[sustran] Result - What to do with 900 bikes?

Carlosfelipe Pardo carlosfpardo at gmail.com
Sat Apr 10 07:21:08 JST 2010


Hi,

I had sent the email below some weeks ago, and many of you gave very 
good ideas on how to use these 900 abandoned bikes. We also did a survey 
of bike users and 43 of them gave us other ideas on how to use the 
bicycles. Unfortunately, all 900 bicycles were practically destroyed, 
and logistics of the local organization which was going to pick them up 
(Fenalco) made it impossible to pick up all the 900. They could only 
pick "the 200 best ones", and out of those we got the 10 "best of the 
best", which were actually impossible to fix.... we went to a bike shop 
and fixing them would cost us more than a new basic bicycle.

Thus, we have chosen to use all ten bicycles for artistic purposes (i.e. 
sculptures - performances on the bikes by recognized artists). If we get 
good artists, we will do an auction of the bikes and use the money for 
safe routes to school or some other nice initiative.

(the other 190 bicycles were sold as scrap metal, and that money will 
also be used for safe routes to school).

In conclusion, it is extremely sad to find that people who had 
functional bikes have lost them entirely due to penalties of the traffic 
police, and now making them at all usable was impossible. It may be 
useful as a case study of a "worst practice".

Best regards,

Carlos.

>
> On 11/03/10 8:43 AM, Carlosfelipe Pardo wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> I have a practical problem: Bogotá's traffic police have taken away
>> bicycles from people not wearing helmets, and getting them back costs
>> more than the actual cost of the bike. In consequence, there are a
>> couple of yards with some 900 bikes sitting there for the last 10
>> years. This week a judge has told a local organization that they are
>> willing to "donate them" for a noble cause, but that they must be
>> taken from the yards before this Friday. They are getting a warehouse
>> to store them at least from Friday and during some weeks, but now the
>> questions are:
>> - Will they be at all useful (imagine, bikes that have been in the
>> open and under rain, sun, etc for up to 10 years...)?
>> - If they're not useful as fully-functional bikes, what can they be
>> used for? Some people have said they should do a sculpture, do various
>> sculptures and do an auction with those sculptures, turn them into
>> blocks of scrap metal...
>>
>> Now my question to all of you is: what would you do with 900
>> used-disfunctional bicycles? (of course, imagine you have very limited
>> amounts of money to do something).
>>
>> Best regards,
>>
>>    
>


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