At peak rush hours, hordes of bicyclists, skateboarders and pedestrians charge through the Jefferson Boulevard and McClintock Avenue intersection. While the streetlight timer counts down the seconds, a young woman strolls and chatters on her cell phone, people on cruiser bikes zoom in every direction, and students late for class dodge traffic. Light after light, people repeatedly break into their chaotic paths, and, except for the rare collision, no one has ever been injured, according to DPS Capt. David Carlisle.
The willy-nilly patterns of the junction demonstrate a shared defiance of authority. Official California law requires bicyclists to walk their bike in the crosswalk. But they hardly ever do. Most keep pedaling and ignore common courtesies of yielding to a mother and her child or slowing down before a large group.
Ashley Dotterweich, a junior majoring in English, meanders through the intersection at least four times a day to and from the USC campus. “It’s mostly making big arcs around everybody. People on bikes forget how to steer. They do this thing—” Dotterweich gestures like she is swiveling handlebars from side to side, “—like they don’t know where they’re going. It’s like, just choose a direction, already.”
Pedestrians concede the right-of-way to bigger, faster clusters of bike riders. Gliding off the curb like a flock of birds taking flight, the bike riders’ feet seldom touch the ground. Elevated on their seats, few yell out warnings to people in the way. In the absence of language, subtle gestures – a nod of the head, a slight shift to the right to allow someone to pass on your left, a sudden decrease in speed – govern the arena.
American intersections are masculine: one street joins another at a perpendicular angle. Unlike roundabouts in France, which guide pedestrians and cars in a circle, square intersections foster aggressive movements. Slower people shrink their strides, never straying outside the white parallel lines, while faster people cut careless swaths. For those who travel at medium speeds, navigating between slow and fast crossers requires flexible decision-making.
“You’re going, you’re flowing, letting someone by,” said Amanda Ashley, a senior majoring in communication who rides a neon green cruiser bike. “Everyone has formed their own mini-lane.”
The unpredictability of the intersection, the flirting with the “possibility of improvisation” as Richard Schechner wrote, is a charged field of free expression. People rumor that at the end of every month, police officers, looking out of place with their strapped helmets and tight-fitted navy uniforms, monitor the intersection to ticket and fine bicyclists who do not walk their bikes. Seeing someone walking their bike could signify the presence of a cop – common street knowledge. After the police arrive, everyone walks their bike. When they haven’t been seen for weeks, bicyclists resort to familiar law-breaking habits.
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