Bikes, Cities and the Future of Getting Around
I’m on a one week tour — a series of events focusing on bikes and cities timed to coincide with the release of my Bicycle Diaries book. I told the publisher I didn’t think I’d be very good as a reader — which is the usual way authors are trotted out to promote their books — so I suggested instead we do a series of forums focusing on our cities and how bikes have become a symptom of a new interest in urban living in North America. (This has a little bit of the added effect of hinting that the book is not just about riding a bike.) The publicity department of Viking, the publisher, generously helped put these events together. Sometimes they are held in bookstores, as those are the venues the publisher knows; and sometimes, like last night in Austin, in small theaters.
At each event there will be a representative of the local city government; an advocate; a theorist/designer/planner or historian; …and me. We each do short (10-15 min.) presentations about our area of expertise and then there is some Q&A and then we’re done. So far, I’ve been to NYC and Austin and Seattle and it’s working pretty well. By bringing these elements and people together the events serve as a catalyst, a reminder and a symbol that perception and policies are changing — about bikes as a way of getting around and about how our lives in cities can be. The interest and turnout might be as much for the content as what’s on stage.
The morning after I arrived here I rode around Austin and discovered that a surprising amount of the downtown area has been given over to parking.
Austinites were surprised when their city bike lane and trail rep Annick Beaudet revealed how many of the city’s residents commute by bike already, and how much new infrastructure is going to be added in the coming years. If they can conceive of replacing some of those parking lots and structures with mixtures of cool housing, office and retail they would inevitably lure more folks into the central district, where cars are not absolutely essential for every activity. Where will all those new workers, consumers and residents park then? — well, some will find it more practical to use public transportation and some will…ummm…ride bikes. The policy of infinite accommodation to the car needs to stop and be reversed if our cities are to survive as more than clumps of offices and parking garages.
After the Austin event I rode to the Continental Club (the hotel has loaner bikes) to see the guys in Heybale do their usual Sunday evening set. The band, partly made up of veterans from the bands of artists like Merle Haggard and Johnny Cash, play their repertoire of mostly classic country songs (Hank Williams, Ernest Tubb, George Jones, Webb Pierce) and a few originals with consummate skill. The guitar player Redd Volkaert and the pedal steel player in particular are amazing musicians — their frequent and concise solos are both surprising and inventive, and technically mind-boggling. More than once I’ve seen young musicians standing close to the stage with their jaws hanging open as these guys whip off another effortless solo. I was reminded of the days when Clapton was heralded as a guitar godhead — well, these guys are in that class, though the tunes are a little different. At least three of the band members sing, and pretty well, too.
I happen to love those songs, though I realize they’re not to everyone’s taste. What’s just as wonderful as the band is the audience they’ve amassed over years playing this Sunday night residency — all ages: 20-somethings and folks my age and older, many of whom have come to dance the two-step or the waltz, depending on the song — and they fill the floor as soon as the band starts. I’ve seen 20-year-old girls in dancing dresses and grandmas in the same outfits. Last night one of the very best dancers in the joint was a young man who didn’t look like your typical country music fan — he could have been Mexican, Indonesian or Syrian. All the girls were happy to dance with him.
Living the Dream
The next morning, as I changed planes at Dallas Ft. Worth, I saw a guy talking on a cell phone outside a fast food place on one of the endless concourses. He was in full cowboy costume and it was, to me, so extreme and clichéd that he could have been a member of the Village People. I don’t think he would have appreciated hearing that. He had the full gear — a checkered Western shirt, old Tom Mix-style hat, jeans, boots, a belt with a giant buckle, and a handlebar moustache. Halloween ain’t for a few more weeks!
I guess you can get away with that here in Texas, though this guy was pretty out there. There isn’t much call for ropin’ and herdin’ around DFW, unless it’s rodeo season, but even then the rodeo guys I’ve met don’t dress like this. This guy, it seems to me, is role playing. If he’s not that guy he’s going to at least look like that guy. If he were to walk into a NY office in that getup, folks would point him to the casting call across the way. But Texas is, sometimes, big and crazy enough that one can take the risk and reinvent oneself and folks go along with it.
Flying out of DFW I marveled at the sprawl.
