History: The vision of creating Streets Alive San Mateo County came from an overwhelming community response to a special community forum hosted by Supervisor Carole Groom in October, 2009. "Creating and Using Active Public Spaces" brought together elected leaders, health officials, County and city staff, elected school leadership, community-based organizations and interested parties to learn about benefits and innovative ways to increase use of public spaces to promote social connection and physical activity, and to share local work among practitioners in this area. The highly-attended convening featured keynote speaker Gil Penalosa, executive director forWalk and Bike for Life and former Commissioner of Parks, Sports and Recreation for the City of Bogota, Columbia.

San Mateo County joined cities across the globe to host the event on World Health Day to celebrate the World Health Organization's 1,000 Cities, 1,000 Lives campaign. Streets Alive in San Mateo County is building upon the global open streets movement. The movement originated in Bogota, Colombia, known as CicloVia, and has spread around the world to create free health and community-oriented events. Cities — large and small — have organized open streets events, including Baltimore, El Paso, Chicago, Cleveland, Kiev (Ukraine), London, Ottawa (Canada), London, Los Cruces (New Mexico), Miami, New York, Paris, Portland, St. Louis, San Antonio, San Francisco, Seattle and Tokyo.

2010 Event: Cities across San Mateo County came together in early 2010 to plan and organize activities and routes for the inaugural Streets Alive event on World Health Day - Sunday, April 11th. From 10:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m., many cities opened streets and highlighted public places such as parks, plazas and trails as a way to promote healthy outdoor activity for a healthy future. People of all ages and physical abilities will had the opportunity to be active, rediscover their neighborhoods, visit other communities, and experience the freedom of safe, car-free spaces. Heavy rains disrupted events across the county, but we are hopeful there will be future Streets Alive events and other open street events in San Mateo County.

See our Streets Alive 2010 Partners & Sponsors.

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