Innovation: CicLAvia makes the wheels go round

Aaron Paley.

In a city where many of the world's biggest stars call home, the name on the tip of everyone's tongue isn't Brad Pitt or Leonardo di Caprio - it's Aaron Paley.

The man behind the wildly successful CicLAvia, Paley has become an icon to Angelenos as the city planner turned philanthropist continues to grow his status alongside the remarkable pedestrian event.

It's been called one of the great innovations to emerge in the 21st Century - even though it's based on an idea from the 1970's. Wrapping your head around it and what makes it so special isn't simple, nor as clear-cut as more traditional innovations.

The concept was developed in Bogota, Colombia - where every Sunday the main streets of the city are closed down for Ciclovia - a Spanish word which literally translates as cycleway. The day-long event completely changes the dynamics of the city, the transport and the people - if only temporarily.

Sitting down with an under the weather Paley outside of hiss Hollywood Hills home, he tells the Herald "CicLAvia is all about reimagining our city and reimagining public space.

"What that means Is people of all ages, of all classes, from all different neighbourhoods all feel comfortable. Public space is hard to find, so we're making it and we're making it temporarily.

"We were really exploring Los Angeles and it doesn't follow the template of New York, San Francisco, Paris or London or any of the traditional great cities. I've been really obsessed with city form and shape, and I lived in these cities for extended times and came back to Los Angeles and what struck me was the lack of public space."

The first took place in October 2010 - as a 7.5 mile route through downtown Los Angeles was brought to a halt for motor vehicles. More than 100,000 people showed up with celebrities abundant and a swathe of accompanying media. The reaction in the days following was substantial - dominating the front page of the LA Times.

"I never thought it would be so fantastically successful when we started. This has been done all over the world, but for some reason this one really resonated, really made an impact and exploded in size from the get-go.

"It's a simple concept - any street, we're going to take it over temporarily, remove the cars and turn it into a public park. Most people use it to cycle, but lots of people walk, lots of people hang out and by creating a public space with the streets in Los Angeles that's a huge thing because there are streets everywhere and we can create this inter-connected park anywhere we want."

New Zealand have run their own Ciclovia events, though not nearly on the scale of the Los Angeles version. Wellington, Christchurch, Auckland and Waiheke Island have held events sporadically - but without the full weight of government and the public behind them - they can be hard to get off the ground.

Paley attributes a significant amount of the events success to having the weight of the mayor's office behind him.

"When the event was first starting we made a presentation to the head of the department of water and power and the deputy mayor for the environment and they loved it.

"They said told us that the mayor was 100 per cent behind this idea and committed to covering all the costs from the city side. They actually asked me how long it would take together to cover our own costs so we could get this going!"

CicLAvia is now held quarterly, with a medium-term aim to potentially make it a monthly occurrence. The event draws over 100,000 people and traverses a different route through Los Angeles each time. "This is all about Angelenos seeing the potential in their city and helping find ways to make sure it's living up to the potential it has."

Who is Aaron Paley?
Paley studied as a city planner but is better known in Los Angeles for the mass events he's staged - bringing the city it's first fringe festival and producing Glow - a night-time art celebration which drew 200,000 people to Santa Monica.

He was the 2008 recipient of the Durfee Foundation Stanton Fellowship which he used to study public space - sparking the interest and providing the catalyst for CicLAvia.