The Guadalajara Reporter

White cycle campaign highlights bicycle safety

Activists hang a chain of white bicycles cut from paper outside the Casa Jalisco, the residence of Jalisco Governor Aristoteles Sandoval.

In the campaign known as “Bicicleta Blanca,” memorial “ghostly” bicycles painted white are placed in strategic points around the city every time a cyclist dies in a traffic accident.  The activists say the government does little or nothing to promote bicycle safety in the state. Last year, eight cyclists lost their lives on the streets of Guadalajara. Angered that one cyclist and five pedestrians have died in the first three weeks of 2014, the activists asked to see Sandoval but he refused to meet with them.  After hanging the paper cut-outs from trees outside Casa Jalisco, they moved on to the city center, where they left a painted white bicycle outside the doors of the government palace.