David Byrne Comes to Los Angeles, Plays Second Fiddle to a Bureaucrat
Image by striatic via Flickr
Talking Heads founder David Byrne was in L.A. last Friday to promote his new book “Bicycle Diaries” as part of the Central Library’s ALOUD lecture series. Byrne headed a series of lectures on cycling culture and urban development in Los Angeles. But if you think one of the greatest rock stars of the last 30 years was the star of the show, you’d be wrong. That distinction fell to an L.A. bureaucrat. More on that later.
Byrne began the night with a timid but entertaining slideshow critique of urban planning efforts around the world. His first slide was a less-than-flattering aerial shot of an L.A. freeway. “Oh-oh,” screamed my anti-L.A. radar, “here it comes.” A couple of weeks ago Byrne wrote a piece for the Wall Street Journal that characterized Downtown L.A. as a culture-less office park. He argued that freeway culture has turned us into socially isolated, attention-crazed, fake-titted casualties of mid-20th century urban planning.
But on this particular evening, Bryne seemed to reconsider his stance towards Los Angeles — at least parts of it. After spending the afternoon riding around Broadway and 5th Downtown, he rightly concluded, “It’s pretty great.”
“I’m sure you recognize this,” Byrne said approvingly, showing a slide of the Grand Central Market. “Well, SOME of you recognize,” he reconsidered.
No, dude, seriously, we don’t live here because of the freeways. We know about this stuff.
Byrne even had some kind words for the Grove, concluding, “I want to hate it, but it kind of works. People seem to like it.”
But while Byrne’s talk was engaging, as were those of Bicycle Kitchen founder Jimmy Lizama and UCLA professor Donald Shoup, it was Michelle Mowery, senior bicycle coordinator of L.A.’s Department of Transportation, who drew the most attention from the crowd — and who offered the evening’s most interesting tidbit.
During her brief introductory speech, prior to a Q & A session, Mowery told the story of a cyclist “who offered to buy me a bucket of white paint” to build new cycling lanes. Unfortunately, Mowery said, “It’s not that easy.”
Why is that exactly? In a city with no shortage of five-lane surface streets, why can’t we just slap some paint down and make things happen? Her answer, aside from typical caveats about cost, was “bureaucracy.” Mowery said there “isn’t a champion of cycling culture on the city council” — perhaps the most damning revelation I’ve ever heard of just how hollow L.A.’s rhetoric of Smartgrowth and enlightened reconstruction is. Mowery says she just spent a great deal of time lobbying the office of one city councilman to become that champion, but her offer was declined.
After the event, she refused to reveal the identity of the coward in question.
For a city as spread out as Los Angeles, where walking is possible, but certainly not a practical means of getting from A to B, cycling should be an integral part of any sustainable development plan. In Bogota, Colombia — the greatest urban redevelopment story in modern history — a city of eight million, whose sprawl practically mirrors that of Los Angeles, creating new cycling lanes was the first step in revitalizing of one of the poorest and most dangerous cities in the Western hemisphere. Boston and New York recognize this, and have recently built hundreds of miles of bike lines in some of the densest urban environments in the country. Having just visited those cities I can tell you they’re widely used.
But L.A. isn’t building hundreds of miles of bike lanes. And with no great advocate on the city council, it’s no surprise then that L.A.’s haphazard bike plan was roundly criticized as a giant waste of time and money when it was released last June.
The crowd at the ALOUD event smartly picked up on Mowery’s statement, and during the hour-long Q & A session they blasted her with questions about why more wasn’t being done to create a cycling infrastructure in Los Angeles. Meanwhile the evening’s star, David Byrne, sat idle, looking rather bored.
It’s pretty telling when a star of Byrne’s stature and intelligence is practically ignored by a loving crowd in favor of a city bureaucrat. This city wants change and we’re not getting it.
Same as it ever was…same as it ever was…same as it ever was…
Same as it ever was…same as it ever was…same as it ever was…
Same as it ever was…same as it ever was…
New York just put a bike path through the middle of Times Square. If they can pull that off then our council can find a surface street or two in this city’s 469 square miles to install some bike lanes IMMEDIATELY.
We’ll see if that happens.
Post Your Comment
You must be logged in to post a comment
T/S Members
Log in with your True/Slant account.
Drove into LA from Redlands last night. Exited Santa Monica Freeway at La Cienaga, drove north to Bev. Blvd. where we parked on a side street and went to dinner and a show at the Largo. It would be challenging for any cyclist to navigate La Cienaga. So many cars with only a driver and zero passengers. Checkout our own Redlands Bicycle Classic next spring. Even though this event brings prestige and revenue to our town people bitch at the inconvenience. I’d love to ride in LA, but not without designated lanes. Tom Medlicott
Before I moved to L.A. I lived in New Orleans and never had a car. I didn’t have a car for 6 months when I first came here because I figured I’d be able to get around by cycling. That proved true at night, but no way during the day. It felt like a suicide mission every time I tried.
In response to another comment. See in context »I don’t bike at all, but it doesn’t surprise me that Byrne, or anyone else, would conclude that downtown is great once they actually VISIT it. I feel like people criticize L.A. like it’s a natural human reflex, whether they’re in any way familiar with the city or not. I find that whenever I show people around from out of town, they’re always surprised at how much they enjoy it.
I completely agree — hating L.A. is a default setting for people who have never been here. But take them to Broadway around lunchtime, a la Bryne, and they automatically seem to change their mind. That said, L.A. doesn’t do itself any favors by being a provincial, political backwater. It would be hard for people to have auto-L.A. hate if our city government actually did something grand to improve the city — say by building the most extensive network of bike lanes in the country. Automatic national news, automatic good PR, automatic perception-changer completely worth its weight in tourist dollars.
In response to another comment. See in context »Councilmember who’s a closet cycling supporter= Rosendahl.
There’s no $ in the bicycle lobby, so why would any of ‘em listen?
Thanks for the tip.
In response to another comment. See in context »Walkable and bike-friendly cities are the new status symbol for the educated, talented, and wealthy. The city is going to lose influence if it doesn’t adapt.
Awesome post. I love what NYC and Brooklyn have done with white paint on streets.
Of course we also have effective public transportation that allows you to load bikes on to trains when you need to go farther.
A winning combination.
Maybe the bike lobby should just paint the new bike lanes themselves, freeing up valuable bureaucrat time to improve the public trans.
Actually, L.A.’s buses and trains let you load bikes too. Building a massive network of bike lanes would probably enhance the efficacy of our public transit tenfold. One of the reasons more people don’t use the bus network is because transfers in this city are a disaster. But if you could bus one segment of a trip and safely bike the next we’d be in way better shape.
I would love to see bikers paint some lanes for themselves. It would take some serious balls though. Unfortunately city officials in L.A. now treat graffiti on par with gang violence — literally. Painting lines would probably get you a couple of years in jail.
In response to another comment. See in context »We should just get violent gang members to paint the stripes then. Now that would be good public policy.
In response to another comment. See in context »