Of city streets free from car traffic each Sunday of the year in the American continent.
1.5 million
People going to Ciclovia events every weekend.
33 cities
Are implementing a Ciclovia-recreativa as a weekly program.
Another 75 cities
Are currently hosting a Ciclovia event at least twice a year.
Who's next?
The Open Streets epidemic must go on!
What is it?
Ciclovias are city streets that have been freed from motorized traffic to allow, during a few hours a day, usually on Sundays and holidays, the free and safe circulation of thousands of people on bicycle, skate or foot.
How is it?
They generate recreational spaces where physical, cultural and educational activities are developed to promote community building and foment healthy lifestyles, while enabling the recuperation of public spaces at the human scale.
Like it?
City governments and policy makers can find in the Ciclovia concept an effective and economical program to promote public health, local economic development and social cohesion in their communities.
QUITO, ECUADOR - Mario Muñoz, President of the CRA co-founder organization, Biciacción, has accepted an invitation from the Ministry of Transportation and Public Works to join the team that will be executing the National Plan of Ciclovias. Below is a message by Mario Muñoz to CRA members and collaborators.
GUADALAJARA, MEXICO -- At an outdoor event, Colombian expert in urban science and mobility, Ricardo Montezuma, presented on Sunday his latest book, Citizens, Streets and Cities, at Guadalajara's Vía RecreActiva. The product of more than six years of research, Montezuma's book discusses fifteen success stories of Open Street initiatives in the Americas, narrating the history of this gorwing movement since its birth in the 1970's in Bogota, to its recent and fast development in North America.
The idea is "to inform and raise awareness among a large group of citizens across the continent regarding the magnitude of the phenomenon, while generating guidelines for those interested in creating or improving their own Ciclovia programs," Montezuma said.
Through a compilation of urban chronicles, technical documents and appealing fotographs, the author examines the historical process of people's reconquest of their city street, which we have timidly embarked on since the beginning of the new century.
In this respect, the presentation of Citizens, Streets and Cities, organized by Guadalajara 2020 in partnership with the Municipal Sports Council and the Secretariat of Culture of the same city, enabled the participants in Vía RecreActiva not only to learn about the concrete benefits of these programs, but also to feel part of a larger community, a global movement that is becoming increasingly visible and impacting on the quality of our daily lives.
Let us step back from our passion for bikes as a means of social transformation and environmental salvation, just for a bit, and look at the tremendous impact that transportation has on our lives. Late 20th century transportation, dominated by fossil fuel powered vehicles, was a marvel of speed and power. But not efficiency or equity. Because oil was cheap and plentiful, we built transportation systems that ignored economics. Now that oil is becoming scarcer and more expensive to mine--and the world’s population has expanded to 7 billion persons--we have to begin accounting for the true costs of transportation based on petroleum.
On the eve of the much expected Open Streets season in North America, where dozens of initiatives will be celebrated this summer, and after a particularly encouraging beginning of the year in Latin America where Ciclovias have gained significant political territory, it might seem silly to ask, will Open Streets last?
