'Ciclovias' in North America researched

Mike Lydon says that he and his firm, The Street Plans Collaborative, have “spent the past nine months researching Ciclovias, or what we are now calling, in the North American context, Open Streets.” Wikipedia defines ciclovia, a Spanish word, as “either a permanently designated bicycle route or a temporary event, the closing of the street to automobiles for use by others.”

“We’ve researched 46 different efforts in North America, including the first (Seattle), which was held prior to the world-famous Bogota Ciclovia,” Lydon says. Once a week, more than 70 miles of Bogota streets are closed to cars, allowing them to become venues for runners, skaters, and bicyclists for several hours — reportedly attracting two million people.

“We’ve mapped these initiatives by location, route type, and created a whole working typology to help cities better understand how to implement their own open streets initiatives,” Lydon says. “Phase II of this project is a partnership with the Alliance for Biking and Walking.” Funds are now being sought to develop the research into an online website that can host all open streets efforts so that the information can be crowdsourced as the trend continues to grow.”