Zip Zip. Cars, Clothing, and Angeleno Attitude

OVER the course of the last semester I have been working for an electronic music company downtown. My Tuesday/Thursday mornings all look the same - rent a Zip Car from LMU's campus, drive the 405 to the 10, exit 5th street, left on Bixel, Right on 5th, reach the garage, punch the code, enter, complete various tasks for 4 hours, exit the garage, right on 5th, left on Lucas, jump on the 10, crawl down the 405, exit at Howard Hughes and return the car to LMU's bluff-top campus. The only thing that varies from week to week is the type of car in which I make the journey (which is dependent on which cars have yet to be reserved; random chance). I have noticed that Angelenos don't take too kindly to someone driving what they see as a 'rental car' traversing the winding 10; they don't want to read "wheels when you want them" (Zipcar's slogan) while tightening their grip around the steering wheel-shredding 405. When I drive a car with more advertising, I get more honks, more middle fingers, and feel the need to blend in. Oppositely, when I rent the cars with fewer advertisements I in fact feel that I have acquired some sort of agency -- that I can now drive like all other Angelenos, as a direct result of NOT having the Zipcar slogan slapped onto my back bumper. I feel priveleged, lucky, that I get to travel the LA freeways in an fleet of data-collecting motorized boxes! I can literally change cars like many do clothes, giving me the opportunity to not only try on different personalities and characteristics - but also gauge how others react to me...Zip Zip.

Photo: ZipCar Logo

-- Ryan Cavalier

Voice -- The Four-Level

FOUR LEVELS INTO MY HEART


The four level interchange immediately annoys me.

It irritates me that I have to look at it via aerial view, because I’ve sat in it first handedly. My grandma and her friends refer to it as the “four letter” interchange, but this is what Los Angeles traffic does to some people. It drives elderly women to use four letter words to describe their roadways. When I think about what I’ve learned so far in this course, about how freeways created pockets of living spaces and how they allowed us to only come into contact with those we wanted, I begin to see that the 101 and 110 coming to a head showcases this beautifully. This is a beauty that can only be described with concrete and polluted inhalation. Literally people coming from all directions, north, south, east, and west, are forces to sit in traffic next to one another and absorb each other’s company, even if it is from the comfort of your own Jetta. And what happens when we allow these people to “mingle” on the grid-locked freeways? They brandish weapons over lane-changes and scream inexcusable phrases that force the blood in their carotid arteries to nearly burst. We must really love our neighbors.

It is so easy for me to quickly be harsh on my fellow Angelenos. I describe them as brutish savages that are willing to fight for a stop in the carpool lane. But I must acknowledge that I am not above them. Allow us to remember my initial reaction to the picture: annoyance and irritation. Maybe I should work on my own anger issues, but until then I will continue to put on my blinker a mile and a half before I actually need to get over in order to ensure I make my exit. Hand gestures and honked horns aside, the sweeping lanes of infrastructure could be incredibly calming to the right person. I guess I’m just not that right person today

-- Hailey Hannan

FOUR-LEVEL INTERCHANGE

In the center of the urban jungle that is downtown LA, the 101 and the 110 freeways flow into each other like colliding concrete rivers. Horns and sirens make up the music of the four-level interchange as millions of commuters chug their way through the clutter of the crowded lanes. BMWs and Mercedes mix with old VW buses and big rigs, showing the true diversity of the city. In a city that is so spread out, this is the one place all Angelenos are forced to come together. Though everyone is heading off to their own corner of the city, for these few hours in the morning and afternoon, everyone from all walks of life gathers on these cement pathways.


For some, the highways provide escape—a passageway to another alcove of this amazingly diverse city. Hop on the 110 to travel downtown to the ultra-urban LA Live center. Take the Marina freeway down into Santa Monica or Venice and stroll along the boardwalk. Cruise down the 101 to take a tour of the film studios in Hollywood. No matter where you are in the city, entertainment is just a car ride away.


For most however, the highway system is a nuisance—an eternal headache in an otherwise ideal metropolis. Hours upon hours are spent with a foot on the break, banging on the steering wheel, fuming in an unmovable pod of frustration. Because of the densely packed roadways, appointments are missed, plans are canceled, and people are left waiting. “Traffic” is not an inconvenience, but rather a fact of like in LA.

-- Megan McMurtrey


PICTURE

Every level represents different ideas, mentalities, life styles and values. A four-level freeway doesn’t need an explanation because it speaks so loudly on it’s own. Yet once zoomed in, all those cars on the freeway represent different people who are after different things. Driving east a mother going to work, driving west a student rushing to get to class on time, driving north an explorer wondering where the freeway leads, driving south a human being living life. What’s interesting is not the difference in their agenda, but how they all use the same freeway to take them where they want to go. They are all different people but have found a way to “share” the freeway, share LA.

The four-level freeway in Downtown Los Angeles represents how residents of LA are able to work together, yet be after completely different things. The freeway is a visual of how LA is separated, as each level represents a different way, different lifestyle, but they are all LA residents. They all live in LA and although most may complain about the traffic going on, they don’t leave LA. The freeway represents the chaotic elements of the city, since there are four levels of freeways. Four. That symbolizes how different LA really is; no one part is similar to the other as none of the four levels go the same direction.

-- Talin Manooki



THE "FOUR LEVEL" -- DOWNTOWN

Don’t be fooled by the first look of this grey maze of freeways. It is not just another lifeless picture of boring infrastructure, but an intricate design or maze, if you will, for not only cars but people to get to where they want. A place where desires and needs are put in one direction, but can take many twists and turns. It comes in the form of low bridges, high ramps, and different sized underpasses, and stands as really the most picturesque of all the freeways of California. Of course the Pacific Coast Highway has the ocean view and beach breeze, but it is no comparison for the “four level”, which is full of magnificent columns that could hold up the world if it had to.

The maze that is this freeway, could almost act as a metaphor for life. One where there are many opportunities and directions. Most likely, like the cluster of traffic also creates, takes a long time to finally arrive at that original goal. But it is attainable, and not only attainable but one can view so much more while on the road to that goal. They can see other traditions, sample other culture’s foods, ask for directions from a native, or simply get lost and possibly go a route you never knew existed.

The piles of cement take on a 3-D look that pops off the page, inviting anyone to take on the adventure and join the hundreds of other people that are probably on one of the freeways at this very moment. There are plenty of buildings to pop into and people who are waiting to tell their story and possibly help in achieving yours. Are you coming?

-- Jessica Fernandez

(photo via wikipedia commons)

Road Work: The Changing Face of the City

IT'S become a familiar sight for all of us: Unending road work and unforeseen lane closures on the freeways or major surface streets we require daily to take us from one post in our lives to another.

It's frustrating, to put it mildly.

I was off to meeting the other night and, of course, even by scheduling a little extra time all parties were a bit late. But surprisingly, we all arrived about the same amount of time late -- a first. And a typical L.A. qualification. What did it? The 405, as usual, was a mess. One-mile-per hour for long, long stretches. I'm so used to traversing the 405 at night that I hadn't really noticed the work that has been done on the "retaining wall" -- on the northbound side just beyond Westwood. I was struck by the materials they have used. Rather than a cinderblock eyesore made pretty by some sort of standard-issue ice-plant, these walls are made to look as if this behemoth of multilane road was simply cut out of the earth's core. I didn't have my camera at the ready to shoot but the walls looked something very much like this:




Seeing it just made me think what sort of story will be carved out of this new wrinkle in the city's physical profile, what myth will grow up around this fast-road that pushes along side the old Sepulveda Pass--some history someone will invent based on what they may perceive to be something old, some antique stretch of road.

-- L.G.

top photo: the 405 @ venice, targophoto, via flickr creative commons