San Diego's fifth open streets event CiclosDias takes place downtown on Sunday, with plans for a preview demonstration of forthcoming protected bike lanes.
The roughly three-mile route for the event begins in Barrio Logan and winds through the East Village and Gaslamp Quarter to finish in Little Italy. The streets will be free of cars from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. and opened up entirely for biking, walking and skating.
Andy Hanshaw, executive director of the San Diego County Bicycle Coalition, said CiclosDias encourages people to connect more with their community, and that people see things on the streets they would never notice while driving in a car.
"The air is cleaner, the streets are quieter, but people are very active and busy," he said. "And you'll see a lot of fun activities on the street, too. We're working with all the business districts on the route to create experiences for people all along the route."
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Portions of the route will feature demonstrations of cycle tracks or bike lanes with physical barriers protecting cyclists from moving cars. The city's Downtown Mobility Plan, which the City Council approved last year, envisions several miles of cycle tracks downtown. Mayor Kevin Faulconer has pledged to construct the plan's nine miles of new bike lanes by 2019.
City Council members Chris Ward and David Alvarez were due to speak at a press event promoting CiclosDias on Friday. Alvarez said the event would help the city reach its ambitious Climate Action Plan goal of tripling the share of bike commuters by 2020.
"Events like CiclosDias help raise awareness of the need for people to get out of their cars and onto their bikes," he said in an emailed statement. "Only through continued activism and high profile public events like this will we be able to encourage more and more people to start using their bikes as a mode of transportation."
