Remember that boost in the city budget to expand Summer Streets? Well, it’s summer, and it’s happening.

There will be two multi-mile open streets events in the city this September:

• 11–3 September 12 in the Central District
• 11–3 September 19 in Ballard

There was talk of a downtown route instead of Ballard, but that concept has been shelved for this year.

To solidify the change in the style of the event, Summer Streets is now Summer Parkways. Instead of just an awesome, couple-block stretch of people-filled streets for a couple hours, Summer Parkways will feature an afternoon with miles of car-free neighborhood streets opened to walking and biking and yard sales and community parties and basically whatever people and organizations in the area want to make happen.

The new style is modeled after Portland’s fantastically successful Sunday Parkways. Seattle Neighborhood Greenways invited city staff and Sally Bagshaw on a trip to see that even with their own eyes last year. Below is the video they made to give you an idea of (hopefully) what we can expect. We’ve posted it before, but it’s worth rewatching. And captions have been translated into a ton of languages, so send it around to everyone:

The exact routes are not yet final, but they will generally follow current and potential neighborhood greenway routes. The CD event will be a three-mile loop and the Ballard event will be a seven-mile loop.

Cascade Bicycle Club is organizing the big volunteer force needed to pull off an event like this. If you are so excited that you can’t wait to sign up, email [email protected]. And if your company or workplace wants to step up as a sponsor, everyone will love you! Also, email [email protected].