The boisterous, weird, and resilient Goathead Fest is gone (after replacing its predecessor Tour de Fat). But its engine, the Boise Bicycle Project, has replaced it with something even more local, inspiring, and radical. Now, instead of taking back pathways from an invasive weed, Open Streets Boise is taking the space roadways consume and reincorporating it into the public consciousness.
Hey Boise met with Devin McComas, BBP’s executive director, to set the scene for the second Open Streets Boise festival, which will take place on Ustick Road on Sunday, Sept. 28.
What did it feel like to watch the first Open Streets on Latah Street succeed?
"We were kind of building what it was gonna be as we were getting there. The comparison I make sometimes is like juggling while you're running towards something. It really felt like that… We had seen this model successful in other cities, but at the same time we were really drastically changing one of our flagship community events and we were asking our community to come embrace it. [That morning] I was walking past White Rabbit when the first wave of bikes hit and a couple hundred bikes rolled up the street. And it became pretty apparent that it was happening. And that was an incredible feeling, I think for our whole staff."
Why is Ustick a good fit for the Open Streets mission?
“[The festival] is really about asking the community to come into the street, to come into a public space together and celebrate. And at the same time, there's also a conversation about ‘if we feel safe in the streets today, we could feel safe in the streets every single day, if we communicated that to our policy makers and to our lawmakers.’ And so for us, that's also an exciting conversation to be having because Ustick is an arterial road. Some of it doesn't have a sidewalk, and there's safety improvements that could be happening in that Ustick corridor.”
Expect a little something for everyone. (Blake Hunter / City Cast Boise)
What should people expect from the festival on Sept. 28?
“The fun thing about this event and the challenging thing about this event is every single year we're going to have to adapt the footprint to a new place.”
The West Boise Neighborhood Association, Winstead Park Neighborhood Association, and — who else — the women of Common Ground Coffee and Market came together to apply and bring Open Streets to Ustick. Just like on Latah Street, there will be a main music stage all day, but everything else will be tailored to the community on the street.
