White Bicycles
Posted: August 17, 2010 by Phil, Category:Sustainability
Reading Pete’s blog (Plastic Bags! on 18 May this year), I was interested to note his local green group planned to introduce a public bike program. Having recently visited Amsterdam earlier this year (sadly no photographic evidence is available) I was really impressed (and quite envious) of the public transport links around the city where cars happily coexist with buses, trams and pedestrians on bikes. As far as I ventured outside the city centre people were happily making use of the bike lanes. A number of the staff here at IES cycle to work but in Glasgow I personally don’t fancy the idea of going up against the buses and cyclist-unfriendly traffic and the cycle paths are quite limited. I do hope that things can improve for cyclists so that one day even I might finally stop relying on buses to get me around, this is why I sit up when I see any scheme which encourages cycling.
Recently NVA released 50 white bicycles across Glasgow to be freely used by the public to get around venues at the Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art. This was a tribute to the original Provos Witte Fietsenplan (White Bike Plan) where 50 bicycles painted white were released across Amsterdam for public use to make a statement against consumerism, congestion and pollution. I can only assume statements such as this encouraged the city to grow its own cycle networks and introduce one of the world’s first Public Use Bicycle (PUB) systems which I have seen in use in many other European cities including the new system that is currently being installed in London.
“The White Bicycle Plan proposes to create bicycles for public use that cannot be locked. The white bicycle symbolizes simplicity and healthy living, as opposed to the gaudiness and filth of the authoritarian automobile.” Provo manifesto
The outcome of the scheme, both in Amsterdam and in Glasgow 2010, of course was that a number of the bicycles were stolen but if this encourages the city to embrace cycling and provide more infrastructure then it will have been worth it, if we can achieve anything like Amsterdam then perhaps even I will finally stop hanging around at bus stops.
