Talking Head David Byrne talks bicycling
By Vit Wagner, The Toronto Star, 23 October 2009 [Link]

David Byrne's many artistic endeavours over the past three decades – Talking Heads frontman, solo musician, photographer, installation artist, dance and stage collaborator – have landed him in virtually all of the world's cultural hotspots. And, with a folding bike in his luggage, he has seen a lot of those destinations from a pedal-pushing, street-level perspective.

During a visit to Toronto last year that included a concert at Massey Hall, the 57-year-old New Yorker ventured out on a two-wheel tour of the galleries and restaurants in the city's west end. The question of whether he ever feared for his safety is greeted with a laugh.

"I found that because Toronto is more or less a grid, it's better to ride on the back streets than some of the main streets where you have to avoid the trolley tracks and that kind of stuff," he says, on the line from his studio in New York. "If you know where you're going, you can navigate through the backstreets where there is very little traffic. That works very well.

"It certainly was not like some other places like Berlin or Copenhagen, where there are designated bike lanes all over the place and they have special stoplights for the bikes and whatever. In those cities, you're not in danger of getting doored or having a delivery vehicle pull into the bike lane."

Byrne won't have time for a bike ride when he returns Toronto today to promote his new book, Bicycle Diaries. But he's sure to hear a lot about the pros and cons of cycling in the city when he participates in an International Festival of Authors panel discussion on the subject of "Cities, Bicycles and the Future of Getting Around" at 1 p.m. at Harbourfront Centre's Fleck Dance Theatre. Also weighing in will be Yvonne Bambrick of the Toronto Cyclists Union, urban theorist Ken Greenberg and federal NDP leader Jack Layton.

In Bicycle Diaries, Byrne describes the experience of cycling in several cities, including Berlin, London, Buenos Aires, Istanbul and New York, augmented with a fair amount of musing on cultural and aesthetic concerns. Byrne started cycling about 30 years ago in Manhattan's Lower East Side for no other reason than it seemed the most efficient way to get around.

"I never did it because it was green or because it was `worthy'," he says. "It was always because it was practical. If I was in one place, I could leave and make it in time to hear some band or whatever. I knew how long it would take me. I didn't have to worry about whether the subway would break down or if I could catch a cab."

Byrne doesn't pretend to be an expert on bicycling issues in Toronto. He hadn't heard about the August death of cyclist Darcy Allan Sheppard, which resulted in charges being laid against the motorist, former Ontario attorney general Michael Bryant. Nor was he aware of Toronto city councillor Michael Walker's proposal to license cyclists and require them to wear helmets, although he can certainly appreciate why that scheme might rub some cyclists the wrong way.

"Instead of the city making biking safer, cyclists are being told to armour up," he says. "That's the wrong approach. If you're expected to wear a helmet, let's at least have a trade-off of more security to protect bicyclists from motorists."

Byrne is confident that accommodations will be found, as the phenomenon of urban cycling reaches a tipping point.

"It's no longer totally uncool to ride a bike to get from A to B. That's a significant development," he says.

"But increased cycling is also a symptom of people deciding they want to live in a city, as opposed to commuting to the suburbs. There's a perception now the city is not a place to escape from. It's a place you can live and raise a family.

"If people think of the city as their home, they want to make it better. They want to make it nicer for their kids. They want to make it a nicer place to live, with more amenities. They don't want their daily life to be a battle. That affects all kinds of things, including building codes, parks, transportation and all kinds of stuff. Our perception of urban living is changing."