CicLAvia

An impromptu interview with Villavaso at San Francisco Sunday Streets, March 2011

Change is in the air for CicLAvia, the gigantic car-free party that has changed the way Angelenos think about their streets.  First, the date for this October's CicLAvia V has been moved forward from the original date of October 14 to October 7.  With the city planning to bring a space ship through the streets on the weekend of October 14, CicLAvia obliged the city and space fans by agreeing to move this event to October 7.  The streets will open to bicyclists, pedestrians and all non-motorized road users at 10 am and remain open until 3 pm on the 7th.  Details of the spaceship's parade route have yet to be announced.

For CicLAvia, figuring out how, when and where to expand has been its biggest challenge.  While CicLAvia is free to attend, it costs a lot of money to push past the current 10-mile route, closing streets to cars, providing police support and re-routing car drivers who find entrences and exits from the freeway blocked.  Despite CicLAvia's success, money to expand has been hard to find.

Before CicLAvia, Streetsblog reached out to the five major declared candidates for Mayor of Los Angeles in the March 2013 elections.  All five wrote responses of some sort, and they are listed below in the order in which they are received.  We asked the candidates to describe their day on Sunday, but not all were in attendence at CicLAvia IV but wished to write about past experiences.

In Boyle Heights, CicLAvia is sometimes the first chance for people in the neighborhood to venture off the sidewalk and onto the streets on a bicycle, or provides local businesses an opportunity to get creative in the way they get involved in the ten and a half mile "open street" block party.

(Throughout the day we'll be adding personal stories from our three regular writers who were at CicLAvia about how they spent their Sunday. - DN)

In an announcement that caught even some CicLAvia organizers by surprise, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa announced this morning at the "CicLAvia opening" that CicLAvia partners Bike Nation will establish a permanent footprint in Los Angeles this December.  The cost to the city will be minimal, as Bike Nation promises to pay for all of the 4,000 bikes and 400 kiosks coming to Downtown Los Angeles, Hollywood, Venice Beach and Westwood.  Bike Nation estimates it could take a full year to complete the installation.

Although it may not have its own full-fledged CicLAvia extension just yet, you can still start your day off in a celebration of South L.A.