Six of the 13 LA Metro board members joined a motion that asks the transit agency to do a better job funding “open streets” events, including CicLAvias and others rejected by staff planned for the San Gabriel Valley and the Westside.

Los Angeles County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath, who led the motion, was joined by fellow supervisors Janice Hahn and Hilda Solis, and Metro Board Chair and Whittier Councilmember Fernando Dutra, Pomona Mayor Tim Sandoval and L.A. City Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky, during an LA Metro Planning and Programming Committee on Nov. 19.

Besides the six, Horvath’s amendment picked up votes from other committee members: Jacquelyn Dupont-Walker, Inglewood Mayor James Butts and Glendale Mayor Ara Najarian. The motion asks Metro to find a minimum of $1 million to help fund those “open streets” events placed on a wait list or rejected altogether by Metro staff. These would take place between Sept. 2026 and March 2028.

It also asks Metro to bring back a report in March that would consider changing the pilot funding into a permanent Metro program. A cost analysis would be part of that report. The committee’s amendment is scheduled to come before the full Metro governing board for a vote on Dec. 4.

At issue is a dramatic change in the way Metro intends to fund “open streets” events in the next three years. A true “open street” event is as it sounds: Allowing people on bicycles, scooters, skates, skateboards and pedestrians to ride or walk the asphalt streets free of cars for exercise, while stopping at booths for food and games within various neighborhoods of Los Angeles County.

Since 2014, LA Metro has funded 84 “open street” events, more than in any other Southern California county. There have been 51 CicLAvias since October 2010. Many of those received Metro funding. Each CicLAvia averages over 100,000 in attendance.

This round of funding includes 29 events at a two-year cost of $10 million, according to Metro.

As of last week, LA Metro staff proposed funding “open street” and “slow street” events (limiting car access) squeezed into two months during the next three years: 2026, 2027 and 2028. The 29 events OK’d for funding coincide with the FIFA World Cup soccer tournament in July 2026 and the LA Olympic and Paralympic Games in July 2028. All others were either rejected or ineligible for funding because they weren’t within that narrow time frame.

This change in granting funding prompted Horvath’s motion, after 700 emails were sent to LA Metro board members from residents objecting to the tight time frame that will cause blackouts of the free street-ride events in L.A. County for 34 of the next 36 months starting in January.

Normally, L.A. County for the past 12 years has had about one such event a month. In fact, a CicLAvia was held on Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles on Sunday. Active San Gabriel Valley, which has put on nine such events, held its last one in El Monte and South El Monte on Nov. 2.

“The Metro partnership has created a civic tradition, offering a new way for people to experience this space and reflect on L.A.’s diversity. That legacy is now at risk,” said Romel Pascual, executive director of CicLAvia, in his comments to the board committee.

“Metro must restore year-round ‘open streets’ funding in 2026, 2027 and 2028 by allowing these ‘open streets’ events we are used to. Sustainable support is crucial,” said Tafarai Bayne, CicLAvia chief strategist.

And Christopher Mathers, of Active SGV, told the committee cutting off these events except for during a few weeks in 2026 and 2028 will deny children, fathers and mothers the kind of joy that these events brought through Metro-funded “open streets” in the last dozen or so years.

Mathers also said that their events have introduced millions of people to the LA Metro bus, rail and bike-rental systems, since many of Active SGV events are run along rail lines, such as the A Line in the San Gabriel Valley. When the group, with funds from Metro, shut down a portion of the 110 Parkway in Pasadena, South Pasadena and Northeast LA on Oct. 29, 2023, 45,000 people rode bikes, skates or just walked on the freeway closed to automobiles, glimpsing the A Line as it passed. Many rode the A Line to the event which started in South Pasadena near the train station.

Horvath said LA Metro focused too narrowly on the World Cub and the Olympics, creating a kind of tunnel vision.

“What we are trying to accomplish is to have consistency in a program that has tremendous community support,” she said at the meeting. “Supporting regular, ongoing open streets is my intent and should be our goal.”

She wanted the agency to fund more of the events that didn’t fit that narrow window and is asking Metro to find $1 million to do so.

When Metro CEO Stephanie Wiggins was asked if Metro can find the money in the adopted amendment for extra events, she said: “$1 million. It is tough. We have limited resources.”

Horvath called the process by which applications were scored confusing and said she had concerns about the way the staff picked projects for grant awards. Eligibility should not have been based on holding all “open streets” at the same time the World Cup soccer games and Olympic and Paralympic games are being played.

For example, one “open street” event submitted for funding by Active SGV in South Pasadena, Alhambra and San Gabriel would have featured demonstrations of Olympic sports to be held nearby, namely: cricket (in Fairplex in Pomona); mountain biking (City of Industry), equestrian (Santa Anita in Arcadia) and soccer (Rose Bowl in Pasadena). This “open streets” event was to be held a few months before the games, so that people could sign up as volunteers or perhaps buy tickets in advance.

Horvath said the Metro application said the “open streets” events must celebrate the Olympics. “This one was proposed to align with the Olympics. This is a missed opportunity,” she said. “There is value in building support and energy around these events. The recommendations and scoring used here is too narrow a view.”

She was particularly upset about LA Metro not recommending for funding a Pride House LA open streets event set for West Hollywood to celebrate the Olympics coming to Southern California. “This was the only event for LGBTQ athletes,” Horvath said. “I am extremely disappointed.”

An event that was funded during the Olympic Games — “Experience the Sepulveda Basin: A Car Free Journey Through Parks and Open Space” in the San Fernando Valley was one that provided direct access to five Olympic events and is scheduled to receive $500,000. But that amount is only receiving partial funding, Horvath said.

Wesley Reutimann, deputy director of Active SGV, said his group partnered with the San Gabriel Valley Council of Governments. He said Active SGV and the COG usually had all their events approved until now. Smaller cities need Metro funding to pay for police, security, traffic control and liability insurance.

“We will see if they find the money. Then, maybe we will get an event in the San Gabriel Valley,” he said. “This (the committee’s amendment) is a good step in the right direction. We would love to see a commitment to hosting events regularly.”