Shadow Footprints

Road crews trivialise cycling

The Portland Tribune has an article Crews exercise artistic license. It details how the pavers of the city bike lanes are embellishing on the standard-issue, internationally recognisable representation of a generic person on a two-wheeler. I'm fine with this in principle, the symbols are still easily recognisable. It takes a second look to realise they are not quite the standard.

The have included the following images:

• a bicyclist who reads a book as he pedals,
• cyclist swinging a golf club in the bike lane near Riverside Golf Country Club in Northeast Portland,
• cyclist sporting a tie that flies behind him
• a student like bike guy wearing a knapsack,
• a graduate holding a diploma and sporting a mortarboard on his head.

Most of these I'm okay with, and the image does relate to their location (library, golf club, downtown, university, university). The first two, taken in isolation, imply that it is acceptable to read or swing a golf club while cycling, instead of focusing on the cycling. The golfer is carrying additional clubs, that should be enough to imply he's on the way for a round of golf. The reader could be carrying closed books, though I admit that a symbol of a closed book is harder to achieve in a silhouette.

There are enough people who think cycling is a toy, and these two images do nothing to discourage that. The other symbols are good, they imply that the bicycle is a valid means of transport, and the tie wearing worker avoids the "too poor to own a car" attitude.

- shadowfoot,