Cycling Visionaries Awards - Project Details

wikicarril

A citizen-painted shared lane for bicycles and motorized traffic running in front of the Mexican legislative office, making visible the need of resources for non-motorized infrastructure. First lane was 300 meters long, then erased by the government in less than 24 hours. Then it was repainted stretching for 5 Km.

Mexico City’s government said in 2007 that it would build 300 km of bike lanes around the city by 2012. In the understanding that the current paradigm in Mexican cities is not economically nor environmentally sustainable and is not good well-being for their citizens, the Camina, Haz Ciudad collective, with support from ITDP and Bicitekas A.C. decided to paint a 300 meter long guerrilla shared lane for bicycles and motorized traffic in front of the Mexican Congress.

This action took place to make noticeable that in order to change the paradigm, you have to give resources to the cities, and if you don't give the resources, the citizens are able to do things by themselves.
During the first intervention twenty people helped. 10 liters of green and white paint were used and nine triangles similar to sharrows were painted.

24 hours later, the local authorities painted the triangles black.

First a diploma was symbolically handled to the Congress. It was for "not working, not letting others work and not quitting".

Two weeks later, with the help of crowd-funding, we bought 40 liters of green and white paint and gathered again to paint five kilometers on the same street, starting at a middle-low class neighborhood and ending in front of the Congress.

This had two objectives:

1) Showing the government that the citizen work has to be taken into account and in order to build a city for the people, you have to work together.

2) Bicycles are for everyone. People from any neighborhood should be able to cycle wherever they want and a few lines can change the perception of motorists, cyclists and pedestrians, making it easier for everyone to move around.

The second wikicarril was not erased, although, when we asked the local government to make it an official shared lane, the answer was negative.