Well skaters, it looks like closing streets for recreation is taking off with a
huge bang. Everywhere it has been tried, it's been successful. New York began
theirs last Saturday. We do the same here in San Francisco on Aug. 31. I am
hooking up skaters with the organizers of these city road closure efforts and
injecting skating into the mix.

Each and every one of theses cities should have a skating component to showcase
skating as alternative transportation, recreation and fitness. While bike
companies, fitness groups and others are using these events to get people to try
their products and promote their sports, skating is asleep at the switch.

That is not a deterrent for C.O.R.A. We are pushing forward with Sunday Streets
San Francisco. It is shaping up the be the largest and most successful in the
United States. We will have 200 pairs of skates for people to try out. We will
promote our CORA SkareFit Program and get people out skating for fitness. We
will present the Sunday Brunch Skate and lead people on a skate along the closed
roads stopping at all the pods along the way.

We have raised over $100,000 to pay all the costs involved in presenting both
days of Sunday Streets in San Francisco.

Check out ther video from New York's Summer Streets at
http://streetfilms.org/archives/summer-streets-2008-nyc/

Here is what the editorial folks at the New York Times published today.


August 12, 2008
Editorial


Putting the Park in Park Avenue

Mayor Michael Bloomberg has not had an easy time trying to unclog New
York City's gridlocked streets. Most notably, he lost a high-profile
political battle a few months ago over congestion pricing. Now, though,
the mayor has found a clever way to free at least some of the city's
streets some of the time.

Last weekend, Mr. Bloomberg and his commissioner of transportation,
Janette Sadik-Khan, unveiled an innovative program called Summer
Streets. Nearly seven miles of Manhattan streets, from the Brooklyn
Bridge to Central Park at East 72nd Street in Manhattan — including a
large stretch of Park Avenue — were shut off to car traffic for six
hours on Saturday. They will be car-free again for the next two
Saturdays this month.

Without honking horns and speeding taxis, the streets became serene
parks, open to throngs of cyclists, in-line skaters and strollers. Yoga
and fitness classes added to the therapeutic feel. Cyclists and walkers
mostly seemed to respect each other, and people found themselves doing
something decidedly un-New York: meandering.

Rerouted cars, meanwhile, did not seem to be terribly inconvenienced.
Hundreds of police officers were on hand to direct them around the
impromptu park.

New York is not the first city to temporarily transform its
traffic-clogged streets. It has been tried, with great success, in
Bogot?, Colombia, where car-free Sundays and holidays are called
Ciclov?a, and in Paris. Mayor Bloomberg has said that if these early
experiments with Summer Streets are a success, he would like to do it
again, and perhaps extend it to other parts of the city. If Saturday was
any indication, New Yorkers are voting with their feet — in favor of
more chances to displace the cars, trucks and taxis for a day, and go
for a stroll.


Keep Rollin',

D. Miles Jr.
The GodFather of Sk8
http://www.cora.org http://www.skatinplace.com http://www.SkateGoldenGate.com

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