Earlier this summer two OCAD students rolled out dozens of neon art bikes as part of an ambitious public art project that was as much about bike lanes as beautification. But while some feel the Good Bike project has captured the spirit of cycling activism in Toronto, its political and artistic statement hasn’t exactly won everybody over, and the bikes are now being vandalized faster than they can be repaired.
“Ninety-nine per cent of the reaction has been really, really positive,” said Vanessa Nicholas, who spearheaded the Good Bike project with Caroline Mcfarlane. “But when people beat them up obviously that’s disheartening. We’re in the habit of carrying around spray paint so that if we pass one we can touch it up, but there’s not too much we can do to fix them once they’ve been beaten up.”
The majority of the art bikes are still in good shape, but one in Parkdale has had its front wheel stolen, another at Spadina and Queen has been bent and knocked over, and several more have been tagged with graffiti or had their wheels kicked in. The original orange bike near OCAD that started the project is now missing its seat and the flowers that were once planted in its basket.
Eldon Garnet, the veteran Toronto artist responsible for several famous public projects throughout the city, says that the design of the project invites acts of vandalism.
“Vandalism comes from no logic, but what vandals see is a piece of trash, a bike that’s now been marked as abandoned,” he said. “It’s up for grabs, that’s what’s being declared.”
Most of Garnet’s projects are made out of highly durable material like stone or metal, but he said it’s impossible to design a piece of public art that’s completely immune to vandalism.
Nicholas says that not all the acts of vandalism are negative and that she was pleasantly surprised by the graffiti now adorning the pink bike at College and Robert streets, as well as a poem artist Gregory Alan Elliott scrawled next to the orange bike outside OCAD.
“Those are nice interventions. We like that kind of conversation with other artists in the city,” she said.
Aside from bearing the brunt of mindless acts of violence, the art bikes have also come under fierce criticism, some of it from the very members of the cycling community that Nicholas and Macfarlane are trying to champion. Online comment fields are littered with nasty postings by cyclists claiming the art bikes take up scarce parking spaces for active bicycles or that they would be more useful if they were donated to the needy.
Nicholas counters that she went out of her way not to chain the bikes up to the city’s post-and-ring bike stands and that only badly damaged and unrideable bikes are used in the project.
There are now roughly 40 art bikes scattered throughout the city and 20 more will be installed soon. They’re intended to remain up until the fall but as yet Nicholas says there are no firm plans as to how they will be removed come winter.
Until then, she’s not bothered by the vandalism they’ve incurred. “Nobody’s really indifferent about the project, they either love it or hate it,” she said. “That one per cent of the time we find a bike that’s been beaten up it doesn’t faze us that much.”
