Comments on Sam's review of Critical Mass
Critical Mass
Description: A monthly bicycle ride to celebrate cycling and to assert cyclists' right to the road.
Just a Mess
How green, or ecological, or sustainable, or earth-friendly are idling cars being held immobile on city streets? It doesn't really matter whether they're blocked by Hummers or bicycles. Fumes for a good cause are still fumes.
None of the reviewers here who come out in favor of Critical Mass sound like inconsiderate people, so it's a little surprising that they don't seem to have factored in the more unsavory aspects.
First of all, those (surprisingly few?) drivers who "exhibited bad behavior" upon finding themselves volunteered for a traffic jam of someone else's making. It's great to think that participants feel "liberated", but why should people who are using public roads trying to get somewhere pay a price? I know that I don't want to. How would all those happy riders feel if someone decided that making them late to work would be a good time? Is it all right if it's done on pogo-sticks?
Then there's that helpful police presence, conducting traffic, calming those stupidly irate drivers. News flash here - San Francisco residents don't pay cops so they can supervise joyrides. Uniformed police have better things to do, and they'd be doing it, if they weren't needed on the streets to prevent the city-wide gridlock that used to occur when Critical Mass came out.
The idea that Critical Mass encourages bicycling strikes me as flat-out silly. Not only does it create waves of bad will, it makes it that much harder for anyone to support bicycling. Bike lanes, awareness campaigns, anything that helps is going to take public money and a committment on the part of public officials. Not many of them want to come down on the side of a cause that exists to disrupt.
Last weekend I listened to my sister teach her son that it's not all right to have fun when it hurts other people. He loves to throw oatmeal at breakfast, but no one else at the table is amused. At 21 months he hasn't picked up on this yet - what's your excuse?
Sam's keywords: bicycling
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Elli A. says:
Yeah, and they block public transportation busses as well ;)
Adam W. says:
An art teacher once famously critiqued his student's modern art project by remarking that Picasso had to learn the rules of art before he could break them. Similarly, your sister is teaching your nephew the norms and regulations of our society. This is an important lesson that he must learn if he is to ever comprehend the difference between random flings of oatmeal and a well timed pie-to-the-face.
As for those poor drivers, critical mass has been held on the last Friday of every month for almost 10 years. San Francisco has incredible public transportation - there is absolutely no reason why anyone "needs" to drive in to the city on that one day out of the month. Park your car and take the BART - that's what it's there for, and there are plenty of places to let you do it. Or if you really really want the convenience of your car, drive in to town and stay around after work. Eat some dinner, have a drink - then go home. The only drivers who have excuses for being on the road are tourists (who don't really care anyway - they love critical mass) and taxi drivers. I can understand why taxi drivers are mad.
You are however right I think when you say that Critical Mass does nothing to support bicycling, bike laws, or biker-driver relations. It may have started as that, but it certainly doesn't do it anymore. The only real purpose of Mass is to give people a chance to do something one day a month that they are not allowed to do the rest of the month. It turns, just for a few hours, the traffic flow of the city of San Francisco (or any other city it takes place in) on it's head. That alone is worth everything. people need constant reminders that the ways things are or should be needs to be turned upside down once in a while