the current design.

Yes, agreed! I got through and out of DTLA right at 10am and that made all the difference.

We loved downtown because the skyscrapers provided shade (my little one still got sunburned arms and hands), and lots of restaurants to choose from, plus the Plaza/Olvera Street.

I can’t imagine doing it in June unless it opens up much earlier in the morning or opens at night.

How about a zig zag route, or a figure eight.

Imagine if there was a Ciclavia every weekend in Spring and Fall, in a different part of town each time.

Great post. My experience as a everyday bike commuter (Hollywood to Santa Monica) mirrors yours in that the majority of people out riding day-to-day don’t have any clue about Ciclavia when I ask whether they’re going.

I almost didn’t go because I bike to the sea every day but I’m glad I did. It was as fun and engaging as ever.

Love it!