Open Streets, a fitness and outdoors festival with a focus on active forms of transportation, is returning April 1, and will be hosted in Carpinteria following three years on Santa Barbara’s Cabrillo Boulevard and one year off.
Sponsored by the Santa Barbara Bicycle Coalition, the event will feature around 100 fitness and health activities between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. along a mile of Carpinteria streets, according to Robin Elander, who coordinates the event.
“They really run the gamut in terms of health care providers, community organizations, local businesses,” she told the Carpinteria City Council on Monday. “We have a ton of different things to showcase.”
Eighty percent of businesses will be local ones, she added, with the others chiefly from the rest of the South Coast. The event is funded by public and private grants and donations.
Santa Barbara’s events would bring out 20,000 to 25,000 people, Elander said.
Open Streets originate in Bogotá, Columbia with the city’s Ciclovía, where cars are blocked off from streets on Sundays to make way for pedestrians, cyclists, skateboarders and fitness expos. The practice caught on worldwide, with many cities now hosting Open Streets festivals.
Street closures for the Carpinteria’s event include Ninth Street from Reynolds Avenue to Linden Avenue, Linden Avenue from Ninth Street to First Beach, and Eighth Street from Linden Avenue to Palm Avenue.
Elander said a controlled car crossing will be at Ninth Street and Holly Avenue.
Festival-goers — who are encourage to arrive by foot, bike, bus or Amtrak — will be treated to a “neighborhood block party kind of atmosphere” featuring a climbing wall, skateboarding zones, a stage with fitness classes, Boys & Girls Club activities, a fireman’s boot camp, arts and crafts, yoga and more.
“It’s a very exciting opportunity for us to showcase the diversity of the health and wellness businesses in the area, and really bring our community together,” Elander said.
Though the event spent 2013-2015 in Santa Barbara, Elander said the goal is to rotate the festival throughout the county. Last year was taken off so that more planning could go into making this year’s event as successful as possible — an effort Carpinteria’s council members said was evident.
“It sounds like this is very, very well planned,” Councilman Al Clark said. “I think we should give it a try. It’s not just another tourist thing — it’s actually for the people who live here.”
Elander noted that organizers would continue public outreach over the next month with flyers, mailings, public meetings and walking neighborhoods.
“I like the idea of getting people out of their cars,” Councilman Gregg Carty said. “I like the idea of showcasing our community, and getting the exercise people need.”
— Noozhawk staff writer Sam Goldman can be reached at sgoldman@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.