Last Sunday, Viva CalleSJ celebrated ten years of open street events in San Jose. It’s been a wild ride.
Back in 2015, plans emerged to replicate various open street initiatives around the world, especially those in Latin America, where locals converted stretches of road into car-free spaces just for a few hours. The goal was to create a temporary autonomous zone where anyone could ride bicycles, walk, skate, saunter, play music, do yoga, sell art, dance, or explore the urban fabric however they want. Just no cars. Once it’s over, everything goes back to normal.
In San Jose’s case, it was a radical idea, since most people who lived here remained surgically attached via umbilical cords to their cars and refused to even imagine a world without them. Likewise, at first, much of the civil service really didn’t understand the whole idea either.
That year, when I first stormed up to the ninth floor of City Hall with a voice recorder to ask what was going on, Angel Rios, then director of Parks and Recreation, and Ed Solis were the two I interviewed. In between the three of us yakking about the 1970s Oakland Raiders teams, they spilled all the trials and tribulations of Viva CalleSJ. The two of them still weren’t quite sure they’d be able to convince everyone else if this whole adventure was worth the trouble.
Eventually, it took an unprecedented amount of meetings and arguments and scrambling for sponsors to make the whole project happen. But it did happen. And it wound up being one of the most successful, uplifting, inclusive, healthy and just plain happy series of events that San Jose ever conceived.
Over the years, it only became more popular. In my view, Viva CalleSJ changed a lot of peoples’ minds. On bicycles or scooters, or even on foot in the middle of the asphalt, people began to explore parts of San Jose they’d never before seen or imagined. The event connected disparate parts of the city, helping to alleviate the alienation and apathetic sloth caused by half a century of suburban sprawl, albeit for a few hours.
During the second year of Viva CalleSJ, by sheer serendipity, Solis was in Vancouver, British Columbia, at the same time that I was, so I stormed over to the Sheraton Wall Centre where he and Suzanne Wolf were giving a presentation about Viva CalleSJ at a placemaking conference. The organizers wouldn’t give me a press pass, so I pulled the old-school journalist approach and snuck in. I made my own place.
The two of them, Solis and Wolf, spoke for a room filled with urban planners, cycling enthusiasts, public health officials and other open streets advocates. It was amazing to be there, during the beginning years of Viva CalleSJ, before it grew even larger.
Last Sunday, the route replicated the very first one, opening up Story Road all the way to Keyes and First, and then up to St. James Park, with another branch to Tamien Park. Believe me, there is no San Jose experience more liberating than heading westward from the Story and King area on a bicycle, with no cars anywhere and 100 other bicycles on both sides of the street, and then continuing along Story, over the freeway toward McLaughlin and then Lucretia, still with no cars and a hundred other bicycles. It’s pure freedom.
Even better, as was evidenced once again by the event last Sunday, the most important component was human contact. Actual living people explored the landscape and built community. There was no AI-generated slop about “hidden gems.”
As Metallica once recently said of their own career, every year is now an anniversary of something. Viva CalleSJ has not been around as long as Metallica, but I hope it gets there. This event is not cheap to organize and there was once talk of scrapping it. Thankfully, wiser heads prevailed.
The next two Viva CalleSJ events will take place on June 8 and Sept. 7. If you don’t have a bicycle, find one. Or borrow one. The resulting fun really is worth the trouble. I congratulate everyone who fought the good fight on this one. Here’s to another ten years!
