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Entries tagged: Ciclovia

This past weekend, 15 advocates gathered at the Alliance’s Winning Campaigns Training in Tucson, Ariz., to launch five new campaigns that will improve walking and biking in their communities.

The event was hosted by local advocacy organization Living Streets Alliance, who set a high mark by bringing 11 members to the training.  The training also served as a follow-up to the Action 2020 Workshop put on by Advocacy Advance in Tucson last September.

Not surprisingly, the majority of the campaigns created at the training will be carried out in Arizona. Living Streets Alliance launched three campaigns for Tucson, including:

• Expanding the city’s open streets initiative, Cyclovia
• Launching a Pedestrian Safety Campaign aimed at securing new funding and
• Creating a new regional master plan for biking and walking

A coalition of advocates from Phoenix launched a campaign to create a Ciclovia in their community, while the one out-of-state campaign came from the Atlanta Bicycle Coalition, who created a complete streets campaign in DeKalb County, Georgia. Energy was high throughout the weekend, as participants were able to step back from the grind of day-to-day advocacy to plan out their campaigns.

The Alliance is hosting three more Winning Campaigns Trainings this year, in Boston, Houston and Kansas City. Learn more about these exciting weekends here.

Click here to check out photos from the training.

As Open Streets initiatives continue to grow in both frequency and size across the continent, the Alliance for Biking & Walking and the Street Plans Collaborative launched OpenStreetsProject.org today to document the growth of these initiatives and provide resources to foster continued development. An accompanying best practices guide will be completed in the next few weeks and will be available for purchase as a hard copy or as a free download on the website.

Open Streets initiatives temporarily close streets to automobiles, allowing residents to walk, bike, skate, dance and utilize the roadways in countless creative and active ways. From Seattle to Miami, and Los Angeles to Ottawa, open streets initiatives have become a way for cities to build community, promote active transportation and reconnect neighborhoods divided by traffic.

“I’ve personally seen numerous Open Streets events in cities around the U.S. and, without fail, each of them has been tremendously inspirational,” Jeff Miller, Alliance President/CEO says. “Open Streets are not just an excellent way for cities to promote biking and walking; they inspire citizens to see their streets as public spaces.”

Open streets have exploded in popularity across North America in the past six years. In 2005 there were fewer than 10 documented initiatives across North America. Now there are more than 65, drawing hundreds of thousands of participants each year. OpenStreetsProject.org allows organizers to share information on their initiative and explore other initiatives across the continent. The site also provides helpful resources for organizers looking to start a new initiative or grow an existing initiative in their community.

“The Open Streets Project aims to support this exciting movement by providing advocates and organizers with a comprehensive overview of organizational and implementation strategies,” says Mike Lydon, Founding Principal of The Street Plans Collaborative. “The Project includes a significant, open source website intended to not only keep information current for all existing and future initiatives, but to also provide a free web presence for those communities who should focus their limited resources on implementation rather than building websites. In this way, we believe the Project will be a catalyst for the continued growth of the open streets movement.”

If your city or organization has information to share about an Open Streets initiative in your community, please contact Mike Samuelson, Alliance Member Services and Open Streets Coordinator, at (202) 449-9692 x7 or mike@PeoplePoweredMovement.org.

Thanks to the advocates at BikeDenver, the Mile High City is now on the map.

Less than 10 months in the making, Viva Streets debuted in Denver this past Saturday and 7,500 residents took advantage of the city’s first Open Streets event.

Organized and hosted by BikeDenver and LiveWell Colorado (and funded, in part, by Bikes Belong), the four-hour festival closed down a two-mile stretch of 23rd Avenue to automobiles and invited citizens to experience their public space in creative and active ways.

“The turnout was amazing,” Piep VanHeuven, BikeDenver’s executive director, says.

“Four city councilmembers — almost a third of the council — attended the opening ceremonies and the bike parade that followed. People packed the route and many greeted and visited with friends and neighbors. More than 150 volunteers helped with activity zone offerings and monitoring the route as roving marshals. Local businesses got into the groove, too, offering everything from solar-power baked chocolate chip cookies to street side shish-ka-bob. My favorite was the ping-pong table that spontaneously appeared in the middle of the street.”

Not surprisingly, the successful event won wide coverage from local media. The Westword newspaper raved: “Bikes of all varieties ruled the road, but scooters, skateboards and rollerblades wheeled alongside. Pedestrians and runners weaved their way around. Twister, street hockey, basketball, hopscotch, jump rope, hula hoops and other games filled the shopping districts and parks. Music played from stages, impromptu drum circles, boomboxes on bikes and standing symphonic ensembles. Amenities were aplenty and sidewalk chalk scrawled into the streets.”

For VanHeuven, the take-away from the event was clear. “Denver was really ready for a ciclovia,” she says. “We had trouble getting people off the route and could easily have kept it going until 4 p.m. We’ve already had inquiries about bringing Viva Streets to other areas of Denver next year, as well as questions from City Park / Park Hill and Stapleton residents who want a street closure every month.”

Want to learn more about Viva Streets? Sign up for the Alliance’s upcoming Mutual Aid Call, “Open New Doors with Open Streets Events” and discuss the growing movement with VanHeuven and other Alliance leaders.

The event was three weeks ago, but we’re willing to bet that folks in Los Angeles are still smiling about CicLAvia.

On 10-10-10, the City of Angels hosted its first open streets event, closing a 7-mile stretch to automobiles and throwing open the floodgates for car-free fun. The public rushed in: An estimated 50-100,000 participants showed up on foot, on bikes, on inline skates and plenty of other creative means of self propulsion to reclaim their public space.

The Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition was a key partner in making the event possible and (wo)manned a pit stop in MacArthur Park. Over the course of the day, advocates supplied bicyclists and pedestrians with water, energy bars, air for their tires, LACBC brochures, and route information. But mostly they reveled in the unprecedented and off-the-chain atmosphere.

“Several families stopped by — many from the first ever MidDay Ridazz Family/Kids’ ride — and it gave us hope to see some of the future leaders of the bicycle movement out on their bikes, experiencing how fun and efficient bicycling can be,” membership manager, Carol Feucht, wrote on LACBC’s blog. “Props to the one kid who explained to a pit stop visitor and me what sharrows were and where we could find them. That’s a future LACBC employee right there!”

Over on Streetsblog LA, writer Damien Newton noted that, even residents who didn’t directly participate, benefited from CicLAvia. It wasn’t just the cyclists and pedestrian who were inspired by the wide open roads. The success of the event trickled far beyond the streets themselves. “CicLAvia touched hundreds of thousands of people, even if it was just that they heard laughing on their streets instead of cars honking their horns,” Newton wrote. Organizers hope to make that millions in 2011. Four days after the event, still basking in the success, the CicLAvia board met. They’re still in the early planning stages, but LA residents could be treated to as many as half-a-dozen LA open streets events next year.

The sooner the better: Feucht joked that Angelinos already are suffering from CicLAvia withdrawal, pondering the creation of a support group to ease the pain until the next event. “Our cheeks hurt from smiling so much, and we can’t wait until the next one,” Feucht added. “Sunday, October 10, 2010 will be remembered as the day Angelinos came together to reclaim their streets by playing in them.”

For a tiny dose of that day’s energy, check out the StreetsFilms above.

Last Saturday, on a road that’s usually traversed by cars, a crowd of eager kids from Savannah, Georgia, gathered to ride bikes and learn strategies to keep them safe on two wheels.

The Kids’ Ciclovia was the first in the city, opening the block around Tiedman Park to bike and pedestrian traffic only. The event was particularly festive thanks to members of the Savannah Bicycle Campaign and Specialized Bikes. Drew Wade, SBC’s former executive director, says the Ciclovia showcased two exciting developments.

“The first was to celebrate the opening of a new 1.6-mile bike lane on Washington Avenue, Savannah’s first in 10 years, and we hope the first of many to come,” Wade says. “The second purpose was to announce new equipment secured by a grant to SBC and the City of Savannah from Specialized Bikes — 10 bikes and 40 helmets, with the accompanying trailer supplied by the city — to be used by our LCIs [League Cycling Instructors] in teaching through schools, civic and neighborhood groups.”

The value of the grant, including the local match, rings up to $7,500, and SBC members are looking forward to using the new 10-foot trailer to take their safety training to kids across the city.

For more on the ciclovia, check out SBC’s blog. Or browse the group’s Flickr page for a gallery of (very cute) photos.

According to the Missouri Bicycle and Pedestrian Federation, “Ciclovia—the street festival where cities close down miles of streets and residents come out to enjoy walking, bicycling, scootering, skating, and all other manner of fun physical activity—is coming to Missouri in a big way this summer.

Kansas City’s Car Free Weekends on Cliff Drive are entering their third year and have been a very successful program.  By removing cars from the drive on weekends, more citizens are able to enjoy bicycling and walking and crime has been reduced significantly. Now Kansas City is expanded on this successful program by creating the city’s first full-blown Sunday Parkways festival.” St. Louis is also expanding it’s ciclovia programming this summer. 

The Missouri Bicycle and Pedestrian Federation is working to bring ciclovia festivals to cities around Missouri.  The state has gone from no Missouri ciclovia festivals in 2007, to one in 2008, and now seven planned for 2010.

Learn more at MoBikePedFed.

According to the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, tens of thousands of adults and kids flooded the car-free Embarcadero on this year’s first San Francisco Sunday Streets event. The second 2010 Sunday Streets event is planned for Sunday April 11th from Golden Gate Park to the Great Highway. According to the SF Bicycle Coalition, “the Sunday Streets route will be hopping with activity from bicycling to dancing and rollerskating, yoga to hula-hooping.”

The SF Bicycle Coalition is coordinating the volunteer corps that make all Sunday Streets events possible. For each of the nine 2010 Sunday Streets events, more than 150 volunteers will make the event happen. If you’re in San Francisco and want to get involved, sign up at sundaystreetssf.com/volunteer.

For more information on SF’s Sunday Streets see http://www.sundaystreetssf.com.
Read press coverage of the 1st 2010 Sunday Streets event at the SF Chronicle.

According to Walk + Roll Cleveland, “ Kaiser Permanente has provided seed funding for six Walk+Roll programs in neighborhoods all over the greater Cleveland area!

Saturday, May 15 in Cleveland’s Kamm’s Corners neighborhood will kick off the 2010 Summer of walking and rolling! Walk+Roll is partnering with Taste of Kamms which is a new event to celebrate this family-friendly neighborhood and it’s streetscaped Lorain Avenue.

Other neighborhoods and dates will be revealed soon. Always free and always fun for everyone, this year’s Walk+Roll initiative will include our signature street-closings plus also free guided bicycle rides and walks to secret places you’ve probably never experienced. With six events spread over the summer and throughout the city, you will be continually reminded and encouraged to walk and bike more in your daily life which will make your world cleaner, greener, wealthier and healthier.”

Walk + Roll is a ciclovia-type event that temporarily closes streets to cars and opens them to people on bike, foot, and skates. Learn more by visiting http://www.walkroll.com.

According to the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition (SFBC), a record number of people came out for the ciclovia-style Sunday Streets in San Francisco’s Mission district in early June. The party stretched nearly a dozen blocks and the festivities included walking, biking and dancing. Sunday Streets was initiated in 2008 by SFBC, Livable City, and other local partners. See photos of the event here. The overwhelming turnout illustrates a yearning for more car-free recreational areas.

For more information, click here…

Thousands of New Yorkers turned out to participate in the first two installments of Summer Streets, a ciclovía-style event presented by the City of New York. A temporary street closure spanning 90 consecutive blocks, Summer Streets provides a car-free, recreational route between Central Park and the Brooklyn Bridge. Along this car-free route, the Department of Transportation and sponsors host art, dance and fitness classes, musical performances and bike-related activities. Many adjacent side streets host citizen-organized activities ranging from double-dutch tournaments to scooter races.
Summer Streets is the culmination of a season of unprecedented pedestrian-oriented street events, spearheaded by community coalitions and Transportation Alternatives, and made possible by City agencies. While raising the profile of public space is a primary goal of Summer Streets, the timing for this event has much to do with the City’s interest in reducing motor vehicle traffic, improving public health through urban design and meeting its own sustainability goals, and bringing us some summer-time fun too.