Critical Mass = Critical ASS

You guys deserve to be arrested. Critical Mass is as intimidating to
pedestrians as it is annoying to drivers.
I encountered your ride on Park Avenue a couple of weeks ago. I watched a
young mother with a baby in a stroller struggle for about 15 minutes to get
across 26th Street.
Not one of riders stopped to allow her to get across. In the end, she was
forced to wait until you'd all passed before she could get where she was
going.
How does that help anyone?

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April 30, 2005
Critical (Violent) Mass or how a group of bicyclists alienated me

I'm a huge fan of bicycles and i do miss living in Amsterdam where that is
culturally supported form of transportation. The hills in SF, the distance
of my commute and the lack of infrastructure support demotivate me from even
thinking about biking as transport in SF. That said, i love my public
transit.

Last night, around 7.45, i started my car for the first time in over a month
because the quantity of grocery shopping necessary would require a car (even
though its only 6 blocks away). On the way out, i hit Critical Mass.

Now, i have nothing but appreciation for folks taking to the streets to
demand infrastructure support and i love the idea of Critical Mass. Every
time i've seen them before, they slow down traffic as they go about their
route, but this situation was different. I was halfway through the
intersection at Church and Market when two guys biked in front of me and
stoppped, forcing me to take to my breaks. They started yelling at me and
then one asked me if i was smoking a joint. I rolled my eyes and him and
said of course not; Jo gave a cigarette to another guy. They had also
stopped the cab next to me in the middle of the street, screamed circle and
began circling and screaming at both of us.

Needless to say, this aggravated the passenger of the cab and the cab driver
and i had the same uncomfortable feeling about being illegally in the middle
of a major intersection with no ability to get off to a side. The bicyclists
started yelling at the passenger saying that they did this every month and
he should find another route and he should just be patient and make his life
easier and he started yelling back, telling them that they have their rights
but if they want him to take an alternate route, let him get out of the
intersection. They were screaming past each other.

About 5+ minutes later, on the other side of the street, another car was
stuck in the middle of the intersection. They started screaming at him and
he decided he was going to push through and get the **** out of the
intersection. A group picked up their bicycles and started pounding them on
the car, hitting the car, kicking the car and from it looks like, hitting
the driver through his window. I called 911, reported an assault and told
them to get a police officer there immediately; the guy who was right out of
my window screamed disperse.

The language and tone used by the bicyclists at Critical Mass had a level of
aggression to it that was just terrifying. It's like what you see when
police officers breathe power and spit it out at you. It is everything scary
about crowd behavior.

On the Critical Mass website under "Testosterone Brigade," it says For some
bicyclists, Critical Mass is an opportunity to berate motorists, now that WE
own the road for once. Our society's over-reliance on motorized traffic is a
massive and overwhelming social problem, and it won't be changed through the
use of bitchy, ineffective tactics by a small minority of ****ed-off
bicyclists. But a movement for change based on a reclaiming of public space
and the building of human community, open to people from across the social
and political spectrum, could contribute to a deeper and more fundamental
change in the way our society operates.

After my experience yesterday, i would never support Critical Mass. I saw a
level of aggression and potential danger that is precisely antithetical to
any public space takeover that i can value. There was no need for
aggression. I thought Critical Mass was supposed to be a process of taking
to the streets and riding at bike speed down busy streets, not collectively
taking over intersections, circling cars and screaming at them. I don't see
how people think they will gather support through aggression and goddess
knows they just alienated me permanently. And i'm a bike lover, public
transit supporter.