Because of its two-wheeler sounding name, some people understandably think the closed-streets urban festival called CicLAvia is entirely a bicycling affair.
Not so. Walkers, scooter riders, skaters — anyone unmotorized is welcome to the party.
And for the first time in the almost five years since its founding, the event is coming to the San Gabriel Valley this Sunday, May 31, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. as 3.5 miles of Pasadena’s Colorado Boulevard will be closed to motor vehicles and open to everyone else.
From the far western reaches of Old Pasadena at Pasadena Avenue to east of Pasadena City College at Bonnie Avenue, the famous street that is home to the Rose Parade — not to mention the Little Old Lady of, and the offices of the Pasadena Star-News — will be entirely transformed by the absence of cars, etc., and the presence of people. No fender-benders, no smoking tailpipes, no drag-racing — no jaywalking tickets, either.
The LA in the event’s name is on purpose; Los Angeles has been the main focus for CicLAvia since the first event in October 2010, in which streets were closed to automotive traffic from East Hollywood to Hollenbeck Park. Since then, there have been events expanding out from downtown into Chinatown, Boyle Heights, Exposition Park, Venice, South Los Angeles, and, earlier this spring, for the first time in the San Fernando Valley.
Now it’s the SGV’s turn — some are calling this weekend’s event CicLAdena — and we welcome it all for its freewheeling sense of fun, but by no means just because of that. When you close down a famous city’s historic main drag that has known almost nothing but vehicular traffic 24/7 for over a century, you open it up to an amazing array of possibilities. When you are not staring out of a windshield, you see the shops and churches, the schools and theaters, the very intersections with other streets in an entirely different way. While it is still possible to use Colorado Boulevard as a commuting street — and some people do, particularly when the 210 Freeway is gridlocked — the fact is that its main purpose is as a shopping and dining and strolling heart of the city. Cars are and have been secondary to it for generations. New urbanist planner Fred Kent told Pasadena Playhouse District leaders several years ago that at four lanes, Colorado is twice too wide every day of the year but New Year’s Day when the parade runs down it.
Two lanes should be taken out every other day. Parklets should bloom along its curbs. Whole blocks should be shut down to traffic much of the time for farmers markets and other strolling-oriented commerce. Wouldn’t that be anti-business? The reverse is true. You can discover a lot more, and buy a lot more, on foot than zooming by at 35 mph. Come Sunday, walkers and riders going the whole route will see places they had no idea existed before. Colorado is paralleled by two one-way streets, Union and Green, that can handle all the necessary automotive traffic.
CicLAvia is based on Ciclovia, Spanish for bike path, which originated in Bogota out of a realization automobiles entirely dominated the Colombian capital. Some streets were closed every Sunday to promote a new way of urban life that harkened back to an old way of life in the market towns. Soon, perhaps, every Sunday should be CicLAvia-like in every one of the San Gabriel Valley and Whittier area’s downtowns.
