News of the Arroyo
Title: | Thousands bike, walk across closed LA freeway in car culture snub |
Subtitle: | |
Date: | 2003-06-16 |
Summary: | June 16, 2003 - SF coverage of the Arroyo spectacular. |
Author: | RYAN PEARSON, Associated Press Writer |
Publication: | San Francisco Chronicle |
Content: | Diana Pray is strolling along the Pasadena Freeway\'s northbound center lane and can\'t quite shake the feeling she\'s about to get run over. \"This is actually terrifying. It\'s a nightmare, a dream,\" she said, smiling and glancing back at the winding strip of asphalt oddly empty of vehicles. Pray, her two children and several thousand other people on foot and bicycles giddily took over eight miles of the city\'s oldest major freeway Sunday morning in a symbolic snub of Los Angeles\' famed car culture. Exuberant runners vaulted the steel divider, bicyclists swerved across three lanes and moms in sneakers pushed strollers down on-ramps normally jammed with cars during the three-hour closure. One man on rollerblades headed north in southbound lanes. A woman pumped her fist and yelled \"beep beep!\" \"It brings joy to me,\" said 33-year-old Gabriel Castillo of Los Angeles, ending a short walk down the freeway where he first learned to drive. \"I\'ve been living here all my life and I\'ve never seen anything like this.\" Police sent drivers on a detour through surface streets in the green hills and multiethnic neighborhoods encompassing northeast Los Angeles and three adjacent suburbs. The canyon area and its 22-mile watershed stretching north to Pasadena and La Canada Flintridge is called Arroyo Seco, Spanish for \"dry riverbed.\" Organizer Bob Gottlieb said the first-ever ArroyoFest was meant to spark the public\'s imagination about new ways of linking communities through public transit, affordable housing and cultural and historic organizations. \"It\'s reconnecting with a sense of place,\" Gottlieb, director of the Urban and Environmental Policy Institute at nearby Occidental College. \"Being on the freeway rather than in the car, it\'s part of that paradigm shift.\" Sprawling Southern California depends heavily on freeways, which are jammed with heavy traffic at rush hours and sometimes on weekends. Rare full shutdowns come only after major traffic accidents or odd-hour film shoots. Gottlieb said the freeway opened in 1940 and is the West\'s oldest. It includes shorter on-ramps, more curves and sharper turns than others in the city because it was originally designed for slower traffic and to allow for views of the then-undeveloped hills. Though traffic often slows to a crawl on the Pasadena Freeway, many who drive it regularly and walked it Sunday said they hadn\'t ever taken in the full, picturesque view. Los Angeles attorney Hector Yepez glanced up in wonder as he walked toward an on-ramp. \"I don\'t think I\'ve ever stopped and looked at the hills before,\" said Yepez, who sometimes commutes to work on the 110 freeway. Bicyclists began their ride in a pack at 7 a.m. but quickly spread out along the route. Many rode over 20 miles by looping back several times. Walkers and runners were allowed on at 8:30 and ushered off by 10 a.m. The closure and all-day festival\'s $275,000 cost was paid through donations from local government agencies, residents and businesses and $10 registration fees from about 3,000 bike riders, Gottlieb said. It took two years to plan. A festival at a freeway-adjacent park attracted hundreds with a rock band and 80 booths hosted by schools and community and environmental groups. Gottlieb said the festival and closure was planned as a one-time event but may become biannual. Clem Yoshida of the hillside Montecito Heights area said he was glad so many from across the city came to see his neighborhood. \"But my concern is all these people will come back after they\'ve learned about the hills and this park,\" Yoshida said, looking down from a freeway overpass. \"We don\'t want too many visitors. We like it quiet.\" -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- On The Net: www.arroyofest.org |
Url: |