Another awesome CicLAvia event is now in the books and we have a lot of fond memories to look back on. We thought we’d take some time to thank and acknowledge our LADOT co-workers who help make the big day possible. It takes a small army of LADOT staff to make sure that large events like CicLAvia go off without a hitch. LADOT is responsible for managing the logistics of street closures – or in this case, street openings for bicycles and pedestrians.
This past Sunday, nearly 200 traffic officers worked with LAPD to coordinate 19 traffic crossings along the route. LADOT field operations crews posted over 600 temporary no parking signs to ensure that the route would be clear of parked cars. A team of 35 traffic engineers and field operations crews spent the wee hours of the morning erecting 2,000 barricades, securing the route for the hundred thousand plus revelers who would eventually pedal, walk, run, or jog the streets on a wonderful Sunday afternoon.
And of course, the LADOT Bike Program was out in full force handing out bicycle maps, bike lights, reflectors, and patch kits. Special thanks also to the CicLAvia event organizers and volunteers, LAPD, LAFD, paramedics on bikes, Metro, Metrolink, the Mayor’s Office, the Department of Public Works Bureau of Sanitation, and to all the other CicLAvia partners, supporters, and enthusiasts who came out this past Sunday. We can’t wait till the next one!
I saw a group of riders going past me in the other direction with the brown t-shirts with the LADOT insignia on them. I turned to catch up and found out it wasn’t just bikeways staff that had the t-shirts, but that the entire department had the opportunity to get one. I even saw a teenager on the subway that had the shirt on.
If your second picture above doesn’t prove that you can move a lot more people on bikes in this amount of space, than in cars, then at some point people will come to this realization as the event grows.
Does anyone else wonder how tens of thousands of people showed up on bikes when there isn’t a significant amount of bikeway infrastructure for miles around the areas where CicLAvia took place? Just imagine what the size of the crowd is going to be when the amount of bike lanes that can connect people directly to the event increases substantially. It’s hard to fathom how many more people can show up.
I have been to all four CicLAvia’s. The first one was surprising how many people initially came. But, this last one was jaw dropping in the number of people that showed up. It looked like a sea of people on bicycles.
I handed out LACBC stickers, brochures and bike spoke cards for several hours in the bicycle district on Heliotrope. Some of the people would tell me that they didn’t live in the area when I tried to give them something. So, I would ask them where they are from and I got responses of So. Orange Cty, Pomona, New York City, San Bernardino etc. There were also two guys that came in from Palm Springs with their friend from Austria who came just to participate in CicLAvia. This event is becoming a big draw for people from a lot of cities
[…] of the city; even without it, neighborhoods like NoHo can be great places to ride. Meanwhile, LADOT can’t wait for the next one; neither can I, since I missed this one. A 14-year old Monterey Park rider is critically injured in […]