September had plenty of change and excitement in the world of open streets, transportation and environment. Here’s this month’s Word on the Street:
September 2015 Word on the Street
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After weeks of remaining tightlipped and secretive, we finally unveiled the identity of CicLAvia’s new Executive Director in early September. Romel Pascual has taken the reins at CicLAvia after being an instrumental force behind the scenes from the beginning of the organization. Our press release talking about Romel’s extensive work surrounding transportation, energy and environment was picked up by a number of outlets. In this Streetsblog interview you can hear Romel lay out his vision for CicLAvia.
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Romel and our production team members Malia and Rachel went to Atlanta last week to participate in the National Open Streets Summit. Representatives from cities throughout North America spent three days together learning best practices and sharing their experiences of putting on open streets events. The conference ended with participants joining Atlanta’s four-mile open streets event on Sunday.
Romel & Rachel cruising the open streets of #ATL! 🚴🏾 #atlantastreetsalive #openstreets15 @ATLStreetsAlive pic.twitter.com/rWefhHHopv
— CicLAvia (@CicLAvia) September 27, 2015
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Open streets events received a big international boost when Paris put on their inaugural event on September 27, going without cars for a day. According to Wired, “The mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, was clear in her purpose. She has said that people ‘are not obliged to move around in a personal car, there are other ways to approach mobility in a city.’” The Wired story goes on to talk about the global car-free movement. Check out the article here.
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Regional transportation continues to expand and improve thanks to Metro. Earlier this month, the agency unveiled its new Azusa train stations. Though trains are not scheduled to reach this expansion point on the Gold Line for several months, the excitement generated by the opening festivities will have people lining up when the train does come through.
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It wasn’t all love and appreciation for car-free travel in the media this month. Los Angeles Times Sacramento political columnist George Skelton stirred up some passionate responses when he and his car came across a long bicycle event in Lake Tahoe and was lengthily delayed by the cyclists. He took out his frustration in a column in which he called for a tax on all bicycles to help pay for transportation infrastructure. You can read his original column here. Make sure to read the comments as well - there are some doozies!
