Tune your bikes: CicLAvia is coming to Pomona, Claremont and La Verne next year

By Monica Rodriguez, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin

CicLAvia, the popular event that shuts down streets in Los Angeles to make way for bicycles, is coming to eastern Los Angeles County next year.
The event will take place from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. April 22, 2018, Earth Day, and will connect the cities of San Dimas, La Verne, Pomona and Claremont, CicLAvia Executive Director Romel Pascual,.
Preliminary plans have participants following a route that would traverse just over 7 miles, he said. The cities will close the streets along the route to vehicle traffic, giving residents of the participating cities a chance to stroll, bike, skate and skateboard along the streets all while stopping at hubs along the way.


“This is a big collaborative effort,” Pascual said.
The four cities and the San Gabriel Valley Council of Governments are working to organize the event in conjunction with CicLAvia.
Funding is coming from $596,000 grant the cities and the Council of Governments have secured from the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, or Metro, said Marisa Creter, assistant executive director of the San Gabriel Valley Council of Governments.
Specifically, grant dollars can assist in paying for traffic control, street closures and programming, Creter said.


In addition, the cities and the Council of Governments will assist contribute through in-kind services, she said.
CicLAvia, which has organized more than 20 such events since 2010 and expects to organize five this year alone, will also assist in various ways, including handling outreach and event production, Pascual said.
CicLAvia began in 2008 as a grass-roots initiative on the premise that open streets events “could address active transportation, urban land use and public health needs in Los Angeles,” according to the organization’s website.


The inspiration for the events came from Bogota, Colombia, where ciclovia events began in 1974.
The first CicLAvia was held in Los Angeles in October 2010, according to the organization’s website. Since then, events have been organized across the city of Los Angeles and have grown to including one or more nearby cities, Pascual said.
Past events have included San Gabriel Valley cities, but the April 2018 event will be the first to reach the far eastern end of the county, he said.
The uninitiated sometimes believe open streets events are races that require participants to get from one end of the route to the other, Pascual said.

Open streets events allow people from different neighborhoods to introduce others to their communities, Pascual said.


“Folks are so excited to be able to showcase their communities,” he said.
Gwen Urey, a professor of urban and regional planning at Cal Poly Pomona who also lives in Pomona and is a bicycle rider, said an open streets event can prompt residents to get out and walk, bike, skate or skateboard and do so as a family — and at the same time learn about the city where they live.
“It gives them a chance to experience their own city,” Urey said.
In the case of Pomona, CycLAvia can be a means for those who live in other cities to see that “there are cool things here,” she said.


“Its would be a good chance for Pomona to put on its Sunday best and show the county” all the city has to offer, Urey said.