Ghost Bikes

Ghost bikes. Have you seen them? Today, a strangely warm Haligonian day, I had quite a bit of driving to do for work and noticed many bicycles out and about. (As a side note, have you been outside on a warm-ish fall day and felt "I could TOTALLY be practicing yoga outside today. I wish I wasn't working"? Today was one of those days. It's almost problematic where I get a vivid image of what I would be wearing, how it would feel, the air against my skin during warrior II. Distracting.).

(Ghost Bike, photo credit)

Halifax has a Ghost Bike on North Street (click here for a picture) and it honestly did seem to appear out of nowhere. A tiny traffic island right off the MacDonald Bridge and there is a painted white bicycle with a small plaque. According to the GhostBike.org site:

"Ghost bikes are small and somber memorials for bicyclists who are killed or hit on the street. A bicycle is painted all white and locked to a street sign near the crash site, accompanied by a small plaque. They serve as reminders of the tragedy that took place on an otherwise anonymous street corner, and as quiet statements in support of cyclists' right to safe travel."

A bit of creative searching, it would appear the Ghost Bike is the result of the bicycle death of Michael Brooker in 2007. I'm not 100% sure, but it would appear a purple bicycle was locked to a telephone poll and the public participated in painting it white as a community act of memorial.

That small area isn't the best place to pull over to take a picture.

A lot has changed in the past 4 years since his death, but bicycling in Halifax is still risky business. Sustainability demands less reliance on climate changing, air polluting automobiles (did you know that acid rain has slowly been on the rise?).

article copyright of EcoYogini at ecoyogini.blogspot.com