Welcome to Archinect's Lexicon. Architecture notoriously appropriates and invents new language – sometimes to make appeals, sometimes to fill conceptual gaps, sometimes nonsensically. But once a word is used, it's alive, and part of the conversation. We're here to take notes.
bike-wash [baɪk - ˈwɒʃ], noun: a pejorative term for the PR spin-tactic of making a design appear more bike-friendly than it actually is.
This definition was derived from what may likely be the term's first appearance, on Archinect's Working out of the Box interview with architect and cycling advocate, Steven Fleming:
Then there are people who really surprise you, like the developers I met in America a few months ago. I thought talking to them about space for bikes inside apartments, to really incentivize riding, would be going too far—that they would only want to bike-wash their project with something like a shower down in the basement. They surprised me as well. But then they're like the government in Singapore: they can see how building for bikes adds up economically in their particular context.
The term appears to be a neologism built from the term "greenwash" (n), which refers to: "Misleading publicity or propaganda disseminated by an organization, etc., so as to present an environmentally responsible public image" (OED). And of course "greenwash" is built on "whitewash" (n.), "an attempt to hide unpleasant facts about somebody/something".
7 Comments
Nice graphic.
Perfect word-building. This applies to the countless urban-architecture forums and articles that think bike lanes solve all urban issues and work in every city and situation. And yet bikes don't even extend beyond Manhattan into deep Brooklyn, Queens, Bronx, New Jersey.
Float-washing?
Line-washing? (High line)
Fem-washing--oops still taboo (Jeanne Gang)
darkman - people ride bikes in these places - you just don't typically see them during rush hour (and a lot more people would bike places if they weren't forced to ride in traffic). adequately accommodating bikes/peds is necessary everywhere - the REAL problem is that people think slapping some paint on the street or providing bike parking is going to solve some deep issues with transportation inequity, poor road design, and auto-centric development patterns. I think you missed the point of this post.
Recent Tweet by Brent Toderian:
It's a cruel joke to design a city for cars, & then tell people they should walk, bike & take public transit more. Design a different city.
I was sent over to my bosses house with another guy from the office to measure his Georgian House in Wyoming. It was a really weird day, his wife followed us around all day like we were going to steal something. We used tape measures, no fancy gizmos. I don't think I ever stepped foot in that house again. I know when we were done my co-worker and myself laughed about how weird of a day it was. He said, "I guess she didn't like us looking in her closets."
NYC requires locked indoor bicycle storage rooms in most new buildings.
What's funny is the amount of top dollar square footage that developers have to give up for bike storage for people buying > $2m apartments, none of whom have bicycles. Even if they did they would never park them in a common space.
While I applaud the effort it's incomplete. If they banned cars in the city - including taxis and limos - then people would have to use public transit, bicycles, or palanquins. In which case further code revisions will be required as palanquins take up a lot more space than bicycles.
@snooker, maybe i am missing something but missing connection to bike-wash?
Makes sense in New York City if you consider today's high end housing is tomorrow's low income slum. Might take 50 years, but perhaps by then the rich will be living on a giant floating ring in space.
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