Serve me right for taking the car to work to clean out my desk, but 7 pm saw me stuck waiting to get on the Lion's Gate bridge from the park entrance. Problem? Cyclists.
It was the Critical Mass guys holding up traffic on their monthly ride, and June being Bike Month, it was one of the largest rides this year. I would say it took about an hour or so for the road to clear up. People were upset and angry. Families going away for the weekend missed their ferries.
Now, not that I'm opposed to Critical Mass in principle, or that I really had anything important to do, but I have to say that I don't see how this social event does anything other than drive a further wedge between cyclists and motorists. Sure there'll be people suggesting that cyclists have just as much right to the road as I do, and I wouldn't dispute that in any way. However, in San Francisco, where the Critical Mass phenomenon first occurred, cyclists can participate in something called "Critical Manners" where groups of cyclists still ride on major roads, but obey traffic laws like red lights. There's a similar movement in Portland called "Courteous Mass".
Point is, Critical Mass has no real stated purpose other than to get a group of cyclists and go for a communal ride. It is leaderless, and only loosely organized, and in most cases what you end up with is a group of frustrated motorists who are now less likely to share the road with a lone cyclist. I'd go so far as to suggest that Critical Mass indirectly leads to cyclist/motorist conflicts outside of the actual rally.
Critical Mass needs a point. It needs to be for bicycle advocacy, or to encourage people to ride, or to protest the need for more bike lanes. It could be so much more. Right now, it's just people having fun at the expense of other people.
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