In a few weeks, at the height of North America's summer, experts and activists from South America to South Africa will gather in Portland, Oregon for one purpose: to grow a worldwide movement that turns city streets into traffic-free playgrounds for a few hours each week, month, or more.Just the name of the movement - Open Streets - evokes possibilities.We are so used to thinking of our cities' largest public space - our streets- as congested places for motorized travel. Yet motorized travel has been around for only 100 years or so, a speck of time that carries the illusion of permanence. Open Streets create a different experience of streets as safe places for healthy and active traveling and gathering and have become part of the toolkit for livable communities. Here's how they work: Open Streets - or Ciclova Recreativas, as they are known in much of the Americas - are free events that create temporary traffic-free routes along urban streets. For a few hours, usually on a Sunday, motor vehicles are kept out. The public is invited in. Families and people of all ages then get out and active in the middle of the street to walk, bicycle, dance, skate, or use any non-motorized method that gets our bodies moving in fun and healthy ways. Often, the route includes parks and other spaces for yoga, dancing and other activities, as well as for food booths and other offerings from local businesses. The dominant noises are the sound of laughter and conversation in a clean-air environment free of vehicle exhaust. People of all ages and abilities travel and gather and socialize safely and comfortably. The result is delight. "If you want to see a street filled with smiling people, here's the place to go," says Linda Ginenthal, who organizes Portland's version of open streets. "When people discover how fun it is to ride a bike and walk, they want to do it every day." As Gil Pealosa, formerly of Bogot, Columbia where open streets began, notes, they bring people together. "All you need to participate are two feet and a heartbeat," he says in this popular Streetfilms video. Considering that the events are wheelchair-friendly, the actual requirements are even more inclusive.The Rise of Open Streets from STREETFILMS on Vimeo.Maybe you've already experienced an open streets event. They go by so many different names that it's easy to think of each as isolated and unique when collectively they form a global phenomenon held on six continents and in hundreds of cities. In New York, the name is Summer Streets where nearly seven miles of the city's streets are opened to the public to play, run, walk and bike during three August weekends, this year starting August 6. In LA, it's cicLAvia, which has drawn more than one million participants to numerous parts of the metropolitan area since 2010, with the next event opening up iconic Wilshire Boulevard on August 14. In Louisville, Kentucky, it's cicLOUvia. Lincoln, Nebraska, Streets Alive! In India, car-free Sundays are called Raahgiri Days, or Happy Streets, and one city reportedly experienced a 49 percent drop in particulate pollution during their car-free Sundays. Do you have an open streets event in your community' Share the name and the link and your experience. In Portland, which will host the International Open Streets Summit this August 18-21, open streets are called Sunday Parkways. Held five times a season in different neighborhoods along routes that extend from seven to nine miles, they attracted more than 100,000 participants last year. During the international summit's four days, people will gather to exchange best practices and techniques and share ways to be more expansive and more inclusive. An organizer from Cape Town will share how open streets brings people together on a transportation system that was designed to keep people apart. Representatives from Santiago, Chile will share how streets are turned into mobile parks every week, creating spaces to socialize and be healthy, as well as to re-envision how streets can work better for people every day. U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer, a congressional champion for incorporating bicycling into transportation systems nationwide, will kick off the summit, along with Portland's mayor and other leaders.Fittingly, not all events will be inside, the summit includes walking and bicycling tours and concludes with participants joining thousands of Portlanders in a Sunday Parkways. Nairobi could certainly use #OpenStreets! https://t.co/LOi3W4a6gM @KenyanTraffic @FutureLagos @UrbanAfricaACC @ITDPAfrica OpenStreetsCapeTown (@OpenStreetsCT) July 18, 2016Beyond the events, the very act of opening our streets to people on a temporary basis, opens our thinking to other ways of shaping our streets for every day use. Beyond the fun, open streets are increasingly common in cities seeking innovative ways to create more balanced transportation systems and reshape cities to be healthier, cleaner, more sustainable in the age of climate change, and inclusive for rich, poor, and people of all ages and abilities.Cities are where the majority of humanity lives. There's a reason why open streets are so popular worldwide - they are opening new possibilities for how we live in them.---Get involved via Open Streets Project and #openstreets, or by joining any of the open streets or ciclova recreativa events in your city. Diane Dulken is a communications and sustainability strategist who works in Portland, Oregon and nationally with purpose-driven businesses and public interest organizations, especially around reshaping urban life and connecting people to nature. She has been spokesperson for the City of Portland's transportation bureau, recognized worldwide for making bicycling a celebrated and integral part of daily life, developed the project that brought artistic bicycle racks to Portland's public spaces and is helping to produce the Open Streets Summit. Photo courtesy of City of Portland. -- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
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