Do You Feel the Need for Public Art, such as sculptures on

[bikerdave]

YES! Try looking at Millenium mileposts and other sustrans art through a childs eyes and you'll see them in a better light. My children, now grown up, loved the models of our solar system accurate for scale and distance apart on the york to selby railpath and may soon be showing it to their children.
Badly cleaned urban paths is a real problem but i doubt it is a funding problem which can be solved by doing away with artworks.

[CJ]

I rode the whole length of a very nice bikepath on the route of "the most scenic old railway" in Denmark this summer.

I don't remember any sculptures, only the scenery - which was rather nice - and the beautifully smooth, wide and thick, tarmac surface - which greatly facilitated my appreciation of the former!

[troywinters]

camels are quite possibly if not superior to cyclists certainly equal especially for transport in the desert. so if such a successful design as camels were designed by a commitee then that would be a first.

[gar]

I like TJ to have plenty to talk about. See how eloquent he gets!

"EXACTLY"

[gar]

The public art I should like to see and use, is the bridge over the river at Newcastle, which tilts.
Cyclists use it too. I think it is for pedestrians and pedallers too.

[Helen]

Normally, I like a bit of sculpture, but not stuff that has cost a ton of public money. I'd rather see artwork done by a local school.
More important is the state of the cycle path. I want money spent on maintaining its surface and signposts.
Yes, I do like views while on a cycle path, eg the Peak District old railway lines where you feel on top of the world. Some railway paths are creepy, where you're hemmed in by trees and don't feel too safe.

[Elucasr]

"How about a piece that looks a bit like a road sweeper"

Very Strange! There used to be a firm in Cottenham, Cambs. which built a mini road sweeper for pavements, the vast majority of these were exported, very few were actually used in this country, Why?

[gar]

They make Watkins Trailers at a small works near me (if you came to the Warmwell Celebrations in 2002 you might have seen it) and there has been a steel statue of a human figure outside which is a landmark in the area.

No public cost; good publicity for Watkins trailers.

[Cyril Haearn]

A camel is a horse designed by a committee.#
They are nothing like each other .....
Councillor Howell

A camel is more useful and versatile than a horse I think

But the reason for the saying is: the task was to *design a horse*

I love cycling on old rail lines where railway stuff is still there, the crossing-keepers houses and distance markers for example

[Wanlock Dod]

Primarily there needs to be a top quality track, suitable surface, sufficiently wide to avoid conflict, part of an integrated network, etc.... Only once all of that is there is there any need for public art. At the moment we view cycling as a recreational activity and tend to feel that a couple of miles of barely adequate track and some pieces of "art" is more than adequate.

I don't see either the UK or Little Britain as likely to be in a position to need any art works by cycle paths for some decades to come because the paths simply won't be there (unless we just have a mile of path to a sculpture park).

[meic]

Some excellent public art along many urban cycle tracks.
All provided totally free by graffiti artists.

[Cunobelin]

There are some spectacular pieces of art on the UK's cycleways

Some are interesting and an amusing break on the journey, others are simply breath taking and a destination in their own right

Some are made of of recycled scrap, others very simple, and some complex and engineered.

Personally I think they add to the routes

[LollyKat]

I don't feel the need for them but I enjoy them when I see them. I might think differently if I thought that their cost reduced the amount of money available for the cycle path, but I suspect they are funded from a different source. In any case it provides work and a showcase for the many gifted artists around.

[Audax67]

For every chunk of art there'll be a dozen pylons. It's a given that there's no valley too beautiful for The Powers to slap a high tension line through it.

We have a lot of castles in this area. A few years back one local council paid for a sculpture such that when you looked through the hole in the middle you would see a castle neatly framed in it. Then a farmer built a new barn in between. Sculpture's still there, with a nice view of a corrugated sheet-metal wall.

[pjclinch]

How much I appreciate the aesthetics of the route depends on the hurry I'm in. If that's not so much I prefer a pleasant route, and sometimes it's some art that does that. A nice example is McGonagall's epicly bad poem about the Tay Bridge set in to the path passing the Tay Bridge. Doesn't get in your way, won't have cost a fortune, connects people and place if you want to slow down and take it in.

More craft than art, but a local councillor has recently expressed pleasure at the number of compliments passed to him about the local council lining the main road in to Dundee (with cycle path alongside) with banks or wild flowers. They're lovely.

In summary, I don't need these things, but I like to have them.

Pete.