Bikers, walkers, and skaters alike took over the 110 freeway between Los Angeles and Pasadena on Sunday Morning, the first time in 20 years, to explore the scenery, build community and encourage future modes of transportation.
Volunteers with the California Conservation Corps, Cameron Jackson and Evelyn Castaneda attended the Arroyofest 2.0 on Sunday.
Evelyn Castaneda: “It’s wonderful. You know, everybody’s like entering the freeway with their bikes, you know? Yeah. There’s families, you know, with the little ones and, you know, skateboards. You know, I wish I was here riding my bike, you know, but I don’t mind volunteering.”
The Arroyo Fest was hosted by the metro open streets grant program and had three goals: provide opportunities for riding transit, encourage future modes of sustainable transportation, and promote civic engagement at the city and community level.
Rafael Lopez, a Pasadena resident, was very excited to attend this event with his family.
Rafael Lopez: The fact that we’re able to do something you don’t do very often, which is right on right on the freeway. We live here in South Pasadena and we drive it. We drive through it every day. But to be on a bike or walking on it, it’s very exciting.
Rafael Lopez’s son Cameron was amazed to be able to walk the freeway and see all of the unique sights without a car window in front of him.
Cameron Lopez: “We’ve been biking on the freeway, and I get to see everything, but not from the window. From like outside and instead of the car. It’s just so boring because every time I don’t get to see the bottom, I always and I always dreamed of what it looks like.”
Robert Gottlieb, the organizer of the first Arroyo Fest and Professor of Emeritus at Occidental College was happy to see the growth of the second Arroyo Fest
Robert Gottlieb: “But part of the joy of Arroyo Fest was for everybody to participate. Young, old. It was a real fast 2.0 was a much more diverse. Besides being ten and ten times the size of the first Arroyo Fest. The diversity in terms of age, in terms of race and ethnicity, sexual orientation, all those things were very clear.”
The Arroyo Seco Parkway was built in 1940, making it the oldest freeway in the West. Designers intended the freeway to be more of a scenic route where cars could enjoy the beautiful greenery and flowery medians at a comfortable speed.
With the freeway now used as a commuter route, the freeway is highly criticized for its poor travel design and the safety hazards that come with it.
Gottlieb believes Caltrans would love to expand the freeway and make the Pasadena freeway a much more safer method of transportation
Gottlieb: “Caltrans would love to expand the freeway, but they can’t for a whole bunch of reasons in terms of how their plot and how it was originally designed. And it wasn’t designed as a for you, it wasn’t designed as a parkway to go, not just because it would be a slower speed, but because the experience in a parkway is to be connected to the places you’re going through, rather than simply thinking of the destination where you end up.”
Gottlieb would like to see Southern California take steps to modifying its transportation methods for a safer and more efficient future.
Gottlieb: “We can go from place to place in a very different way, whether it’s walking that mile or biking or rail or bus, there are alternatives. And that’s the way our transportation system should prioritize those ways of getting from one place to the next.”
For Annenberg Media, I’m Hunter Deniaud.