Early this morning, 22 new ghost bikes appeared around the intersection of Connecticut Avenue, R and 20th Streets NW. There were put there by Columbia Heights resident Legba Carrefour, in an effort to protest the city’s recent removal of the Alice Swanson ghost bike by the city. Alice’s original ghost bike was placed in front of the La Tomate restaurant by the Washington Area Bicycle Association shortly after her death a little over a year ago, though WABA as an organization is not taking credit for this latest, much larger stunt.

Carrefour has started a blog in an attempt to explain his actions:

We assume the ghost bike’s removal was some sort of simple error on the part of the Mayor’s office. Possibly, they mistook the bike for an escaped white lion. In that event, we salute the Mayor’s office for its continued vigilance in the fight against rare albino predators. But whatever the reason, we’ve decided to fix the problem and put the bike back in its rightful place.

We hope this brings a little warmth to the family and friends of Alice Swanson. We hope this will help work towards safer streets for cyclists. We hope this forces the city government to see public space as something for public use. But the one thing we’re not hoping for is for the Mayor’s office to put the bike back. We put it back. And if it leaves again, we’ll put it back again. And again. And again.

We’re checking with the D.C. Department of Public Works to see how they plan to handle dealing with all these new bikes, and will update when they have an answer ready for us.