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June 24, 2008

Portland’s Sunday Parkways

by Clarence Eckerson, Jr. on June 24, 2008

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Despite a very dreary and damp first half of the day, Portland's first Ciclovia-style street closure, Sunday Parkways, was a smashing success with countless thousands of city residents participating. It was like a giant community block party with walkers, bikers, joggers, bladers, families, and pets filling the 6 mile course.

There were plenty of fun activities in four northeast parks that were linked by the circuit, which was opened to bikes and pedestrian traffic only from 8 AM to 2 PM. For cities planning their own Ciclovias, here are some things I liked about Portland's event: knowledgeable volunteers, lots of fun chalk messages on the ground, easy to follow directions, lots of music & entertainment, and a huge number of bike stations for bike repair.

13 Comments

Last comment by Brandon
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    Timo

    Wow! As Gil Penalosa would say, "It's fantastic!"
    Leave it to Streetfilms to 'veni, vidi, video'.
    Love your work, and link to it shamelessly over at http://www.GettingAroundPortland.org .
    Thanks, and good luck with Summer Streets in August!

    June 24, 2008 at 4:18 pm Link # 1
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    Steve Hoyt-McBeth

    Great job Clarence! We've still got smiles on our faces here at PDOT about the event.

    June 24, 2008 at 4:38 pm Link # 2
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    Ron

    Nicely done! Thanks for putting this together!

    June 24, 2008 at 4:47 pm Link # 3
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    bikeportland

    great video Clarence... it does as good of a job as possible to capture the magic of this historic event.

    i miss sunday parkways already and it's only been a few days. I sincerely hope Portland finds a way to make this a regular occurrence.

    hopefully, your video will help inspire our city (and others) to find the political will to do just that.

    "Can you imagine!"

    June 24, 2008 at 5:09 pm Link # 4
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    Dan I

    Now I can't wait for our own NYC version - Summer Streets! Coming in August!

    Grumpy car-addicts, be gone!

    June 24, 2008 at 5:15 pm Link # 5
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    Clarence Eckerson, Jr.

    Yeah, don't you just love Jonathan's impersonation of Gil? Best one I have heard, ever!!

    June 24, 2008 at 5:23 pm Link # 6
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    Lois Moss

    Sunday Parkways was amazing, the people of Portland are incredible and Clarence is the best videographer on the planet. Streetfilms communicates the message better than any medium I've ever seen. Print articles are good, websites are better but nothing says it like Streetfilms! I'm sending it to everyone I know so that Walk+Roll Cleveland and Walk+Roll Lakewood can see the vision and be the vision.

    June 24, 2008 at 10:30 pm Link # 7
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    Scott for npGREENWAY

    Thanks Clarence! As I've come to expect from you--this is FANTASTIC work! You know your art form well.

    I wish you could have been here last night when we watched it at home and my son said with gleeful discovery, "That's why that man with that big camera kept showing up in the same places as us! He made a video! There we are again!"

    Looking forward to your Portland Bike Box video. My family and I still love the NYC bike box video. It's now a classic. --see ya on the streets!

    June 25, 2008 at 9:18 am Link # 8
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    Joe Adamski

    A great event,and a wonderful comnunity builder. Its a pleasure to watch so many people having a great time, focusing on fun, not consumption. It also shows how many people would be out there if they felt as safe on the streets as they did during Parkways.

    Great video work. I very much enjoyed watching it, not only for the subject,but the quality of work!

    June 25, 2008 at 9:53 am Link # 9
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    Carl

    I'm so glad that Coach Dan brought his magic wand. Our favorite Brooklynite might never have witnessed this otherwise!

    Thanks Clarence. I trust you'll be on hand to document New York's upcoming parkways and help fuel what can only be a beneficial rivalry.

    July 4, 2008 at 12:36 am Link # 10
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    Paul Tay

    Clarence, you NEED Aaron's tandem 'bent. It's the PERFECT shooting platform for low-speed work that's faster than a dolly. Imagine outfitting it with SteadiCam!

    July 10, 2008 at 9:30 am Link # 11
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    Angela

    This is a great event!

    August 22, 2008 at 10:51 pm Link # 12
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    Brandon

    My wife and I participated in this. It was wonderful!

    August 31, 2008 at 12:15 am Link # 13
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