Sunday August 11 is a big day for bicyclists and a particularly big day for bicyclists in the Mid-City communities. Four years in the planning, “CicloSDias will be the city of San Diego’s first open street event” according to Sam Ollinger. Sam is the Executive Director and Board President of BikeSD. Sam goes on to say:
With this first event, San Diego will join the ranks of 90 other cities around the U.S. in an attempt to showcase an apparently wary San Diego that no disaster will befall our fine city if she opens her street to people and closes it off to multi-ton motor vehicles for a few hours on a Sunday.
This idea to introduce the city’s residents to the notion of reclaiming the public commons and experiencing it without fear of bodily harm that may come in the form of an automobile barreling toward them at high speed…
5.2 miles of streets, approximately 1 mile of which is in City Heights, will be open solely for non-motorized traffic – pedestrians, bicyclists, skaters, and scooters. The event is entirely free. Enter from any portion of the route from 10 am to 4 pm.
Randy Van Vleck, Active Transportation Manager for the City Heights Community Development Corporation (CHCDC) adds “If you enjoy actively using streetscapes (streets and sidewalks) in one of the ways listed above, but feel like you need a break from defensively looking for cars at the thousands of driveways, alleys, and intersections in City Heights, then you will really appreciate this event.”
Please send your City Heights photos and stories about this event to contact@sandiegofreepress.org We want to hear from you!
Staff
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Looks like a lot of fun. Curious map, though. Only communities identified are North Park and Downtown. The latter is a misnomer, thats either Logan Heights or Grant Hill area? Missing: City Heights (Cherokee Point neighborhood) and Greater Golden Hill (after passing along next to Burlingame, then south to South Park, Brooklyn Heights, Golden Hill neighborhoods). See ya out there!
This will be a fabulous event. Join others from OB and enjoy your Sunday by bike.
Leaving at 10am off Voltaire and Soto St, heading through Spanish Landing and Downtown to the Coronado Bridge. We will start in Barrio Logan and enjoy the open streets of fun, culture, and community as we travel the 5 miles through South Park and many other neighborhoods into North Park. We will head home through Hillcrest and take a glance at CityFest. Home through Mission Hills and Presidio to enjoy a beautiful sunset. Come join the adventure – anytime, anywhere in route. Thank you to OB Rag for making note of this awesome event. Hope to see you on the road.
So glad this is finally happening. How unfortunate that this is scheduled the same day as City Fest over in Hillcrest, forcing some to have to choose between these events.
Eric, I saw your comment on the CicloSDias Facebook page where you said basically the same thing. Fortunately, I think you are one of the very few people who are being “forced” to choose between CicloSDias and ConsumptionFest.
Hmmm, well it does seem like the events are similar in nature. The streets are closed to cars, people in the community get to enjoy the neighborhood and have a sense of community, etc. why have them compete when there’s so many other days in they year? Not sure what you mean by consumption fest, I walked to the event, strolled around fifth ave without having to compete for space with cars, watched some good local bands play, and sat at a table along fifth avenue with friends and watched all the entertaining people go by, all without spending a single dollar. I would have liked to do the same thing at the coco event had it been scheduled for another day, and I know I’m not the only one who felt that way.
In fact the ciclosdias event was originally scheduled for later in August. After the date was changed, the hillcrest business association withdrew its letter of full support, instead supporting the concept of the event, but not the date: http://hillcrestbia.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Binder112.pdf
My wife and I rode our recumbent tandem at CicloSDias today – good turnout, perfect weather, well organized and really fun. It actually took a while to get used to no vehicle traffic since we have such a well defined protocol for avoiding the steel and glass behemoths. Anyway, it was good to see so many kids on bikes, and almost all of them wore helmets; good job parents.