CicLAvia Closes Streets From Echo Park to Boyle Heights on Oct. 11

The free route links Echo Park to Boyle Heights from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., but car closures start at 7.

On Sunday, Oct. 11, about 6.5 miles of streets from Echo Park to Boyle Heights go car-free for CicLAvia's Heart of L.A. route. Walking, biking or skating it costs nothing. Pick your stretch and show up any time between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m.

It's the 68th CicLAvia, and it threads six neighborhoods: Echo Park, Chinatown, Downtown, Little Tokyo, the Arts District and Boyle Heights. There's no start line and no finish line, so you join wherever's closest and peel off whenever your legs say so. The catch is for drivers, because the streets stay closed long after the riders head home.

Cars lose the route from 7 a.m. to about 6 p.m., roughly two hours of closed streets on either side of the event, according to the organizers' street list and hours that Secret Los Angeles published in an Oct. 2 post by Sofia Delpueche, credited to CicLAvia.

Bellevue Avenue in Echo Park goes first. It closes to cars at 6 a.m., an hour ahead of everything else. Event starts at 9. Your street might close at 6.

Drivers can still cross the route at selected major intersections, and the streets running alongside it stay open to residents and businesses. The published list doesn't say which intersections let cars through, so check CicLAvia's site before a crosstown drive that Sunday.

Here's the closure list, as CicLAvia's organizers provided it to Secret Los Angeles:

• 2nd Street, Glendale Boulevard to Broadway
• Glendale Boulevard, 2nd Street to Bellevue Avenue
• Bellevue Avenue, Glendale Boulevard to Echo Park Avenue
• Broadway, 2nd Street to Bernard Street
• 1st Street, Broadway to Alameda, and S. St. Louis Street to S. Boyle Avenue
• S. Central Avenue, 1st Street to 6th Street
• 6th Street, S. Central Avenue to Whittier Boulevard
• Whittier Boulevard, E. 6th Street to S. Boyle Avenue
• S. Boyle Avenue, Whittier Boulevard to S. St. Louis Street
• S. St. Louis Street, S. Boyle Avenue to 1st Street

Read it as a map and the shape's clear: an arm reaching northwest into Echo Park, a spur up Broadway toward Chinatown, and a loop on the east end through Boyle Heights that brings you back around to 1st Street.

Bikes, skateboards, rollerblades and anything else you power yourself are welcome. E-scooters, e-skateboards, hoverboards, electric unicycles, motorcycles and other motorized vehicles aren't allowed on the route, though mobility devices for people with disabilities are exempt. So the rented e-scooter stays parked, and the old cruiser in the garage finally gets its day.

Seven Metro stations sit near the route, per the same post: Pershing Square, Civic Center/Grand Park, Historic Broadway, Little Tokyo/Arts District, Chinatown, Mariachi Plaza and Union Station. Mariachi Plaza puts you on the Boyle Heights loop; Chinatown drops you by the Broadway spur.

With no official start, the closest station is your starting line. Get off the train, walk to the closed street and go.