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Circle the City to bring outdoor activities to Bean, recognized by Obama

After the new open-streets initiative Circle the City is put into full gear, Bostonians may enjoy a weekly outdoor festival featuring farmer’s markets, yoga classes, live performances and more every Sunday.

Already awarded the distinction of 2012 Signature Urban Project of President Barack Obama’s America’s Great Outdoors Initiative, the project aims to draw Bostonians to the city’s parks by shutting down nearby streets for pedestrian use and holding free activities, according to the Emerald Necklace Conservancy website.

“We’re inviting people into our parks to connect to other parks through this open streets festival, and along the way people are going to be doing activities like yoga classes, fitness classes,” said Circle the City Project Manager Jessica Parsons. “We’ll hopefully have some art instillations, we’ll engage people through healthy food, we’ll have a farmer’s market at every event, [and] we’ll hopefully have healthy food vendors.”

The project is a collaboration between the Emerald Necklace Conservancy, the Boston Collaborative for Food and Fitness, LivableStreets Alliance and the Franklin Park Coalition.

“Those four partners have been working for the last couple of years to define this initiative that they originally looked at, connecting more people to the parks that we have here in Boston,” Parsons said. “We have incredible natural resources here.”

Similar events occur in cities nationwide, including New York City, San Francisco and Los Angeles, but Circle the City is unique, Parsons said.

“Circle the City is about connecting people to parks,” Parsons said. “The streets will be opened to pedestrians, to cyclists, to people walking their dog, their stroller, people in hula hoops and on jump ropes . . .. The idea is to increase park access through this project.”

This distinction brought the project recognition under Obama’s America’s Great Outdoors Initiative, Parsons said.

The fact that Circle the City connected people to parks brought it attention, including federal attention that is helping the project leverage certain resources, she said.

“It’s not a grant – we don’t get funding for it,” Parsons said, “but it does help us leverage certain resources federally that we wouldn’t normally have access to.”

While locations are not definite, planners hope to hold events primarily at Franklin Park, Jamaica Pond and the Rose Kennedy Greenway, she said.

Boston Bikes, an organization that works to ensure a safe and inviting environment for bikers in the city, is also working with collaborators on the project.

Boston Bikes Director Nicole Freedman said that the project is obviously very tightly aligned with Boston Mayor Thomas Menino’s bike program, and Boston Bikes wants to work with Circle the City to make it a success.

“We have a lot of experience with the mayor’s citywide bike ride and professional races in promoting the event and getting the word out about the event,” Freedman said. “Also, our bike programs will be instrumental, so we’ll make sure Hubway bikes are available. We’ll have our community bike programs out there in full force.”

Freedman said Boston Bikes will work on road closure and ensuring that routes are good.

Although Boston’s Parks & Recreation Department is not a partner in the project, it supports the project.

“Mayor Menino thinks it’s a great event,” said Jacque Goddard, the spokesman for the Parks & Recreation Department. “It will help build community, it will get people outside and active, and it will allow people to see areas of the city they have not visited before.”

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