People Get Moving For Last Streets Alive Event of the Year

Downtown Fargo celebrated its final streets alive event of the year. KVRR’s Sarah Brechbill checked out all the different ways people got moving.

Three miles of downtown streets are closed for all motorized traffic…but human powered movement is strongly encouraged.

“Walking, jogging, bicycling, dancing if there’s no internal combustion it’s welcomed on the road today so it’s part of a big healthy living festival,” says event co-founder Rory Beil.

A festival attracting all sorts of people, and even animals.

“We thought it would be a good chance to bring these guys and introduce them to the public a little bit,” says Candi Willey with the Center for Avian Adoption, Rescue and Education.

The cool bike tricks brought 8–year–old Owen downtown.

“He is learning how to ride a bike and i thought, i knew they would be doing bike tricks and different funky looking bikes would be out here just to inspire him to keep trying,” says mother of Owen, Diane Rusness. 

And for father of two, Josef Dorfmeister, enjoying the downtown is something he doesn’t always get to do.

“You’d have to be careful on the sidewalks, you would have to watch cars coming in and out and with kids you have to watch the kids every few seconds so anybody who’s an adult with kids here doesn’t actually enjoy downtown. They watch their kids and watch traffic, so this is great,” says Dorfmeister.

“And you can really do anything here at the final streets alive event of the year simply riding a pedi cab.”

In its fifth year, Streets Alive has transformed from a small event…

“We do far less recruiting of exhibitors and vendors and people end up coming to us,” says Beil.

And now encourages health and wellness in Fargo far beyond its few scheduled Sundays…

“It’s contributed to this culture that’s supported bike share and bike lanes between downtown and NDSU, some things that we know affect the health of our community,” says Beil.

A community celebrating health, wellness and all things moving…Sarah Brechbill, KVRR News.

Last year’s street alive event attracted more than 13 thousand people.