While most people would prefer real spiders to move along, it seems gigantic ones made out of random pieces of what would be junk are more popular.
"Phobia," a public art piece by anonymous Montreal-based artist Junko Playtime, popped up earlier this month under the Victoria Drive bridge near Broadway.
The sculpture, easily visible from the SkyTrain, was put up without the blessings of the City of Vancouver.
And that means they're considering taking it down.
The city government says it "has been working with its partners to discuss the best path forward for the removal, to ensure there is no damage to the bridge structure, and that the removal is done safely with minimal service level impacts to the adjacent rail lines."
However, there's been an outcry to leave the odd piece of art in place, led by Junko.
In an opinion piece for V.I.A. public policy commentator Margareta Dovgal says it's things like this that lead Vancouver to get the moniker 'No Fun City,' and encourages policymakers to let the spider art be.
"Here's another major opportunity to improve the lives of Vancouverites: fully embracing the aesthetic potential of a vibrant urban environment," she writes.
It seems the city is with her, for the most part.
With more than 700 votes, almost three-quarters of the public support "Phobia" staying where it is.
It seems out-of-towners are slightly more supportive of the idea, with only 70 per cent of locals agreeing that the art should stay put. But in either case, a notable majority agree it should remain.
Vancouver Is Awesome polled 705 readers and asked the question: Should the unsanctioned spider artwork stay under a Vancouver bridge?
The poll ran from 3/26/2023 to 3/31/2023. Of the 705 votes, we can determine that 412 are from within the community. The full results are as follows:
Results are based on an online study of adult Vancouver Is Awesome readers that are located in Vancouver. The margin of error - which measures sample variability - is +/- 3.69%, 19 times out of 20.
Vancouver Is Awesome uses a variety of techniques to capture data, detect and prevent fraudulent votes, detect and prevent robots, and filter out non-local and duplicate votes.
With files from Allie Turner
