I’ve been meaning to write about all the untapped cycling potential in Glendale for awhile, but I’m glad the city is forcing the issue for me.

In order to get CicLAvia’s attention, the city will be hosting it’s own open streets event as a teaser.

Arin Mikailian from the The Glendale News-Press covered the story earlier:

At a recent council meeting, Mayor Zareh Sinanyan said he would like to see Glendale host its own CicLAvia-type event following the hit-and-run death of 4-year-old Violeta Khachatoorians last month. “We need to make a statement, the busiest, the most central street in Glendale, to make them understand that this is important to us,” he said. “It will instill the idea of bicycle and pedestrian safety.”

The early details is that it’ll be along Brand Boulevard from California to Broadway.

Yes, that’s not a great distance. Probably about a quarter mile meaning even the slowest cyclists could cover the area during a typical commercial break.

Still, this is great news as downtown Glendale is going through a strong construction push with little place to put all those cars.

Glendale is also a bit of a black hole for cyclists. It holds the distinction as the most dangerous city in the state and rank high on national charts as well. Riding near the downtown area gives cyclists the impression they are second class citizens behind the movement of the might car.

The kicker is Glendale could be a strong connection between the valley and Pasadena, but is wrought with scant bike infrastructure and poor connections. The LA River bridge sounds promising, shaving minutes off of east-west commutes, but I’m from Missouri until I see shovels in the ground.

The good news is that the area has Walk Bike Glendale as a well formed bicycle advocacy group, but the city as a whole needs to play catchup. Having a Glendale CicLAvia may help the city change some of its dubious notoriety.