Ford Conquers Art Bike?

So Toronto is going to have "art bikes."

Spontaneous act of art ordered removed from Dundas St.

The Toronto Star published an article on June 2 about Caroline Macfarlane who painted a bike that has been locked to a bike post for over a year.

Sometimes I take Dundas to and from work and saw it the other day. It was awesome! Bike + art = cool things in Toronto.

Then Transportation Services decided to put a removal notice on it because they hate art in Toronto (actually, it's because all of a sudden, after sitting there for over a year, this bike is taking up precious parking space for other bikes and needed to be removed). Despite attempts to save the bike, Transportation Services got their way.

blogthegood

So the bike was removed and now seems to be a nice prize for Ford. Kinda looks like one of them left-wing pinko bike riders!

More 'art bikes' rolling to T.O. sidewalks

Today the Toronto Star reported that since removing a nice piece of street art City Council has decided to institutionalize "art bikes" by providing Macfarlane with 150 bikes collected by the City to art up and put on sidewalks around the city. Am I missing something? So the City can step in and decide to ruin something great and then become heroes for "allowing" the very same artist to do it all over again? Let's just hope the City doesn't move to sell off the art bikes to corporate sponsors.

This reminds me of two weeks ago when the City painted over a mural on Dupont that was still in progress of being made even though it was commissioned by the City. What is going on here?! Who is in charge?! Apparently the City is now allowing the same guy to re-paint the same mural at the same spot. I don't get it.

Check out Macfarlane's blog post on the so-called art bike.

Contact Transportation Services to register your discontent.