Portland Ghost Bikes

The first concerted organized effort to paint bicycles white occurred in the 1960s when the Dutch advocacy movement PROVO (to provoke) announced their White Bicycle Plan, which was part of a set of strategies hoping to improve social issues in Amsterdam [1]. After becoming frustrated with vehicle traffic PROVO planned to improve urban life when they proposed one of the first bicycle sharing systems in the world [2]. When the plan was rejected by authorities, PROVO painted 50 bicycles white and left them on the streets for public use [3]. After these bikes were impounded, PROVO added combination locks and painted the combinations on the bicycles, which firmly defined the white bike as a symbol of progressive protest [4]. The intention of the White Plans was to improve life, rather than memorialize death. The White Bicycle Plan foreshadowed the ghost bike, grounding the symbol of the white bicycle as a form of social advocacy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These advocacy roots are not exclusive to PROVO. The early cycling culture was immediately antagonistic toward the automobile, fighting against the health, safety and environmental impacts of driving. In the introduction to One Less Car: Bicycling and the Politics of Automobility, Zack Furness references Paul Rosen’s statement that “the emergence of…a bicycle counterculture began in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when pro-bicycle advocacy groups and anti-car environmental protests sprouted in the Netherlands, England, Sweden, France, and, most  strikingly, the United  States” [6]. Furness continued, “The bicycle is variously seen, and in many cases actively reconceptualized, as a source of self-empowerment and pleasure, a pedagogical machine, a vehicle for community building, a symbol of resistance against the automobile and oil industries, and a tool for technological, spatial, and cultural critique” [7]. The bike as a educational tool, as a weapon against the destructiveness of the automobile, provided a rallying point for accordant community members, resulting in a social movement symbolized by the man-powered, two-wheeled machine.

 

The ghost bike memorial also shares roots with roadside memorials commonly found along roads and highways after automobile related deaths. The structure and application overlaps between the ghost bike and roadside memorials, though the former uses a white painted bicycle as its primary symbol, while the latter is centered around the use of a white cross, permanently tying it to religious iconography. Despite these main differences, the roadside memorial and ghost bike memorial share dual functionalities, marking the site of physical loss to allow grief, while also inscribing the scene as a tragic place of warning. Similar to the ghost bike, intimate symbols and artifacts are sometimes placed at the roadside memorial, most often photographs and memorial inscriptions, though it is not uncommon to see more personal items, such as a beloved stuffed animal. These memorials are organically maintained, obtaining multifaceted purposes. In Roadside Crosses in Contemporary Memorial Culture, Holly J. Everett accurately describes the utility of these memorials: “The multivocality and cooperation embodied in each memorial, and the vernacular support that facilitates their existence, contributes to their dynamism and popularity. The survival of vernacular commemorative tradition, of which roadside crosses are a longstanding and integral part, involves the complex interplay of politics, culture, and belief” [8]. The roadside memorial, a symbol marking the site of sudden, unwarranted death, has both political and personal potency.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The first recording of a ghost bike memorial was in St. Louis, Missouri in 2003 [10]. After observing a collision, Patrick Van Der Tuin erected a spray painted white bike at the collision site with a sign reading “Cyclist Struck Here” [11]. He then encouraged friends to install ghost bikes at other bicycle casualty sites around town [12]. The early bike memorials reflected this social advocacy, focusing on the issue of safety and transportation rights, rather than personally memorializing the deceased.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It is San Francisco artist Jo Sholam, however, who is credited with popularizing ghost bikes. After becoming interested in the various white bikes he saw around the city, Jo created ghostbike.org, which catalogs ghost bikes around the world, as well as provides resources for ghost bike memorial participants [14]. According to ghostbike.org there are over 630 ghost bikes internationally [15]. These bikes all share general visual motifs, while only occasionally displaying more personal representations of the deceased. These symbols, and their implications, are important, illustrating the various motivations in which these memorials are erected, impressing unique perspectives on both active participants and casual spectators.