Street View: Sundays Are For Open Streets

In the early 1970s, bike activists in Bogotá, Colombia convinced their city leaders to close two major thoroughfares to car traffic, giving the space to people riding bikes and walking for one day. Thus began the tradition of Bogotá’s world-renowned Ciclovía (cycleway) events, which now occur every Sunday and on most holidays, transforming more than 70 miles of city streets into car-free playgrounds. 

The program in Bogotá inspired many similar initiatives around the world, with some cities embracing the concept more wholeheartedly than others. The events are particularly popular in Latin America, with cities like Quito, Rio de Janeiro, Guadalajara, and Mexico City hosting expansive, well-attended car-free events every single week. 

Portland, too, was influenced by the Latin American open streets tradition. In 2008, Portland hosted its first Sunday Parkways open streets event, explicitly modeled after Bogotá’s Ciclovía, and the program has since grown into a beloved annual celebration. Still, Sunday Parkways remains far less ambitious than comparable events around the world. It takes place on just a handful of Sunday afternoons every summer, a far cry from the weekly car-free events that occur in so many Latin American cities. 

Plus, since the city sees Sunday Parkways as an opportunity to show off neighborhood greenways and bike routes, the events have largely been confined to low-traffic streets. This may be good for helping Portlanders get familiar with their local biking and walking routes, but it doesn’t necessarily lend itself to the thrilling experience of taking over a major thoroughfare typically reserved only for car traffic. 

If my judgment of Portland Sunday Parkways sounds harsh, it’s partially because I’ve seen what’s possible elsewhere. Earlier this summer, I experienced Mexico City’s Muévete en Bici (move by bike) event, which is very similar in concept and scale to Bogotá’s Ciclovía. Muévete en Bici isn’t much older than Sunday Parkways, having launched in 2007 as part of a broader, ongoing effort to turn the car-congested metropolis into a friendlier place for people on bikes. 

Mexico City hosts the program every Sunday, from 8 am to 2 pm, on several of the city’s largest and most central streets. It’s visually striking to see Paseo de la Reforma, a wide street typically clogged with car traffic, given over to people biking, running, and skating. The event typically draws tens of thousands of people every week, providing a safe space for kids to learn how to ride a bike, or adults to get some exercise without worrying about having to interact with cars and their exhaust. 

While events like Muévete en Bici may be novel and fun to participate in, it’s hard to determine if they have directly led to infrastructure improvements in the cities that have embraced them. But the weekly open streets programs demonstrate a city’s willingness to question car-centric traffic hierarchies, even if just for a few hours every Sunday. Eventually, those car-free Sunday mornings could help lay the groundwork for something more.

Almost two decades after launching the Muévete en Bici program, Mexico City’s bike infrastructure is better than ever. The city has significantly expanded its network of protected bike lanes in recent years, particularly under the leadership of Claudia Sheinbaum, the city’s former head of government (and current president of Mexico). 

Some have griped about the traffic congestion in Bogotá, even after decades of weekly Ciclovía events. A 2015 Bicycling magazine article suggests that the “Ciclovía has barely altered the car culture of Bogotá,” where, “except for Sundays, cars still rule the road.” But that assessment was overly cynical a decade ago, and it’s even more questionable today, after several years of dedicated investment in the city’s bike network. Bogotá may deal with traffic congestion, but by all accounts, it’s a nice place to ride a bike, boasting the most expansive bike infrastructure network in Latin America and among the best in the world. It may not be perfect, but it’s pretty darn good, and it’s hard to believe the weekly open streets event has played no part in shaping the city’s overall investments. 

Portland may not have the resources (or the weather) to host Sunday Parkways year-round. It’s underfunded as it is, and despite its popularity and mass appeal, city staff have had to fight over the years to keep it alive. In an ideal world, the city would host Sunday Parkways events far more regularly, preferably utilizing some busier, more visible streets. 

Portland will host its fourth and final Sunday Parkways event of the year downtown this Sunday, closing off roughly two miles of streets to car traffic from noon to 5 pm. It’s the first time in six years the event has been held in the central city, and the transportation bureau is going big to get people downtown on their bikes. People can choose from seven different bike bus routes across the city to travel downtown with a group of other riders, which the Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) says is part of a plan to help Portlanders “learn how to confidently bike from their homes to downtown any day of the year.” 

The downtown route will mostly encompass Southwest Broadway and Park Avenue. Those aren’t the busiest downtown streets—I would’ve loved to see a West Burnside bike/pedestrian takeover—but it should still be novel to see them free of cars, packed with people walking, biking, and rolling. 

Sunday Parkways is not necessarily Portland’s most exciting bike event. To the contrary, the open streets events are calm and family-friendly, with a low barrier to entry for people new to getting around the city by bike. They also provide a glimpse into an alternate universe, where streets are not primarily designed for cars, but built to prioritize people. Sunday Parkways could help shift the paradigm here in Portland—but only if the city fully embraces it. For now, it’s a pleasant way to spend a Sunday afternoon.