The countdown has begun across much of Los Angeles: At the time of this writing, one of the city’s most anticipated public events is four days and 15 hours away.
If you like to ride bicycles, chances are you’ve been looking forward to Sunday’s CicLAvia. The enormously popular biannual event attracts thousands of cyclists who, for a change, have the run of the road.
Called CicLAvia, it’s L.A.'s version of Ciclovía—Spanish for “bike path”—the weekly street closure in Bogotá, Colombia, that has become a byword for car-free streets.
This will be the third Sunday in three years when 10 miles of roads across parts of East Los Angeles and Downtown will become free—absolutely free—of motor vehicles.
Instead, from 10 a.m. through 3 p.m. on April 15, certain streets stretching from Boyle Heights to Downtown and MacArthur Park to East Hollywood will be open exclusively to cyclists, runners, skaters and walkers. (Check the attached map for details.) The only other time this will happen again this year will be on Sunday, October 9.
This isn’t just an event for anyone who prefers human locomotion to the vehicular variety, whether occasionally or permanently. It’s also meant "to rediscover the roadways and neighborhoods that too often go unnoticed in a car,” according to the organization’s website.
