#space4cycling ?

Whilst browsing through my twitter feed one afternoon I had something of a moment of clarity. Clarity is a rare thing to me so I decided to pay attention to it.

Cycle lanes should be 2m wide. ‘How wide?’, yes, that’s the recommended width that we hardly ever get to see. Instead we get a few cm of faded, broken paint covered in glass and rotten leaves. If we’re lucky it’s not under a parked car or delivery van or taking us the worst way into a junction.

I’d just looked at a picture of a couple of people holding up a Space for Cycling banner on the pavement next to a road where a car was parked in a cycle lane. It got me thinking about low-fi guerilla campaigning and using social media to make clear points whilst having a bit of fun*.

The idea is very simple.
Take a 2m long print with a ruler at the bottom and ‘#Space4Cycling ?‘ printed across the middle. This is now more than just a fragile bit of paper, it’s a campaigning banner, and it only costs £10.00 here’s my guide to what to do next.

1. Ride about for a (probably very) short while until you come across a particularly bad section of supposed infrastructure or a place where some is desperately needed. We all have our favourites.
2. Place the banner across the cycle path or wherever you think a cycle lane should be, preferably immediately in front of a parked car, giant pothole, cyclist dismount sign… (you get the idea).
3. Take a picture on your fancy smart phone showing the banner and it’s context in the road.
4. Tweet and/or Facebook the image with whatever comment you like but include #Space4Cycling and @GMcycling in the text and the twitter account for your local authority or councillor if you know it.
5. GMCC twitter account will retweet any good ones it happens upon plus anyone that follows the national space4cycling hashtag will see it and maybe do the same. We’ll figure out a way of saving the ‘best’ for a wall of shame and see how it grows.
6. Local MPs and councillors are shamed and chastised by our withering criticism and divert all available funds to implementing the soon-to-be-devised GMCC Greater Manchester strategic cycle map.