In November 2020, in the middle of the climate and health emergency, it was and certainly still is urgent to develop sustainable, respectful, responsible and safe means of transportation. Bicycles are part of that solution and Madrid, the city where bike lanes lead nowhere, can’t be left behind. 

While the Madrid City Council has made statement upon statement supporting bicycles, the crude reality points in the opposite direction. Bicycling as a means of transport is under constant attack. Though the Acuerdos de la Villa accord, the Madrid City Hall engaged to establish provisional safe bike lanes on different streets and neighborhoods throughout the city. These accords have not been upheld. There is a move to restrict parking for bicycles when the true problem with occupying space on the pavements comes from other vehicles. The city purports to prohibit instead of adapting underground passages when often this is the most direct route. Numerous proposals for bike lanes stemming from citizen engagement have been rejected despite preliminary viability reports. Bicycles are not considered at all in various urban planning projects. Public funding for the pubic service Bicimad is dwindling, and bicycle lanes, such as the one along Madrid’s Gran Vía, are being dismantled. 

The city can’t wait any longer. Madrid can’t let another opportunity pass it by and be paralyzed in 20th century mobility models while countless cities from around the world are moving forward. This is why on Sunday, the 15th of November 2020, Pedalibre and the Plataforma Carril Bici Castellana (Castellana Bike Lane Platform) called a bicyclestration to demand a genuine push for bicycles as a means of transportation and the building of a truly separate cycling system to make bicycles a real transportation alternative with a potential draw for the entire population. We had to get out on our bikes, skates, and scooters to call out for a “Separate Cycle Lane System NOW!”.

A few days before that, they came over to Viernes for us to help them with a concept and graphic identity for the event.

The bicyclestration concept had to roll the community’s anger and despair about having to fight for bicycles into a single cry and distill the desire for a protest calling for something all of the protesters could identify with. The concept, imbued with the notion of activism, is a true declaration of intentions: whatever happens, we won’t stop riding our bikes to call out loud and clear for Madrid to take bicycles seriously as a sustainable means of transportation. 

We created a perennial identity for the bicyclestration by melding visual elements. The logo is reminiscent of an oval green tree leaf whose nerves suggest the idea of a system of cycle lanes. This symbol is to be shared on social media, printed on stickers, flags, banners or T-shirts, or tattooed on one’s leg. We also prepared graphic pieces to support the call made on social media. 

It turned out to be the largest bicycle protest in the history of Madrid. The huge mobilization had the backing of numerous neighborhood, ecologist, educational, pedestrian and other associations. Thousands of people of all ages and walks of life road down the city’s main streets, and steams of bicycles commanded the roads in a demonstration of what would happen if we prevail. 

 Once again, popular support for bicycles was made clear. We need our streets and avenues to be better adapted to this means of transportation. We need an interconnected, adequately structured system of separate cycle lanes. Cycling cannot be or even be perceived to be a risk activity or merely a sport. This is the only way we will make bicycles a true alternative for Madrid’s every day life. 

The City Hall better take note or we’ll be back with more!