Second thoughts about this poster

Amount of space required to transport the user the same number of passengers by car, bus, or bicycle
Originally uploaded by rllayman

Image: Amount of space required to transport the user the same number of passengers by car, bus, or bicycle, Urban Ambassadors, Des Moines, IA


In a previous entry I said this poster was one of the best versions of this concept, which has been done by many organizations and in many places over the years.

The idea that is expressed is that you can move people more efficiently by transit, on foot, or by bicycle.

Efficiency is defined by the amount of space required to move the same number of people according to the specific mode.

In this poster, the bicyclists are spread out along the same distance as the space taken by cars. I think that's misleading. 40 bicycles, in traffic, don't take up the same amount of space, linearly--I guess you could look at this as two bike lanes versus four lanes of motor vehicles--as the cars.

In any case, I am not sure the way this is expressed graphically hits people over the head strongly enough, in terms of the point.

What do you think?