The Open Streets Story

It all started three decades ago in Bogotá, Colombia.  The community wanted an escape from the usual congestion and traffic and decided to close nearly 60 miles of roadways each week to cars and open the streets up for biking and other forms of human movement.  These ‘Ciclovias’vee-as”), Spanish for ‘bike ways,’ paved the way for what has now become a growing international movement to allow communities to temporarily transform our streets and use them as a public space for all sorts of exercise and social interaction, making communities stronger and healthier!  Many major cities across North America have embraced the Open Streets movement with similar Ciclovia-style events. This is what inspired us.

In January 2013, our committee of dedicated enthusiasts met to plan the first-ever Open Streets celebration in Santa Barbara County. The group went on fact-finding field trips to other cities’ Open Streets events, met with public officials and prospective sponsors, attended a national Open Streets conference, wrote grants, built a growing team of supporters, and worked through the myriad processes to make SB Open Streets ¡Calles Vivas! a reality (‘Calles Vivas‘ is Spanish for ‘Streets Alive’). Santa Barbara County is now on the map with an annual community-building Open Streets initiative that rotates locations regionally.

While each Open Streets event is unique, they all share a common goal of promoting community wellness by creating safe and temporary car-free spaces on streets and roads, opening them up as a public park for a day. In 2013 SBCAG Traffic Solutions hosted an event in the City of Santa Barbara, offering more than one hundred free wellness and fitness activities along two miles of Cabrillo Boulevard for a day. Since then, SBCAG Traffic Solutions hosted two more events in Santa Barbara, in 2014 and 2015, one in Carpinteria in 2017, and one in Santa Maria in 2019.  Other communities have held similar events, such as Guadalupe’s Ciclovía in 2015, hosted by a coalition of community organizations in Guadalupe, and Lompoc Open Streets in 2017 and 2018, hosted by the Lompoc Valley Community Healthcare Organization. In 2020, SBCAG Traffic Solutions had several Open Streets planned, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic were cancelled or rescheduled.

In 2023, Traffic Solutions will support two events: Santa Ynez Valley Open Streets on Sunday, May 21 and Santa Maria Open Streets on October 8.

Unlike many other street-closure events where you stand on the sidelines and watch the event go by, at Open Streets, YOU ARE THE EVENT, and the streets are yours!

Check out this video that explains the Open Streets concept:

• With now over 200 large-scale Open Streets initiatives worldwide–and some cities with weekly events–millions of people are actively reducing their carbon footprint, reducing global obesity and creating the connections and habits for a more sustainable world.
• By closing the streets to traffic for a day and creating a new public space for individuals, families, friends and organizations to get out and move, try new fitness classes, walk, bike or bus to the event and connect in a community space, we create a better environment in which to build healthier and stronger communities with less reliance on motorized vehicles.
• We’re projecting over 20,000 Santa Maria Open Streets participants this year.  That’s thousands of people using our streets as a public park, engaging in fitness activities, expressing their creativity…bringing their community together…and our ‘streets alive’ (¡Calles Vivas!).
• We’re partnering with many of our activity & service providers that will be offering special free trials, discounted rates and other perks to Santa Maria Open Streets participants as a means to build both their business exposure and our local economy.
• Open Streets initiatives are a testament that lots of small changes can lead to BIG worldwide changes!