ArroyoFest

Commentary: the Bay Area Needs its Own “Arroyo Fest”

From SF.Streestblog.org

What San Francisco and Oakland can learn from Los Angeles… yes, Los Angeles

By Roger Rudick

Los Angeles closed seven miles of the Arroyo Seco Parkway for one Sunday last month and let people use it for cycling, walking, and just having a good time. From our sister publication, Streetsblog Los Angeles:

…tens of thousands of Angelenos did the unthinkable: enjoyed spending time on a freeway. Arroyo Fest 2023 removed cars from about seven miles of the 110 Freeway, known as the Arroyo Seco Parkway. Instead, the freeway was filled with people on foot, on bike, on skates, on scooters.

San Francisco, of course, has Sunday Streets, one of the earliest and most successful and celebrated examples of a temporary conversion of car space for other uses. The Bay Area also boasts the annual “Niles Canyon Stroll & Roll,” which removes cars from a stretch of highway 84.

San Francisco has its Marathon closures. And the Golden Gate Bridge was famously closed to traffic in 1987 for its 50th anniversary. But there’s no equivalent to “Arroyo Fest,” where the city closes a freeway for pure recreation.

The two places to do it seem screamingly obvious.

The first is the stub of the Central Freeway and 101. The city is already talking about removing or undergrounding these freeways, which are in need of seismic retrofits or removal. The other is I-980 in Oakland. 980 is one of the top candidates for removal on the Federal government’s “Reconnecting Communities” program.

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Tens of thousands take to the 110 Freeway for ArroyoFest event

From PasadenaStarNews.com

By

The 110 Freeway from Pasadena to Los Angeles was crowded the morning of Sunday, Oct. 29, not with car traffic but rather with a steady flow of everything people-powered.

From folks riding bicycles, scooters, rollerblades, skateboards or just putting one foot in front of the other, more than 50,000 descended on the six-mile closed-off stretch of the Arroyo Seco Parkway just to experience Los Angeles’ oldest freeway without cars from 7 a.m. to a little after 11 a.m.

It marked the second time the same the freeway was closed to vehicles. The first time took place in June 2003, when two professors from Occidental College and several environmental and cycling groups pulled off the inaugural ArroyoFest — drawing about 8,000 people who traversed the lanes of the emptied freeway.

“A new generation will revive the magic,” said Tim Hepburn, mayor of La Verne and president of the San Gabriel Valley Council of Governments at the starting line of the second ArroyoFest on Mission Street and Orange Grove Avenue in South Pasadena.

Some walked the first Arroyofest with their young children who are now grown and experienced it a second time. Others came from all parts of Southern California to take part in the phenomenon.

“When you are driving it, you’re going like 70 mph. Now it is cool to take it easy and see all the sites. You see the things you don’t see (when driving),” said Heather Rothenay, 39 of Lake Elsinore. She’s taken part in other open streets events in San Diego and Riverside.

Photo by Daniel Lee on Unsplash

 

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ArroyoFest Returns to Pasadena This Weekend After 20 Years’ Absence

From PasadenaNow.com

Pasadena is gearing up for a historic and festive event on Sunday, Oct. 29, when the Arroyo Seco Parkway, also known as the 110 Freeway, will be closed to vehicle traffic and opened to people walking, biking, or on any form of active transportation, for six hours.

The fun event, called ArroyoFest 2023, marks the 20th anniversary of the first time that the parkway was transformed into a car-free zone for biking, walking, and exploring.

If you’re into running, you can sign up and arrive early for the “Run the 110” event, a chip-timed 10K point-to-point run. This starts promptly at 7 a.m. at the north end of the route in South Pasadena. Runners need to arrive at the starting line by 6:30 or 6:45 a.m.

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ArroyoFest – Sunday October 29

The inaugural ArroyoFest was hosted in June 2003, a full seven years before the first cicLAvia on 10/10/10. The event was ahead-of-its time and left an indelible impression on those who had the opportunity to explore the parkway on two feet or two wheels that morning. Five years in the making, the 20-year anniversary event will once again provide the public the opportunity to experience the historic parkway – opened in 1940 – up close. Until then here are a few articles, resources, and images documenting that very special day in 2003.

 

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20 years ago, the Arroyo Seco Parkway turned into a car-free party. Get ready for another

From LATimes.com

BY SAUMYA GUPTA

For the first time in 20 years, a section of the Arroyo Seco Parkway, the West Coast’s oldest freeway, is set to close down for people to walk, bike, skate and run.

On Oct. 29, ArroyoFest will allow car-free exploration of six miles of the 110 Freeway connecting Los Angeles and Pasadena.

Two decades ago, the first ArroyoFest was ahead of its time for Southern California, said Wesley Reutimann, co-founder and special programs director at ActiveSGV, one of the event organizers.

In June 2003, seven years before the first CicLAvia “open streets” event, ArroyoFest shut down the Arroyo Seco Parkway for three hours, giving thousands of people the chance to tour the freeway as they never had before.

“I had a real urge to take the exit to the 5,” bicyclist Steve Edberg told The Times in an article covering that 2003 gathering. “If I had 200 or 300 riders with me, I think we could have taken over that one too.”

The original ArroyoFest had been in the planning stages for 10 years before event organizers were able to persuade Caltrans and pull it off.

Twenty years later, Reutimann said, planning a revisit of the event has proved just as complicated.

“There are a lot of pieces that go into putting on an event like this,” he said. “It speaks volumes that the first one, they were able to successfully stage it in 2003.”

It’s a major undertaking involving various permit processes and agencies, including approval by the Pasadena City Council and a special event permit from Caltrans, according to Pasadena Now.

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ArroyoFest would turn the Pasadena Freeway into a cycling and walking paradise — at least for a Sunday morning

From TheEastsiderLA.com

By Robert Fulton

Imagine the Arroyo Seco Parkway closed to vehicular traffic, flooded instead with pedestrians and cyclists, if only for a few hours. Sounds like a wild idea, right?

Well, you might be surprised to learn that the exact same scenario played out two decades ago, and a regional organization is looking to replicate the experience later this year.

In 2003, Occidental College Professor Robert Gottlieb organized the first ArroyoFest, which closed the Pasadena Freeway to motor vehicles for a few hours, letting cyclists and walkers takeover the major artery connecting Pasadena and Downtown L.A.

This year, the community organization ActiveSGV is spearheading the effort for a second ArroyoFest in October.

“Everyone I’ve encountered who was at the event speaks about how magical it was,” said Wes Reutimann, the Special Programs Director with ActiveSGV, who missed the original ArroyoFest. “It really left an indelible imprint on folks.”

The plan is to close the 110 to traffic from approximately Avenue 26 just north of the 5 Freeway to the highway’s terminus at Glernarm Street in Pasadena. The six-mile stretch would remain open for four hours on the morning of Sunday, Oct. 29 to cyclists, skaters, and pedestrians..

Reutimann says the event aims to promote different forms of mobility, raise awareness about the 83-year-old parkway — one of the nation’s oldest freeways — and educate the public about environmental and health issues.

City Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez authored a resolution supporting ArroyoFest, but it still needs to be approved by the City Council.

Photo by Howard P on Unsplash

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