Photo: Courtesy REI and DOT/Summer Streets

The highly-anticipated and ever-popular Summer Streets returns to New York City for its first weekend of zany, outdoor enjoyment. For three successive August weekends (August 4, 11 and 18), a seven mile stretch from the Brooklyn Bridge, up Lafayette Street and Park Avenue to Central Park, will be closed off, enabling everyone to run, walk, bike, stretch and play—uninterrupted by vehicular traffic— from 7a.m. – 1p.m.

Similar to Paris’ Plage and Bogotá, Colombia’s street fair, Ciclovía, Summer Streets’ path will include rest stops featuring free bike rentals and helmet fittings, sprinklers to cool off, a zip line, games, safety and environmental demonstrations, holistic sessions, refuel stations, exercise lessons and rock climbing.

Summer Streets, operated primarily by the Department of Transportation, has teamed up with local groups and companies that support well-being, to create a diverse list of programming for the three weekends. To see that all runs smoothly, Summer Streets relies thousands of volunteers.

In the past, 200,000 – 250,000 people have participated in the event, which many have hailed a massive success. Scooter expects the 2012 event to be no different.

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