Open streets in LA promotes greener, healthier policies

World Today

Los Angeles is the second most populated city in the United States. Although the city is known for its vigorous environmental policies, it still struggles with heavy traffic, air pollution, and increased carbon emissions.

An organization called CicLAvia is hoping to change that by organizing regular open street events, where several main roads are closed off to vehicle traffic.

Its director Romel Pascuel says he hopes to promote interaction between otherwise isolated communities.

“Here we are in CicLAvia-six miles of street, connecting about 10 communities in 40 minutes. We don’t have those imaginary walls that we normally have when we’re in a car,” Pascuel said.

Open streets has also become a platform for a variety of groups and activists, pushing for a clean and sustainable environment.

For most people, it’s just a lovely Sunday to spend outside, but for the advocates of open streets, this is a way of raising awareness about how different city life would be, if there were more open streets, like this one.

Los Angeles is typically known for its ambitious programs fighting climate change.

But environmentalists said it still falls short of meeting carbon emission targets, particularly in the transportation sector.

“We’re trying to reach net-zero carbon. And so part of that is, solving what cars run on,” Bryn Lindblad from Climate Resolve said. “But, part of it is also getting people to drive less. And street events like these are a beginning step for people to see what it’s like to drive less.”

For America’s second-largest city, where most people rely on cars, open streets is not an easy concept easy to embrace.

But people still manage to get where they’re going-without leaving carbon footprints.