Can street art get more people on bikes?

I’ve spent months writing and photographing to create the 98-page Bike to Work Book which, as a freebie, will hopefully encourage lots of newbies to try bicycle commuting. That’s a lot of words and hundreds of pix. Could the same task be achieved with just this one pic?



It’s by artist of Adelaide. I’m interviewing him for the next iteration of the Bike to Work Book. I love his work. It’s guerrilla stencilling.

Want to print out the top image as a poster or plaster on a t-shirt? Peter has agreed to give the image a Creative Commons licence so feel free to download)

Here’s one of his car/bike-parking stencils:



His contains more examples of his work, including this pic of him leaning by one of his artworks:  



His linkage between driving cars and portliness reminds me of this 2006 poster campaign by LoveYourBike.org and Manchester Friends of the Earth:



Thing is, who will the stencil messages reach? Drivers likely won’t see them, except when they’re pedestrians. Existing cyclists will like them for sure, confirming their mode of transport has two noteworthy merits. But I think the biggest potential for Drew’s images isn’t in downtown Adelaide: it’s on blogs, it’s on t-shirts, it’s on viral emails. His artwork - which will be copied and adapted - could go viral, passed along by cyclists but reaching a non-cycling audience.

Many of the recipients won’t care. Such imagery may be laughable to some; offensive to others. But for some people, an image like this can be the tipping point. Bold imagery can work wonders. My 98-page book can give a newbie cyclist a lot of information but the Bike to Work Book will only be read by those wanting to give cycling a go. Peter Drew’s images - and others like them - can flick switches in the brain. We need more of these switch flickers.

Image hat-tip to FreshBooks.com.