If this tunnel doesn’t look familiar to you, it should: Pretty much every auto manufacturer zooms its newest car through this white tile arch in those flashy car commercials. During last Sunday’s CicLAvia, there was traffic of a different sort speeding through its dark, echoey center—tens of thousands of bikes and pedestrians. When I walked through around 2 p.m., the crowd and I were treated to a multimedia treat in the form of a shopping cart strung with flashing LED lights and loaded with a sound system blasting techno music at the tunnel’s midway point. With the booming bass, resonating bike bells, and shrieks of joy from people as they entered the darkness, I felt like I was walking through a 20-minute rave. It was a commercial of a completely different sort, just waiting to be made.
Alissa Walker is a writer, a gelato eater, and a walker in L.A. She shares an experience from her adventures around town at CityThink each Wednesday. Follow her daily on Instagram at @awalkerinLA, on Twitter, or at her blog, and use the hashtag #betteroffped to share your own photographs of walking in L.A.
