Who's(e) Bicycling?

LA Weekly “Bikeroots:" Co-optation in the Making?

2011-02-23T19:55:00.000-08:00

Although it may not have been intentional, one wonders why Hillel Aron, and his LA Weekly article's photos, focused on four professional white males. It's easy to summarize history by simply pointing to specific people, but it is often wrong and usually incomplete. The truth about the grass roots bicycling movement in Los Angeles is that it arises from the progress of the city's historically disenfranchised people (of color, women, in the queer community, immigrants, working class, youth, non-English speakers, etc).*

Through a combination of omissions and generalizations--especially those about the Bicycle Kitchen, LACBC, and Midnight Ridazzz--the article comes dangerously close to presenting a revisionist undermining of the relationships between these communities and LA bicycling. At best, they add up to shoddy journalism, and at worst, they carry a whiff of co-optation by straight white male upper-middle class men.

The article frames the Bicycle Kitchen as a place that facilitated transformation of bicycling from a "DIY, anticapitalist hobby" to a fashion statement replete with iPhones and tight pants. This is a preposterous suggestion. Although bicycling has gained a fashion footnote in mainstream media, the Bicycle Kitchen has never aimed to move it there. On the contrary, the space thrives because it collects the diverse outsider perspectives of its volunteers. While hipsters do use the space, so do homeless people, kids from the largely Latino neighborhood (who can't afford iPhones), and immigrant day-laborers, among others. This departure from the mainstream--not the push towards it--is exemplified in the regular Monday night shift "Bicycle Bitchen," which creates a safe space for women and transgendered people within bicycling.

The article repeatedly misacronyms LACBC as "LA Bicycle Coalition" instead of the LA County Bicycle Coalition. It also reduces the organization's accomplishments to its impact on the Sunset and Venice bicycle lanes and Metro bus racks. If a person glanced at the LACBC's body of work, they would find numerous other projects that have steadily improved bicycling in Los Angeles, including the recent installation of sharrows on Fountain Ave and the continuing City of Lights outreach program.

Most significantly, as a blanket organization, LACBC reaches across the spectrum within the bicycling community, from weekend warrior roadies, to immigrant commuters. The LACBC is not the apex of bicycling advocacy--nor does it claim to be. It faces its own set of challenges and barriers, and exclusionary rhetoric from other advocates that describes its work as ineffective or tertiary is wrong, destructive and counterproductive. Additionally, failure to properly credit the group neglects the efforts of a largely female staff, including planners, community coordinators, and executive directors.

While the article only praises LACBC's origins, it ignores the origin of Midnight Ridazzz, limiting its discussion to later stages, involving the growing hipster participation, clashes with the police, and irritation of drivers. The unacknowledged roots began with women planning rides with friends to explore the city. The early agenda didn’t include creation of a trendy scene, or confrontation with drivers and police. As in its treatment of LACBC, the article limits its attention to a male-dominated back story.

Unquestionably, Ron Milam, Joe Linton, Alex Thompson and Stephen Box have a place in LA Bicycling. And I applaud Box's gusto in running for office. Contending for an elected position in a city as fractioned as Los Angeles is a financially, physically and emotionally draining process. That said, the article's problematically flawed oversimplification of the city's grass roots bicycling movement wrongfully couples Box's campaign to the state of bicycling. His win or loss, however defined, is by no means representative of the feelings for, against, or within, the bicycling community. Life is delightfully complicated as is Los Angeles bicycle culture. Stories about us should illuminate that, not simplify and deaden it.

* Personally, I believe these communities may be predisposed to bicycling in a place where it isn't deemed normal because they already recognize the need to manifest radical solutions in the face of oppressive systems that perpetuate themselves (e.g. racism, sexism, heterosexism), not unlike LA's driving culture.

embracing kickstands: supporting substance over image

2010-08-16T03:12:00.000-07:00

Whenever I go to a home store in Tokyo (think Target but higher quality), I gravitate towards the bicycle section to see if they have any novel items. The selection of bicycling accessories is stunning compared to the bike stores I visit in the states—a wide selection of child seats for kids ranging from babies to toddlers, a cornucopia of baskets and racks, all sorts of unique rain-related paraphernalia (e.g. hands-free open-umbrella holders, or bike-mounted umbrella holsters), the list goes on. Regardless of how many home stores I peak into, one section within the bike accessories always blows my mind—kickstands.

The awesome number and variety of kickstands for sale is a logical response to the high demand within Tokyo bike culture. Almost every bicycle on the street has a one. This is particularly noteworthy to me because, in Los Angeles, the attitude towards kickstands is exactly opposite. Having a kickstand, in some circles, is a mark of not being a serious cyclist. The kickstand drawers in LA community bike shops are overflowing with what is destined to be scrap metal. I admit to having a hand in this. I’ve been that mechanic, quick to second-guess a patron’s desire for a kickstand, or to scoff and remark, that they “are useless ugly dead weight."

Needless to say, the bike I brought to Tokyo from LA has no kickstand. When I rode the bike in LA, I never thought twice about its missing third leg, but its absence became totally apparent the first time I parked my bike in Tokyo

A note about bicycle parking in Japan: although a famous video has led many abroad to believe that the country abounds with futuristic automated robotic bicycle parking, that characterization is wholly misleading. Most bicycle parking is extremely low-tech; when Tokyo denizens park their bikes, they usually pull up, plant their kickstands and lock up a wheel. It is not customary to lock a bicycle to a stationary object anchored to the ground. While this practice is unheard of in Los Angeles for fear of theft,* a bicycle parking system where each bike contains its own means of support is beautifully simple. Without the requirement of extra state-sponsored infrastructure (i.e. bike racks or inverted-Us), the kickstand is an extension of the bicycle’s self-sustainable spirit.

The differing take on kickstands between Tokyo and Los Angeles alludes to something more profound regarding the contrast in bicycle cultures. In Tokyo, people primarily ride bikes as a logical economic choice. For a specific set of conditions (i.e. distance, speed, and cost), a bicycle becomes a rational conclusion for mode choice—it simply makes sense, fitting between walking, and transit or driving. In Los Angeles, the largest barrier to the mainstreaming of bicycling is this failure for it to become, at the very least, a rational decision.

It’s confounding that people choose to drive two miles in traffic and hunt for a parking space for 10 minutes when they could just as easily bike, with no traffic, and have the closest parking space. Granted, non-bicyclists protest with a relatively empty arsenal of rationalization, citing safety or comfort; one can always find a reason NOT to bike. But truly, that’s just an excuse to not ride, versus a result of informed logical decision-making. The popular conception is that bicycling just isn’t done in Los Angeles regardless of how sensible it might be.

The real difference between bicycling in Tokyo and Los Angeles is that the image of bicycling has become more important in LA than the economics of it. I worry that, in combating this image problem, we’ve gotten sidetracked in our attention to how our bicycles look, or the appearance that we are making a statement when we ride, rather than establishing that we ride as a foregone conclusion.

This is not to say that semiotics doesn’t have its place, or to deny a view that everything we do is somehow significant to our meaning and purpose. But, if we allow an obsession of image, of posturing, to dominate our discussions, how do we separate our advocacy from our ego? What is the role for bike activists? We should be making our world accessible, appealing, and inclusive, rather than honing it into a selective image of militancy, accompanied with exclusive questions of whether a person seems “down” or not.

Although I’ve been the culprit, in the past, questioning the aesthetics of kickstands, I’ve also been on the receiving end, getting laughed at for riding a cheap heavy frame, or combining a rear rack, or a brake, on a fixed drive train. It’s bad that Angelinos can’t think of bicycling as an obvious choice. It doesn’t help when we misconstrue riding as a larger life-style and political statement than it needs to be. It’s even worse if we get wrapped up in the posturing of advocacy, rather than simply advocating; because with posturing, we start worrying about the image we culture, and who is or isn't worthy of our attention and energy. We forget that working with others is a sensible decision, just like riding a bike.

*A sociological comparative behavioral study might produce some good analysis regarding contrasting notions of public trust and personal responsibility.

speaking on behalf of Bicyclists…

2010-04-23T03:29:00.000-07:00

When I brought up the Backbone Bicycle Network at my regular Bicycle Kitchen shift last week, the other volunteers looked at me blankly and asked, "What's that?" Their response reminded me of the astounding diversity—specifically within our views towards bicycling and bicycling activism—in our community. I’d forgotten the scores of bicyclists I knew who could care less about what I, or anyone else wrote, on a blog, or in a plan. I remembered how potentially false and damaging, or possibly impossible, it was for people to speak on behalf of Bicyclists (capital B).

I was particularly bothered by this when I first heard some advocates claim that, “cyclists are considered to be the 'indicator species' of a healthy community.” Although I agree that bicyclists are important to healthy functioning communities, a wealth of places feature bicycling as an accepted, normal and common mode of transportation, while simultaneously being riddled with other enormous problems. A good example of this is the City of Portland. While it is touted as a city that has successfully parlayed a superior bicycling infrastructure into a dominant travel mode, in 2006, the Washington Post labeled it the whitest city in America, and in 2008, the New York Times cited the ongoing racial homogenization.

Besides the arrogance and self-righteousness that pervades the indicator species claim, the idea, itself, isn’t the primary issue. I am more concerned with the presumptuousness in the way the idea is presented as “by the community for the community.” People have taken the liberty to claim that the community, that I am part of, endorses this fallacy.

This practice occurs commonly within minority groups. A member has an idea; it circulates, and sooner or later, someone claims that the idea encompasses the community’s interest. The motivation to claim representation of others is simple. Homogeneity has an allure of power, a seemingly predictable and ordered uniformity. It can appear to be a source of strength, especially when a small group cites the support of a larger one to pad the numbers of their cause. On the flip side, outsiders, members of the majority, will sometimes identify a single minority member’s idea or behavior as indicative of a community’s stance. Then they’ll use that assumed stance to critique and/or persecute the minority group.

When I initially became active in the Los Angeles bicycling community, I found the diversity within the community electrifying—not just the mix of race, ethnicity, sexuality, gender, age, class, etc., (which is all there), but the varying relationships bicyclists had to bicycling. Some were captive riders, who came to bicycling as a purely economic decision because they couldn’t afford a car, or the time involved with transit. Others had the luxury to choose to ride. The bicycle mechanics I worked with varied to even more extremes. Some of them were car free and purposely living at sustainable subsistence levels. Others were massive consumers and incredibly fanatical cyclists, who rode everywhere for purpose or pleasure (or both!).

As bicycling becomes evermore popular, more nuanced perspectives emerge. I am still learning to deal with one in particular: occasionally, when I meet new people, a person will light up when they find out that I am an avid rider. After they identify themselves as a bicyclist, they’ll say, “Hey, call me next time you go for a ride.” I am at a loss for a reply because almost all my trips are made for transportation purposes—riding to work, meeting friends, or running errands. Is this person suggesting that I call them every morning before my commute?

This diversity has always inspired me because it suggests that bicycling can enter into a multitude of lives for a plethora of reasons, from economic to whimsical. But there is a more instructive lesson to be drawn regarding our community’s organizing.

Our diversity necessitates an open dialogue that encourages people to share their thoughts and insights. We should not make blanket statements on behalf of all bicyclists, especially in situations where we haven’t actually reached out to the whole community, or even worse, where we’ve subsequently dismissed or loudly drowned out divergent points of view. We have to work extra hard together to find the common ground within the myriad perspectives.

If we neglect to work through the complexities of our own group and brazenly promote an agenda as monolithic, we allow others to consider us monolithically. And that is truly detrimental because then we encourage people to imagine themselves apart from us, rather than a part of us.

why the Backbone Bikeway Network isn't the greatest thing ever

2010-04-10T00:57:00.000-07:00

I am simultaneously inspired and troubled by the hubbub regarding the Backbone Bikeway Network (BBN). It’s inspiring to see so many bicyclists working together for an ambitious unified citywide vision. On the other hand, some of the supporting rhetoric troubles me because it is packed with extremely simplified reactive viewpoints that are oblivious to the very large and very blatant barriers to progress for bicycling in Los Angeles.

One troubling component within support of the BBN is an almost total disregard for history. Some of the most outspoken bicyclists in our community don’t recognize that the City of Los Angeles already did this. Transportation planners looked at maps and marked off a loose grid of bikeways on arterials in the 70’s, which eventually trickled down into the 96-02 plan.

Unfortunately, almost none of these facilities have ever been implemented beyond bike route designation. Although critique of the New Draft Bike Plan lamented that it was worse than the 96-02 plan, no one addressed the old plan’s failure. And this is precisely—predictably—where a network that resembles it (like the BBN) will also fail. City officials, residents, and business owners, are not willing to trade arterial curb-parking, travel lanes, peak-hour parking restrictions, even travel lane width, for bike lanes or sharrows.

Another troubling aspect of BBN support is found in the repeated slogan: “Secondary roads are for secondary road-users.” This is a delightfully catchy phrase, and while I practice vehicular cycling (read: I assert my right to the road as an equal to drivers), I don’t think anyone can deny the benefits of a bicycle network on non-arterial streets.

First, a non-arterial network is easier to implement. Residential and collector streets are a less contested space. LADOT leadership is not concerned about losing throughput on them. And residents are constantly telling planners how they want slower traffic on their streets. This is the opposite of how Angelinos and LADOT feel about arterials.

Second, non-arterial roads are safer for bicycling, which means they are more popular for a very important target population: non-bicyclists. It may not be popular to think of non-bicyclists when imagining the future of bicycling in Los Angeles. In fact, promotion for the BBN prided itself as being “made by bicyclists for bicyclists.” I’m glad bicyclist are duly motivated to work towards improving their environment, but the shortsightedness of the “all about us” attitude is counterproductive. Bicycling is growing in popularity (Wal-Mart is selling track frames!), but bicycling as a transportation mode undeniably remains a marginalized activity in Southern California. It is imperative that we convince more non-bicyclists to try commuting or running errands on a bike. A non-arterial network will do that. A strictly arterial one will not. Don’t get me wrong; I love riding on arterials. Riding a bike on 4th Street is qualitatively different from cruising Hollywood Boulevard. But a collector bikeway network is bound to yield more converts than a head-on contentious struggle over major roadways that currently lacks popular support.

Most importantly, although riding on secondary streets is not the same as riding on arterials, people who characterize it as inferior are wrong. A simple glance at the design guidelines in the New Draft Bike Plan reveals physical solutions that prioritize secondary streets for bicyclists, de-prioritizing them for auto-traffic. We don’t have to subscribe to the auto-oriented hierarchy of roads (i.e. freeway-highway-arterial-collector-residential). We are bicyclists! We are free! We can invent our own system. We can embrace the solutions that turn collector streets into bike boulevards and create a new world for ourselves, rather than futilely struggling to be part of one that is hostile to us.

Possibly the most egregious part of BBN support comes with the claim that it represents a “plan with a backbone.” Planning is more than drawing lines on a map. In a city like Los Angeles, it entails a mind-numbingly awesome amount of research and work, collaborating with various government branches and assessing the needs of myriad communities. Creating a plan that incorporates all competing interests takes time, effort and energy—not to mention risk of public shaming, which has happened plenty within the zany LA bicycle world. It isn’t easy to hash out specific solutions and details in a room with other people who disagree with you. It is much easier to insulate oneself in a room where everyone agrees with you, and it is even easier to mistake that insulation as strength.

There are two potential problems here. One small and one large.

The smaller problem is that the plan ends up being another toothless document that doesn’t change anything for any bicyclists. Informed sources tell me that the BBN is now guiding the LA City Planning Department’s unilateral (re)development of the LA Bike Plan. I am told that the collector network—that’s code for bike boulevard grid—that was originally proposed has largely been abandoned upon suggestion of BBN-supporters. The document’s ineffectual status is almost guaranteed if collaboration between City Planning and LADOT has dissolved since LADOT has the ultimate say in what happens on the street. “Infeasible” became a dirty word for LA bicyclists, but the people that developed that stance haven’t gone anywhere, and a BBN-guided plan isn’t going to change their response. This is the small problem because I already bike. So, if things don’t change, it’ll be a grave unfortunate missed opportunity, but I’ll be okay.

The larger problem is that bicyclists have set themselves up to be further-identified as an extreme alternative community. We are a subculture for now, and all subcultures experience an inherent resistance to mainstreaming, but unlike some historically empowering notions of “other,” progress for bicycling requires recruitment and normalization. The goal should be to encourage people who don’t ride a bike to try it with us, to ultimately embrace our vision. The Backbone Bikeway Network is a glorious vision, but it won’t encourage anyone to join us, especially the people we need most.

the burden of representation

2009-11-02T23:31:00.000-08:00

The burden of representation is the idea that scarcity of a group charges its members to be representatives for the entire group. This is the calculus of stereotypes. For race, it works like this: Most Asian people in movies have accents and know karate; so, for some non-Asian who isn’t regularly around a lot of Asian people (which is a lot of America), when they see me on the street, they think I’ll have an accent, or that I know karate. These are stereotypes; they are wrong; and let me make this clear: they do not come from an ounce of truth. I do not have an accent, and I don’t know karate (but I know crrr-azy, you better ask somebody).

The burden of representation is clearly problematic, but the culprits are hard to identify. Is it the audience’s fault for not being able to differentiate between a fictional character and a real person? Or, is it the filmmaker, or author’s, or whomever’s fault for not challenging their audiences with a[stereo]typical presentations? Or is it both?

In bicycling, I often run red lights. For me, I believe this has something to do with the awareness of energy expenditure as a bicyclists in motion, not wanting to halt sweet rolling momentum, along with a liberating (albeit outlaw) culture that accompanies bicycling and encourages one to feel exempt from the rules of the road that govern other users—bicyclists existing somewhere between pedestrians and drivers.

While I am not alone in red-light running, I have been confronted by both bicyclists and drivers who object to the practice. Drivers say, "You bicyclists are lawbreakers." Bicyclists say, "You represent bicyclists badly. Drivers see you, and they think all bicyclists are lawbreakers.” This is the burden of representation within transportation identity. Because bicyclists in LA are a minority, we are expected to be diplomats for our community.

Although this logic has not stopped me from running red lights—indeed, as a representative, I believe it is my duty to make non-bicyclists envious that I can run the light—I do feel other burdens of representation—to smile and laugh and look as if I am enjoying myself when I ride. This is not to say that I don’t actually enjoy riding, but that I am not a chronically smiling person. And sometimes, when I am pushing a heavy load up a steep hill, I would rather not have to masque my exhaustion with an expression of joyful exuberance.

Still, I wax on a mischievous grin when crossing intersections, and I do my best to pant and wag my tongue, dog-like, when I am tired, because even a tired dog looks happy. Fun! Fun! Fun! Smile, smile, smile and be happy. But it’s semi-idiotic that I’ve succumbed to this burden. No one looks at a car out of gas and thinks, “Drivers are impotent,” and most people don’t automatically conclude, when they hear about fatal car pile-ups, “Drivers are psychopathic.”

It’s not fair that minorities have to be hyper-conscious of how they behave so that people won’t get the wrong idea about who they are. My friends bought me a shirt that I love to wear. It says, “I suck at math.” It is a distinctly Asian American shirt, for an Asian person to wear in order to actively dispel the stereotype that Asians are good at math. (Aside: this shirt is meaningless in Hawaii, where Asians are normal. Irvine, too.)

But, when I wear this shirt, it is a lie because I am good at math; in fact, I was a math major. Sometimes I tell people this, and they act as if I’ve confessed, as if I’ve affirmed the stereotype. No, I tell them, I am sorry; you have missed the point. I am not good at math because I am Asian. They are two separate things. Most Asian people, and there are a lot of them in the world, suck at math just like you.

The insidiousness of racism, manifested in the burden of representation, forces me to think twice before being proud of my talent. And that is a real consequence of systems where one group is normal, and another is not—that we are inhibited from being proud of a thing we do well, either because we aren’t supposed to, or because we don’t want to.

So, I say to you drivers, don’t think ill of bicyclists because I run a red light. And I say to you frowning bicyclists, don’t think ill of me because I represent you poorly. Rather, be proud for me that I am good at running red lights.

identity and ownership

2008-10-17T12:02:00.000-07:00

Bicycling through the City of Los Angeles, I am constantly struck by the complex bizarre web of relationships and political dynamics, within which I navigate--spatially, emotionally, and intellectually.

I firmly believe in the idea that how we move through space contributes to how we see ourselves and how we interpret society. That is, I believe that our transportation (read: travel attributes, like mode choice, time of trip, travel pattern) affects our identity. Not in a way at all different from race, class, gender, sexuality, age...language proficiency, (dis)ability, citizenship, ethnicity, height, weight, etc.

With any identity comes along discussions of community. And with communities, come notions of convention, normality, hegemony--all the wonderfully fun structures that can create relationships of empowerment, subjugation, inclusion, exclusion, and especially hierarchy and drama.

I want to focus on particular notions of identity construction and entitlement by approaching the question from the intersection of cultural identity and bicycling in Los Angeles. Who IS bicycling in Los Angeles? And who, if anyone, does bicycling belong to?