Sharing a bicycle path

Social Design intervention
for: Fietsersbond, 2021

Featured in Vogelvrije Fietser

Bicycle paths in the Netherlands are getting more and more crowded, especially on beautiful sunny days. It evokes a lot of mutual irritation and unsafe situations between various cycle path users. Fietsersbond asked me and Lisa Strijbosch to think about this problem as social designers.

We came up with a series of interventions and tools with which the Fietsersbond can go out into the world and come up with a solution - together with the people involved. One of our inventions is this Bicycle Sign toolkit. It is a bicycle-suitcase with whiteboard traffic signs, stencils, art supplies and an instruction booklet. With this tool, bicycle path users who do not yet know each other can talk about their mutual irritations. They are challenged to find a solution together and to present it on a self-made road sign. The best part: even bike path users who said they hate each other's 'bicycle kind' did not come up with rules and prohibitions, but with very empathetic road signs. 'Ring your bell with love', 'It can also be slower', 'Really turn on your light'.