Living In Seattle, I am flooded with calls and texts from loved ones across the continent inquiring if we are OK. It is a warm feeling amongst the darkness how we mobilize and show up for each other.
“I’m off to do a grocery run for my friend because he can’t leave the house,” I say, closing a call.
“How are you gonna do that, you don’t have a car?” exclaimed my dear friend.
The following pause had made it clear that the eye roll I am infamous for was piercing through the phone straight at him. Conversations like these are basically platitudes for commuting cyclists, but they bear repeating. In times of disaster, these conversations are telling of our collective conditioning. Even with this friend, who was once a candidate for a cross country bike tour with me.
It is the 17th of March, 2020. I saddle up and ride out to greet the day. Seattle is sunny, warm, with a brisk wind. It is quiet. One can hear the birds. Without the roar of the nearby road, I can hear the flapping of crows wings overhead. The obvious is made clear and I am struck by the basic truth that yes, birds flapping their wings make noise. You just could not hear it before. Telling.
The spread of COVID-19 in Seattle, while deadly serious, has shifted longstanding paradigms to a new normal overnight. There is opportunity in the cracks to ponder what kind of world we want and could have as we residents all dream of a return to normal. For a brief moment in the stillness, I imagine a future of my dreams.
In the last four years while living in Seattle, I have seen what can only amount to a double-speak of residents: media and politicians voicing a concern for climate change while giving a free pass to cars, only to turn around and express dread for the city’s growing traffic problem. As a city, we are ranked as one of the worst in the country for congestion. Local radio station KUOW has initiated a reporting series on transportation and mobility in Seattle, and I have yet to hear the bicycle mentioned as a serious form of transport or remedy to the problem. The Seattle Times recently wrote a piece on new Amazon building construction in Bellevue, focusing on the congestion disruption. Again, no mention of incentivizing cyclists. Elected officials offering “we are a car-centric city.”
“A lot of people never use their initiative because no-one told them to.”
BANKSY
New York City just released a million dollar ad campaign with Billy Idol to encourage drivers to, well, not idle their cars and trucks. As an artist/illustrator, what I want to propose is a cycling public-relations campaign, invoking the PSA works of the New Deal era. Using the power of visual art to make the act of cycling both racially- and class-inclusive as well as the key ingredient: irresistible. We so often frame these conversations about what we have to lose, how about what do we have to gain? What would the stepping stones to that future look like? What kind of stories or narratives do we want to tell? My goal is to motivate, inspire, and draw wider, more inclusive circles in the world of cycling.
Below is an assembly of my playfully polished visual thoughts on the matter…
