The 110 reimagined: Toward many more Arroyofests

The start of the first ArroyoFest on June 12, 2003 on the closed down lanes of the 110 Freeway (Arroyo Seco Parkway). (photo by Jerilyn Lopez-Mendoza).

On June 15, 2003, 5,000 people bicycled, walked, skateboarded and pushed their baby carriages on the Historic Arroyo Seco Parkway (aka 110 Freeway) from Pasadena to Avenue 26  near Downtown Los Angeles in a magical and unprecedented event. Many who biked or walked on the freeway that day still have vivid memories of the experience.

Twenty years later, this Oct. 29, more than 50,000 people participated in a second ArroyoFest. They biked, walked, skated, ran a 10K and even rode horses along the same route. Ten times larger and much more racially and ethnically diverse, there were LGBTQ folks, octogenarians and lots of strollers with young children.

We are the organizers of each of the two ArroyoFests, and worked with broad community coalitions to pull them together. In 2003, and now again in 2023, public calls to make ArroyoFest a permanent part of community life resonated for many. But relying on inspired yet under-resourced grassroots organizations, to make this happen is unrealistic.

“Open Streets” events like ArroyoFest are weekly occurrences in cities around the world. Why not in Southern California? Our communities have as many if not more resources at our disposal than our peers around the world. What we have lacked is the will and vision to make such events a public good. In a few short years we will host visitors from around the world for the World Cup and a “car-free” Olympic Games. What better time than now to begin prioritizing community health and sustainability by investing a fraction of the billions we spend on widening streets and highways in opening them up?

There’s been progress. Public agencies such as Metro and the San Gabriel Valley Council of Governments had a role in sponsoring this year’s ArroyoFest. But we need more public agencies to step up and seize this unparalleled opportunity to engage the neighborhoods they serve and dialogue with participants about the challenges of maintaining, and opportunities to transform, our public thoroughfares. Metro, Caltrans, county Public Works and cities including Los Angeles and Pasadena all have a role to play. We need them to integrate open streets into their community programming, no different than a weekly farmer’s market or summer parks-after-dark series. We need them to embrace the goals of ArroyoFest, including health, equitable access and sustainable and affordable mobility.

What the tremendous response to this year’s ArroyoFest shows is that residents have both an enduring relationship with their freeways and a deep desire to change this relationship, to turn their freeways back into parkways, places where they can talk with neighbors, walk their dogs, ride their bikes and enjoy the landscape, places where they can slow down and feel a connection to place. Essential to this transformation will be extending bike and walk infrastructure and other forms of affordable, sustainable transportation. We need to make our sidewalks more pedestrian-friendly and expand our nascent network of dedicated bus lanes. We also need to look for opportunities to remove portions of our freeway system for housing, green space, water conservation and other community needs. This is happening in Pasadena by bringing community voices into  helping re-envision what the now-abandoned 710 can become. Pasadena can be a model for re-imagining other segments of our freeway system — like the 90 Freeway (the freeway to nowhere) or the segment of the 2 Freeway that ends in Echo Park. Public events like ArroyoFest are an essential ingredient in transforming not only our roads and freeways but our mindsets. Let’s make that happen!

Wes Reutimann was the lead organizer for the 2023 ArroyoFest; Robert Gottlieb and Marcus Renner were lead organizers for the 2003 ArroyoFest.