ArroyoFest from out, a weblog by George Girton

ArroyoFest . . . . . jun 16 2003 — o23.dat

In Los Angeles the car culture reigns supreme, except for one morning of one day. That morning is Arroyofest, when the nation's first freeway is closed to vehicle traffic. Bicyclists and walkers converge on Sycamore Park, and learn all about the native flora and fauna of the Arroyo, directly and from grade school exhibits.

I speak of this as if it happens every year, but the truth of the matter is it has never happened before. Ever. The Pasadena Freeway, formerly the Arroyo Parkway, has not been open to walkers before, although evidence suggests it must have been closed for various improvements sometime in its fifty-year history.

The design of this freeway antedates modern on-ramp design, so merging gradually into the traffic flow had not yet been invented. Signs warn: Exit speed: 5 mph. And they mean it, too. Getting on the freeway is just as dicey, and the maximum speed should really be 45, not 55. Every segment of the fence between the northbound and southbound halves is quite severely dented. The modern plastic bumps known as "Bott's dots" adorn the white stripes marking lane boundaries, and doubled-up yellow reflector pairs edge the outermost lanes. There is no breakdown lane. When diamond-saw groove cuts were invented to minimize skids due to light rain, the freeway must have been closed to cut the grooves into the surface.

Of course the whole point of the exercise is to see the arroyo anew, and I do. It's dry and beautiful, reminiscent of the sagebrush landscape of Utah, but a little greener. Presumably it would be greener still if the Arroyo waterway weren't confined to concrete and led off to the ocean without a chance to moisten the soil.

Still, there is a pool there (somewhere) for trout casting practice, and the Steelhead Trout preservationists are out in force, organizing a secondary march up the dry creekbed where rainbow trout once completed their lifecycle. I had always known that my great uncle Alson Clark owned a fishing creel (basket used to hold fish) but I never dreamed that he might have used it to hold trout caught so close to his Pasadena home. On that score alone, Arroyofest was a great success, at least from my perspective.

I hope Arroyofest turns into an annual event.

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