University Avenue came alive Sunday afternoon.
Pedestrians reclaimed the streets, bicyclists left their bike lanes, and life slowed down, if only for a few hours.
Open Streets was the first event of its kind in Gainesville, a celebration of alternative transportation and active lifestyles that left a 1-mile stretch of University Avenue closed to vehicles from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Instead, families walked their dogs and their bikes between West Sixth Street and East Seventh Street. Infants bounced in baby carriers. Toddlers rode bike trailers.
At the intersection of University Avenue and Main Street, the road was bathed in a mural of chalk.
It began earlier that morning with a mother and son who chose to draw each other’s outlines, holding hands, on the corner of the street.
“It set a good tone,” said Erika Tonnelier, an artist at Corks and Colors Studios, the business sponsoring the street mural booth. “I think that’s a really cool idea of: We are all just here.”
As the morning progressed, more kids and parents drew their outlines onto the road, perhaps the most accurate illustration of the event’s central theme: The streets belong to us all.
The culmination of five weeks of planning and months of deliberation, Open Streets was a joint venture hosted by the Florida Department of Transportation, the City of Gainesville, Gainesville Citizens for Active Transportation and GetActiveGNV.
Co-organizer Shawn Webber started developing the idea in the spring with Gainesville Citizens for Active Transportation. He based Open Streets off the concept of Ciclovia, a series of worldwide events that promote alternative uses for roadways.
The Florida Department of Transportation was also looking for Florida cities to host Ciclovia, and co-organizer Joseph Floyd, with GetActiveGNV, responded. Gainesville was chosen as the host for North Florida District 2.
The groups met to begin the planning of the event, but they were short on the initial $8,000 needed to fund it. Several businesses and organizations around Gainesville heard about the event through word-of-mouth and began to offer their support through donations of money and facilities.
In little more than a month, the community’s rallying raised $8,000, the Department of Transportation contributed $3,000, and hundreds of people joined the event on Facebook.
“It says the community is ready for it, they’re hungry for it, and they want to see more of it,” Floyd said. “I think it’s a sense of community and a sense of place, and it’s a slower pace of life that actually allows us to appreciate the things and the people around us.”
By Sunday, 1,400 people said they would attend the event.
Others, like skateboarder Dante DeBose, just stumbled into it.
DeBose, 24, skated up after work to see why the road was closed.
By 2 p.m., he was clearing the bike limbo pole at a booth hosted by the all-girl bike group Velo Vixens. DeBose jumped over the three-foot stick and landed on his skateboard as the crowd cheered him on.
“We skate in the street and get kicked out or grab on cars and always get kicked out,” DeBose said. “We are not getting kicked out this time. It’s surreal.”
Local businesses, too, were taking advantage of the open concept.
Sweet Mel’s, on the corner of University Avenue and Main Street, was grilling hot dogs on the sidewalk. Two large tables were set out on the street for patrons to order off the menu.
“We don’t serve outside because we are right at the light, because of the fumes from the vehicles,” said co-owner Mel Crawford. “But without the vehicles here, it’s definitely giving us an added opportunity.”
Her husband and fellow co-owner Pat Crawford agreed from behind the grill.
“It seems like with Gainesville, people turn out. I didn’t have a doubt, I just had a doubt at 11 o’clock, and then all of a sudden, everyone started showing up,” he said.
A sense of community filled the roadway as people stopped to greet each other and met for the first time, thanks to tangled dog leashes. Roller derby teammates skated down the street as locals admired each other’s artwork on the growing chalk mural.
“I heart Gainesville” joined the drawings. Below it, Bina Patel’s 8-year-old son, Akshay, one-upped the phrase with “I heart the U.S.A.” and an American flag. In the center of the intersection someone wrote, “Bikes are the solution” in salmon-colored chalk.
Floyd watched in awe Sunday afternoon as a crowd formed around local folk band Michael Claytor and His Friends, performing on a stage held up by two bike trailers.
“The one thing that I’m just enamored by is everyone you look at is smiling,” he said. “It can’t get any better than that.”
[A version of this story ran on page 1 on 10/6/2014]
Andrew Bittikoffer, 5, and Ella Bittikoffer, 3, draw with chalk during Gainesville’s Open Streets event. Their mother, Katherine Bittikoffer, said, “I’ve always seen big cities have events like these. It’s about time Gainesville stepped up.”
