from treehugger:
We have complained before about ad creep, how the public realm is being taken over by private marketers. I don’t know if I should be happy or sad that the Egg Farmers of Canada have determined that there are enough cyclists in London, Ontario that they want to pay to advertise to them by painting ads onto bike lanes.
Matthew Blackett writes in Spacing: “What’s the next step? Using the dashes on the road to point you towards a Wal-Mart, or use the traffic screens on highways to promote a new car model?”
How did it come to this?
“The blame lies squarely on the managers of municipalities who forget that their primary job is to provide quality service to residents, not to sell our sight-lines and turn our infrastructure into advertising opportunities. A city doesn’t always have to say yes.”
via treehugger.
3 Comments
Someone here in London, Ontario has counter-attacked.
First they spraypainted on and around the ads. Here’s an example - http://www.flickr.com/photos/29125594@N03/2774376974/
Then they scrubbed at least a couple of them away somehow. Here’s an example – http://www.flickr.com/photos/29125594@N03/2801963258/
Those photos were taken in the same location by the way. I bike down that path, and I happened to see the changes not long after they were made.
I suppose the spraypainting and the scrubbing may have been done by different people. I’ve just assumed otherwise.