CicLAvia

(This is part one of our coverage of yesterday's groundbreaking Open Street Festival.  Hopefully later today we'll have up a Streetfilm.  Tomorrow we'll review the reviews of CicLAvia. - DN.)

Well, it's finally here.  Sunday is CicLAvia!  Most people that read Streetsblog regularly already know how to have fun in the streets, as evidenced above. That makes it contingent on us to welcome anyone who appears to be playing in the street for the first time.

August of 2008.  It seems so long ago.  Two L.A. Streetsblog stories attracted more than ten comments.  One was on a protest of the SMPD's over policing of Critical Mass by blocking intersections in Santa Monica by crossing the street over and over.  The other was on Metro's efforts to improve bike/bus relations.

Please note this is for the 2010 CicLAvia. For information on riding to the 04/10/2011 CicLAvia event please go to http://www.bikerowave.org.

This morning, mayor Antonio Villaraigosa held a press conference to invite the city to participate in CicLAvia, L.A.'s first open streets festival, on October 10th 2010. The mayor spoke fondly of his trips to Copenhagen and Mexico City and contrasted their bike-populated streets to those of Los Angeles. The mayor related the story that he had returned from Mexico City, where he had seen their ciclovía event on the Via Reforma. He asked his staff "why don't we do this here?" and they connected him with the nascent CicLAvia efforts... and the result will play out on seven miles of Los Angeles streets next month.

(editor's note - If people enjoy the Streetfilms' on the Ciclovia's happening across the country and the world, you can find a gallery with all of them here.- DN)

When I woke up on Sunday Morning here in Mexico City and looked out my window down at the giant Reforma Blvd., it was full of hundreds of cyclists. Without knowing it, I had stumbled into one of Mexico City's weekly Ciclovia events where miles of major Boulevards are closed off to automobile traffic and instead taken over by cyclists, rollerskaters, walkers, soccer players, dogs, children and many more.