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CicLAVia, believed to be Spanish for “Put your hupmobile in the garage on car-free Sunday, April 21, climb onto your bicycle, ride 15 miles across Los Angeles, through Culver City, stop, nosh, admire, and only then continue on to Venice Beach,” formally was sanctioned at last evening’s City Council meeting.
Everyone on the dais except Vice Mayor Jeff Cooper said the city’s $12,500 ticket to join the regional street party is a terrific investment, even if the city’s fiscal cupboards are bare.
“Look at the intense attention we will be drawing to Culver City,” the Other Four cheerily contended.
Twelve-five only is a piece of CicLaVia’s entry price.
Sony, consistently the community’s most active fiscal cheerleader and supporter, has pledged $10,000. The Downtown Business Assn. has vowed to raise $5,000, and Councilman Jim Clarke announced that he would lead a separate drive to drum up the final five grand of the tab.
At the least, the almost 40-year-old global anti-automobile street party that was born in Bogota, Colombia, is seen by fiscally hungry City Hall as a unique public relations opportunity for Culver City businesses, especially eateries.
Previously, the first five CicLAVias have been confined to downtown.
Expanded for the first time since coming to Los Angeles in 2010, the 15-mile route, that originates in downtown Los Angeles, eventually will turn onto Venice Boulevard where Culver City will become a major juncture for pausing.
Additionally, block-long Main Street will be closed down for the 10 o’clock to 3 o’clock street party.
“Our participation is worth a lot more than $12,500,” said Mayor Andy Weissman, “if you have 150,000 participants driving in and through Culver City.
“When the discussion takes place annually about the (Mother’s Day weekend) Car Show, we are informed the business community supports it because the Car Show is good for business. We will see if there are economic consequences from CicLaVia.”
Unsurprisingly, the community’s most recognizable bicyclist and perhaps most active environmentalist, Councilmember Meghan Sahli-Wells, is CicLAVia’s most convinced endorser.
“I am so totally enthused about this,” she said. “I have been to every one of the CicLAVia’s.”
And then Ms. Sahli-Wells, the supreme environmentalist, uncorked the line of the evening:
“This is so beautiful because it embodies the greenness of sustainability that I love with the greenness of dollars” that will benefit the city.
