CicLAvia Culver City Venice Open Thread

CicLAvia – Culver City meets Venice was another massive CicLAvia. Despite the usual fears from some businesses, the event was attended by huge numbers of cyclists, plus plenty of people on foot, skates, blades, skateboards, and more.

What was your favorite part of Southern California’s 14th CicLAvia? Shark and banana bikes? Little girls riding pink training-wheeled bikes? Impromptu front yard parties? Auto dealerships handing out fruit and water? Bike-share demos from coming-soon Metro and Santa Monica systems? Metro Board of Directors Chair and L.A. County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas and fellow boardmember L.A. City Councilmember Mike Bonin taking bike-share demo bikes for a spin? Added: Supervisor Hilda Solis too! L.A. Great Streets pop-up parklet announcing protected bike lanes coming to Venice Boulevard?!? Hard-shell tacos? Live music? Farmers Market? LADWP tap water refill stations? Spotting something you never noticed before? Beautiful Angelenos of every shape, size, and age smiling in the streets together?

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CicLAvia increases the capacity of Venice Boulevard. All photos: Joe Linton/Streetsblog L.A. except where specified.

CicLAvia converts Culver City, convinces Venice. All photos: Joe Linton/Streetsblog L.A.
CicLAvia converts Culver City, convinces Venice.
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Santa Monica’s Breeze Bike-Share bikes riding along the route
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B-cycle demonstrates Metro regional bike-share bikes at the Culver City hub
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Tito’s Tacos feared the event would close down their popular taco shop, but had plenty of customers arriving by bike, foot, and car.
xxx Photo: Sahra Sulaiman/Streetsblog L.A.
A happy sun shined on this Black Kids On Bikes feeder ride. Photo: Sahra Sulaiman/Streetsblog L.A.
CicLAvia is always a great day - for Angelenos of all ages
CicLAvia is always a great day – for Angelenos of all ages

Let us know how your CicLAvia went – add your comments below.

  • Joe Linton

    My 2-year old daughter and I enjoyed the day together. She liked the tacos (and I confess that I have a gabacho’s nostalgia for deep-fried hard-shell tacos of my suburban youth)

  • M

    This whole CicLAvia event felt like a trip to the LA that’s often sold to people in movies in tvs, minus all the cars. The weather was pretty much perfect, my friend and I rode the whole CicLAvia route and then continued riding up the beach on the bike path for another 6 miles, walked on the beach and then turned out. I love the sound of biking on a street filled with only bikes and how it’s finally quiet enough to just hear the sounds of pedals, gears and conversations. It feels more human than biking on a road normally filled with cars.

    With that said, where the route narrowed onto one side of the street, people seemed super confused and we saw the after math of a collision and the result was one extremely angry dude. He was the most uphappy CicLAvia-goer I’ve ever experienced in the something like 12 CicLAvia’s I’ve been too. Also, at some point in the afternoon on Washington I noticed a very lost car driving on the route.

  • Alexander Vucelic

    these events are profound – they do more to change people’s vision of what is possible than any other single advocacy action.

    plus contrats to the Taco Stand for having having its best ever sales day. ( just a guess ) bet the owner has seen the light.

  • ubrayj02

    The cat food tacos you refer to are a 1950’s white American’s version of an actual taco but, God bless ’em, they are not that bad.

    My family and I had an amazing day with friends. This was on par with the best CicLAvia ever. I am not sure which is best but the Wilshire route, the Pasadena route, and this one are my top three of all time.

    The bit where the route was narrowed to only one side of Venice was a decision of epic stupidity ( I feel) but then again, it got the ride up Grand to Windward and the VENICE sign and boardwalk. LA could have done a whole lot more on this particular stretch to make it easier to deal with crowds and LA parks and recreation or LA County could have stepped up bathroom cleanings (for Gods sake!) to make life better for everyone at the end of the route at the beach.

    An epic day though and my only hope is that the wonderful peace and happiness that so fleetingly occurs at these events will somehow spill over into Herb Wesson’s governing agenda. We need to get our moribund Bike Plan going again, stat!

  • User_1

    Yeap, I think we saw the same car. The car was going west on Washington Blvd between Overland and the 405, bout 4pm. It was going at a pretty good clip and fortunately there was very few riders on the part at the time. I turned around so I could help out as a witness if needed. I thought the driver (female w/male passenger) was going to get cited, but was just let off with a warning? I guess that would keep the drivers off the course huh?

  • M

    Sadly, I don’t think we saw the same car! I was on the Red Line at 4pm on my way home. I think I saw the car maybe around 2pm…. I also saw this article on Curbed about a car on the CicLAvia route. It’s not the same car I saw.. not sure if it’s the one you saw:

    http://la.curbed.com/archives/2015/08/car_ciclavia_route_culver_city_venice.php

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