We have a policy of not publishing comments that contain threatening words. Your comment submitted today threatened to run over cyclists at the next Critical Mass, so I can’t publish it as is.

However, I would like to give you a personal response, since this issue has been on my mind a bit, in the wake the tragic accident in which a cyclist hit and killed an elderly pedestrian, possibly as a result of his own negligence and poor riding skills.

So let me make both a logical and a moral objection to your comment. Logic first:

The number of Bay Area pedestrians who die each year as a result of collision with a bicyclist is, on a 10 year average, ZERO. It happens so rarely that it’s not a blip on the statistical radar.

Meanwhile, the number of Bay Area pedestrians who die each year as a result of collision with motorized traffic is, on a 10 year average, 100. (For injuries, including paralysis and other life-altering damage, the number is about 800.)

If your concern is public safety, your emphasis on one rare event involving a bicycle is irrational and illogical.

On the moral front, I’m sorry to point out that you have no credibility, since you express outrage at the death of one innocent person while threatening the lives of dozens of other innocent people. That’s a glaring contradiction, assuming your concern is for the safety of others, and it does not speak well to your sense of civic responsibility.

Therefore, I conclude that your concern is not safety. Rather, it seems likely that your real concern is a cultural resentment against bicycling and what it represents. Bicyclists and pedestrians are beginning to get a larger share of the traffic funding, and policies around parking and street design are shifting to reflect our needs and our presence (though the shift is not nearly dramatic enough, in my opinion). Assuming you yourself are a motorist, I imagine that you interpret this cultural shift as threat to the relative privileges you enjoy as a person who drives.

I propose that you drop this antagonistic stance against a change that after all cannot be derailed. Why not join us? Get out of your car, organize your life so that you’re not behind the wheel for hours each day, and start cycling and walking as your primary means of transportation. You may find, as I have, that this creates a positive change in your life, leading to greater health, a reduction in stress, and social connections to others which are rewarding and pleasurable.

If you like, you can join us on the last Friday of the month at Critical Mass — no one is ever turned away, and the very least you would learn about the ideas and lives of those you profess to oppose. And if you’d like to re-word your comment in a more constructive manner, I’m happy to publish it, even if the views expressed do not accord with my own.

Good luck, Steve!

H.

PS: Now that I’ve written this, I think I’ll publish it on our blog. Thanks for the instigation!

Here’s a video of the biggest ever Critical Mass in Porto Alegre that took place on the evening of Friday Feb. 24, 2012:

Massa Crítica do Fórum Mundial da Bicicleta 2012 from Rodrigo Langeani on Vimeo.

I went to Sao Paulo and visited friends there, and had the pleasure of visiting the Praça do Ciclista on Avenida Paulista, the original starting point for Sao Paulo’s Massa Critica or Bicicletada, meeting up with dozens of local cyclists, and riding to Mano Na Roda, the local equivalent of our Bike Kitchen.

Officially renamed "Praça do Ciclista", a small median on the huge Avenida Paulista in Sao Paulo.

More Love, Less Motors (cars)--graffiti on the ground at Praça do Ciclista.

Everyone gathered for a group shot...

Off we went on a fun ride through town, here on Paulista amidst the usual traffic madness.

The local Bike Kitchen.

While we partied, some folks fixed bikes!

Staging a bike ride through the streets for TV Globo.

I gave a bicycling interview to TV Globo and they said they’d air it on Friday at the noon national newscast, but the lead story was the morning’s tragedy: another woman cyclist crushed by a bus on Avenida Paulista. As it turns out, four other cyclists were killed on Brazilian roads the same day. Bicyclists across the country were finally pushed over the edge. Over 1,500 cyclists showed up in pouring rain to stage a massive die-in last Friday night at the spot where the woman was killed. Today, March 6, mass rides were held in many Brazilian cities, and in Sao Paulo, the largest city in Brazil by far, thousands of cyclists jammed the main street and demonstrated in front of the municipal government offices too.

On Friday March 2 in pouring rain, "For the love of God, less hurry in Sao Paulo, More Love in Transit"...

March 6, 2012, Avenida Paulista full of cyclists...

Brazilian cyclists are at a climactic moment. Solidarity and love to everyone down there, condolences to the loved ones lost—all too many…

First off, if you’re interested in getting involved with the Welcome Committee, or volunteering for any of the numerous activities that will be going on during the week of September 24-30, 2012, write us at critmasssf@gmail.com.

April 2011, San Francisco Critical Mass at Lands End.

Riders gather at coast after riding for two hours to admire Pacific Ocean and the sun, April 2011.

Three of us, Hugh D’Andrade, Chris Carlsson, and LisaRuth Elliott, have been working on a new book for the anniversary. We have passed the deadline for submissions and I’m glad to say we have some amazing essays in hand, and dozens of photos and posters from around the world. The international, no INTERSTELLAR quality of Critical Mass will be fully demonstrated by the breadth and depth of this book’s stories of Critical Mass from Italy to Brazil to Hungary to Mexico. We will have them ready for you in September.

We are also planning to produce some commemorative posters, with Hugh and Mona Caron both agreeing to make new art, building on their fantastic work of a decade ago. We invite all artists who want to make art for the big anniversary to feel free to do so! The more the merrier! Sticker designs, postcards, posters for the city’s walls, everything is welcome! If you can get the printing done yourself, all the better, but if you need help, contact us and we’ll see what we can do.

In this spirit, we’re also inviting the world’s Critical Mass artists to send us art digitally to include in an upcoming gallery of worldwide greetings for the 20th birthday. Send your images and photos to us at our email: critmasssf@gmail.com, and we’ll put together a gallery on this website as the summer progresses.

We are expecting dozens, hundreds, maybe a thousand friends from around the world to arrive in San Francisco during the anniversary week to help us celebrate. We are working to set up a system for house-sharing, couchsurfing, camping, etc. If you have housing to offer we will soon have a webpage where you can list what you have and people coming to town can write you and figure it out with you directly if you’ll be a good fit for each other. Similarly, we’re looking for hidden fleets of loaner bikes. If you have a garage full of 2-22 bikes that you’d be willing to lend out-of-town visitors for the 20th anniversary, we’ll have a webpage for you to sign up on too.

In the meantime, if you have housing, bicycles, or other resources to offer the celebration, feel free to write us at our email. We are hoping to have a “convergence center” open from 1-5 Monday-Friday of that week and we’ll need volunteers to help staff it to meet and greet incoming visitors.

Riding west along the north shore of San Francisco, Golden Gate Bridge just visible at right (April 2011).

We are planning to offer two rides each day from Monday Sept. 24 to Thursday Sept. 27, one in and around San Francisco, another going out to the many wonderful rides in the region (from the Marin Headlands to the East Bay shoreline, Montara and Half Moon Bay to the Don Edwards Wildlife Refuge in the South Bay, etc. etc.). In-city rides will include following themes like lost freeways or ice cream parlors, future shorelines or ridge-top tours, all to be determined. On Tuesday Sept. 25 we will open a Critical Mass Art Show at the Diego Rivera Gallery at the SF Art Institute at 800 Chestnut Street. On Wednesday, Sept 26, we hope to have a panel of authors to present the new book at the Main Library (to be confirmed), and on Thursday, Sept.27 we have a big party and concert scheduled at Cellspace. Friday the 28th is of course the big birthday, the Interstellar Critical Mass ride, which we hope will be a giant, crazy, awesome evening ending in a big party under warm skies in a public spot to be determined. On Saturday Sept. 29 we are planning to hold a symposium at the Art Institute that will give us all a chance to sit and talk together in various discussions about the roles of Critical Mass, bicycling, urban social movements, etc. And on Sunday, September 30 we plan a big finale ride to the beach for a potluck bbq and all-day party.

September 2011 Critical Mass goes out Market Street...

... and then up Page Street! One of the steeper hills we've ever climbed!

For every mild or serious uphill...

... There is always a better and easier downhill!

Give us a holler if you’d like to join the effort!

Photographic evidence below. If you have more evidence of fun last night (photos, video, audio?) leave some links in the comments!

A lovely ride to Cayuga Park, park of mystery and amazing scupture!

As has been the case when passing out proposed routes over the past year or two, some folks get pretty hostile (weirdly, they usually look like they’re middle-aged guys, maybe over 50, who have some kind of self-righteousness that they *know* that Critical Mass *never* has any proposed routes!). But most folks I handed it to were eager for a good suggestion and excited to see a map.

Well the ride took off  before any of the co-conspirators could get “in front” so up Market it went. Who knows who decided to go, or to go *that* way (again!), but so it was. A bunch of us rushed to the front and managed to get it turning south on 4th Street. At 4th and Mission I made a bunch of noise and convinced the front to stop for a full light cycle (to allow everyone behind us to catch up and mass up again), after which I felt I’d done my part to make the plan happen.

Down 4th Street I jumped on to a bus platform and took these photos:

Southbound on 4th Street near Brannan, July 29, 2011, San Francisco.

Critical Mass San Francisco, July 2011.

A good time was had by all...

We rode across the 4th Street Bridge and when we tried to cross the empty baseball parking lots, a fair number of folks decided we were escaping the predictable patterns of past Critical Mass’s more than they could reasonably tolerate. Thus, they turned back and proceeded northward on 3rd Street, while those of committed to the route carried on southward on Terry Francois Blvd. Drama solved! Around 100-120 of us were going to Cayuga Park! That was plenty to have a good time, and enjoy a “real” Critical Mass experience.

For those who went back to the city center (and thanks for taking the cops with you, by the way), I hope you had a good time. I’m sure you went around Union Square, through the Broadway and Stockton Tunnels, circled up at Market and Van Ness, and eventually just melted away through attrition… Just like nearly every ride for the past few years! Geez! Some of us are bored to death with the predictability of that experience, and the empty posturing of those delusional few who actually believe they are being “more political” or “most radical” by pushing Critical Mass into endless traffic jams in the heart of the City (no, there is no “class war” between cars and bikes–they are inanimate objects!–nor is there one between motorists and cyclists, who are all workers of one sort or another at the end of the day).

I went to Cayuga Park because I prefer a ride that plays with the geography of the City. A ride that explores new and unusual routes off the beaten path. A ride that pleasantly surprises local neighbors and passersby as we roll through. And finally, one that ends, like we did during the first years of Critical Mass, in a shared hangout at a park, on a street, at a bar, or some kind of social ending. Serendipitously, there were a number of us oldtimers who made it to Cayuga Park and we realized that we can just do this whenever we want!

Everyone is invited to join us, of course. The more the merrier (must’ve been a good 75+ who made it all the way to Cayuga tonight). BBQ, beer, conversation, live music, it was a lovely evening. And an easy bike ride or BART trip back home at the end, long after sunset. So we’ll bring a proposed route and destination, perhaps not every month, but from time to time. If you’re bored with the same ol’ same ol’ break away from it and join us next time! (And send suggestions for ending spots and routes to get there! or better yet, make a map and bring a few hundred to the next Critical Mass!)

–Chris Carlsson

Cayuga Park sculptures by Demetrio Braceros, under the BART tracks.

BART over Cayuga Park

The more you look around the more you find...

Demetrio Braceros was the park's caretaker for years, and this is what he created.

Fittingly, we came on bicycles!

Please send your article proposals, drafts, flyers, photos, etc., to

critmasssf@gmail.com

From Chris Carlsson, Hugh D’Andrade, LisaRuth Elliott, and friends

The 20^th anniversary of Critical Mass is coming in September 2012. The first-ever ride was in San Francisco in September 1992, so we’re inviting everyone from around the wide world of Critical Mass rides to come to San Francisco next September for a week-long festival to celebrate twenty years. During the week-long festival we hope to have daily group rides, film festival, art shows, discussions, music, and more. (Send us a message if you’re planning to come, and let us know how many people are planning to come from your city/country. And if you’re in the Bay Area and want to help plan the week, organize an event, coordinate food and entertainment, provide housing, etc., please contact us!)

In conjunction with this anniversary we also want to produce a new book of essays, cartoons, photographs, and documents, capturing the dynamic and powerful social movements that have emerged from, or embraced the Critical Mass phenomenon. To that end, this is an open solicitation for material for the book. Predictably we have no budget to pay anyone, but we hope to create a historically important volume documenting the emergent bicycle movement over the past two decades, and its relationship to Critical Mass. Any proceeds of sales of the book will go to funding events for the anniversary and after that, for ongoing Critical Mass-related printing and communications.

We’d love essays anywhere from 2000 to 8000 words, and we’re open to other kinds of materials too. We are especially interested in essays that go deeper into the larger political questions surrounding Critical Mass specifically, and the bicycle as a signifier and tool of a broader social transformation.

Please contact us to let us know if you’re going to write something, or if you have photos, flyers, or other material to contribute to this. Authors or groups published in the book will get a free copy, and if we’re lucky, we’ll find publishers in other languages to produce the book in Spanish, French, Portuguese, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, etc. If you have contacts with publishers in other languages, please do let us know.

Here are some questions to get you started, but feel free to query us with your own ideas of what you’d like to write:

1. Please describe the history of the Critical Mass experience in your city with the following questions as a guide:

When did it start? How many people participated in starting it? Did it come out of a pre-existing network or political association? Or did new friends come together to start it?

Give us the details of your ride:

where does it start from, when does it roll, how long has it been going? How often does it happen? Monthly?  How do you think your ride is unique vis a vis other rides you have heard of, or maybe personally experienced?

2. How does Critical Mass manage itself in your city? Do you have monitors and communications that are sustained by the same people month after month, or do new people emerge regularly to help produce a good experience? What kind of debates characterize your Critical Mass experience? Do people discuss and argue about the nature of the ride during the ride? Do you have xerocracy (printed documents circulating among the riders)? Do you have pre-planned routes or do you move around the city spontaneously? Do your rides split up into multiple rides sometimes? Tell us about the lived experience and the tensions within your ride, and related to other organized bike rides in your city (if any).

3. Can you describe stories of personal transformation that people have experienced as a result of riding in Critical Mass? Who rides in Critical Mass in your city? Has the population of your ride changed over time or is it the same as it has been since the beginning? What kind of future does the ride have in your city, in your estimation?

4. How would you characterize your city’s bicycling scene? Was it pretty big before Critical Mass? Did Critical Mass play a key role in expanding it? How does your city feel differently today than it did before Critical Mass started? Or does it feel different at all?

5. Are there formal bicycle advocacy groups in your city (or region)? How do they relate to Critical Mass? Do they support it and participate in it? Or are they hostile? What kinds of dynamics have taken place where you are?

6. Are there free food, gardening/farming, housing/squatting, free radio, hacker spaces, or other kinds of similar efforts cross-linked to Critical Mass in your city? What is the relationship of Critical Mass to other political and social initiatives in your city, if any? Can you write in depth about those relationships and how they have fed each other? What is the relationship in your city between formal and informal political groups?

7. Outsider journalists and writers often pose the question, “What has Critical Mass accomplished?” Our answer in SF as co-founders has generally been to emphasize that Critical Mass is an ongoing event, an ongoing seizure of public space by hundreds and thousands of cyclists, and is not an organization—nor even a coherent movement—with a specific agenda. So to speak of “accomplishments” is to frame it incorrectly. How do you respond to this question? Describe how you experience the meaning and coherence of the Critical Mass phenomenon in your city.

8. What kinds of journalism, blogs, writing, and/or art has emerged from the Critical Mass movement in your city?  Please submit some examples and tell us about them (can be weblinks, photos, artwork, books, zines, stickers, posters, etc.  If you are sending a url, please be specific about which page/blog/art you mean, and describe how it relates to Critical Mass, the ride).

I was sorry to hear that my friend Bob Berry passed away recently. I met Bob at Critical Mass almost 20 years ago, and saw him regularly on the last Friday of the month most of the years in between. In that time, he was always upbeat, happy to see me, and full of strange stories and jokes.

Bob worked at CalTrans, proving that the agency that relentlessly promotes the expanded use of the automobile had at least one mole working inside it. Bob was a serious cyclist, a lifelong advocate of sane traffic priorities (hint: biking, walking, and public transportation), and was never afraid to speak his mind on these issues.

Bob was a “character” — an unusual, offbeat guy who took some getting used to. Once you got to know him, he had all sorts of stories about why CalTrans is fucked, why bad decisions are made there, and how the system works (or doesn’t). And he was always eager to tell stories about the Whig Party of the 1970s, (which he co-founded) and the hippy airline he once worked for (yes, there was once a hippy airline — Zoom Zoom Air).

It appears Bob died of natural causes, having lived a rich, creative life. He was 62, and had one daughter. My condolences to Bob’s close friends and family. Goodbye, Bob! It was great knowing you. You’ll be missed every last Friday!

(Photo by Joel Pomerantz)

We finally got a regrouping stop at Mission and Van Ness, but who thinks it's so fun to block a major intersection for five or eight minutes? Why?

There’s certain amount of hating directed at Critical Mass and a quick claim sometimes made is that we block emergency vehicles. But it’s quite the opposite actually–Critical Mass easily clears the way for fire trucks or ambulances in a fraction of the time it would take cars to move aside. As we rode north on Van Ness by City Hall an ambulance came up and we all melted to the right.

Passing City Hall on Van Ness, Critical Mass easily made way for an ambulance that came up with siren blaring.

Just as quickly the ride surges into the entire street northbound on Van Ness, the ambulance now three blocks ahead.

I can't remember when we did this exactly, but somewhere along the way we went easterly on Eddy...

Did anyone else notice there were a lot more older folks on the ride tonight? Being one myself, I did.

The inevitable pull through the Broadway Tunnel, this geezer exults on his way out...

Bryan Goebel, Streetsblog editor, at right, where the ride had an early stopping point in the Civic Center.

Hugh, the (not so) "secret master" of this blog and the FB page!

Thanks Hugh!

The Critical Mass ride on Friday was a fun, pretty ordinary ride. But it came on the one month anniversary of a terrible event, which was the attack by a crazed motorist on the Critical Mass ride in Porto Alegre, Brazil last month.

A few of us decided to mark this sad day with some signs for our bikes. We wanted to spread the news about the attack, and also to express our solidarity with our friends in Brazil. We are so saddened by this unjustified attack, and we hope everyone recovers quickly. Here are some photos (they are small but you can click to enlarge):

The last news I have from that tragedy is the following: no one was killed, but 11 people were sent to the hospital with serious injuries. The motorist was caught and is being charged with attempted murder. He is a well-known banker, and has a history of anger management problems and traffic citations. Several witnesses dispute the attacker’s claim that he was provoked. (If you have additional facts or information, please share it in the comments.)

Please note: We have an editorial policy on this blog that we post any comment, so long as it is not insulting, threatening, or spam. Sadly, we had to violate this policy on last month’s posting, because we had so many downright stupid comments from pathetic, ignorant individuals who wrote in to express their sympathy with the attempted murderer. If you would like to post a comment to this effect, please go elsewhere. We don’t have time for you.

The ride itself was great. The weather was fine, the route was not too predictable, the group was small (maybe 350 to 400 people) and the front of the ride happily stopped for lights to let people regroup. Later in the evening, when the ride had dwindled to about 50 people, there was an accident in the Stockton tunnel. From the comments on our Facebook page:

Wells: Everything was great until I saw a guy crash and literally face planting hard in the middle of the Stockton tunnel. He wasn’t wearing a helmet either. Police got him an ambulance. A few other bikers including me stayed behind to help him out. But let this be a lesson; ALWAYS WEAR A HELMET! And be mindful of how fast you are going.

The rider’s name was Steve. If anyone has any information about how he is doing, I’d love it if you would post a comment.

A few more photos:

Motorist who ran over cyclists in the Capital turns himself in to Civil Police
Ricardo Neis, 47, was escorted by four Special Forces police officers

Updated at 13:46

Ricardo Neis, 47, the Central Bank employee who ran over dozens of
ciclists in the Lower City on Friday, turned himself in to the Civil
Police around noon on Monday to offer a statement.

Neis arrived at the offices of the Transport Crimes Division
accompanied by two lawyers and escorted by four officers from
the Special Forces Battalion (BOE). In order to escape the
press, which was waiting in front of the building, he entered
through the parking (lot).

According to his lawyer Luís Fernando Coimbra Albino, Neis
will claim self-defense on behalf of himself and his 15-year-old
son. The motorist decided to appear in order to state that he
attacked the cyclists after feeling threated by alleged blows
to his black Golf.

On arriving at the police headquarters, the lawyer stated that,
finding himself surrounded by cyclists, Neis tried to “leave
along one side”, but had the windows of his car (containing his
son) broken:

“[Neis] tried to leave the area to protect his physical safety
and that of his son.”

Asked why the vehicle was abandoned, Albino said that his client
was afraid because he had been advised by a relative that he was
being chased by the demonstrators.

Background on the case:

At the start of the evening on Friday, around twelve cyclists were
run over as they went for a ride in the center of Porto Alegre.
Three cyclists were taken to the Pronto Socorro Hospital (HPS),
but they have already been released. After the incident, the
motorist fled the area. His car was found abandoned in an eastern
neighborhood on Saturday morning.

There’s also this article from earlier with an interview with the son and the lawyer. Both say that the car’s windows were broken and that the cyclists were hitting it.

Commenter Ana Tomazini wrote in with this note:
Great article, but things in Brazil doesn’t seem to be going ok for the victims … the biggest press release is already treating as an accident and protecting the criminal … the driver is a well know person, work for the Central Bank and got himself 2 lawyers already …. the cyclists has nothing, not the media, support or money … I can’t see justice been made in this case … It’s a sad, sad reality … All support and efforts are welcome ! Thanks !