It was the fortieth iteration of southern California’s popular open streets festival CicLAvia. Tens of thousands of folks enjoyed six miles of car-free streets through Hollywood, West Hollywood, and East Hollywood.

Yesterday’s CicLAvia wasn’t the most groundbreaking or most transit-friendly or most crowded or most… well… anything. But nonetheless, CicLAvia continues to draw and to please huge crowds of people on bikes, on skates, and on foot. Streets were quiet. Families were smiling. Café businesses were booming. People got a glimpse of what Southern California might be like if cars and their drivers weren’t such an overwhelming priority for nearly all the common public spaces here.

In 2021, LADOT announced that it would “increase the frequency of open streets events to monthly by 2022 and to weekly by 2023.” That hasn’t happened (yet), but there are two more CicLAvia festivals to look forward to later this year: Sunday October 9: Heart of Los Angeles and Sunday December 4: South Los Angeles. The city of Long Beach recently announced the return of its Beach Streets open streets events, with the next iteration coming up Saturday September 17.

Readers – how was your CicLAvia experience yesterday? Share in the comments below.