The City of Vista is working to hold our first ever Cyclovia in the historic downtown area. Cyclovia means “Cycleway” in Spanish which entails closing certain streets to automobiles for a temporary time in order to allow cyclists and pedestrians access to local businesses. The City plans to close Main St. from Indiana to Citrus, Citrus from Main to E. Broadway, E. Broadway from Citrus to Indiana, and Indiana from E. Broadway to Main St. (preliminary map below). The event will be held on Sunday September 29th from 10:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m. and streets will be closed during that time so that cyclists and pedestrians can walk and ride freely in the street. For an example of another city who hosts this event please visit the City of Encinitas Cyclovia Page.
This event will have a bike safety class held in the Avo Theater, as well as booths from transportation and sustainability partners with the city. We are working with the San Diego County Bike Coalition to possibly host a bike valet for the event and even put on a bike rodeo area. There will be no vendors selling goods at this event as we want to promote our businesses downtown and have the attendees inspired to come to your businesses. This is also in line with the sustainability theme of the event as we want to encourage event attendees to shop locally.
We would like to get promotional materials out to support your businesses with a potential business passport or online scavenger hunt for our attendees as a way to bring event them into your businesses and/or advertise potential discounts for attendees who have arrived by bike. With either the passport or the scavenger hunt we would compile a small booklet or online survey that would include all businesses who would like to participate, and event attendees would need to go to all of the businesses to be granted a VistaBucks gift card by the city. Event attendees would come by the city booth to get a passport/link to the scavenger hunt, then they would be directed to visit the businesses downtown to collect stamps/signatures or answer a question about something within the store, then once they complete the passport/survey, they would turn it into the city booth for their VistaBucks gift card. The participation from your business could just be that the event attendee came into your business, or that they spent a certain dollar amount at your business, that part would be up to you, we would just need to know how your business would like to participate.
We also would like to encourage businesses to “bring their store out” this means setting out a table or display outside of your door to entice event attendees to come to your business. These tables and booths should only be out for the duration of the event and would need to be brought back into your businesses after 2:00 p.m.
If you have any questions or would like to participate in our Vista Cyclovia Passport book, please reach out to Cassidy McCarthy at cmccarthy@cityofvista.com.
