"GO TO

NYC Century Bike Tour


for info on ride."

Worse than traffic lights, the dreaded wraps.

"Carol a escrit regarding TA:
> But to compare its lumbering,
> bureaucratic stasis with the invigorating activism of
> groups like Times Up here in New York (at least 2,000
> cyclists showed up for last Friday's Critical Mass) and
> numerous shoestring operations in other cities like
> Portland, forget it.

Likewise, to compare TA's effectiveness in marshalling positive change for urban cyclists to the pointless, albeit possibly ego-gratifying dippyness of Critical Mass, well, forget it.

Activism is best when it achieves something other than making the activists feel good. I've yet to see Critical Mass achieve anything but upset cage drivers (who I have to share the road with the other 30 days of the month), and serve as a rolling feel-good party.

Call it a party, and do it if you must, but don't couch it in terms of activism or the false promise of ""raising awareness of cyclists."" That's achieved by having lots of cyclists on the roads each day, not a rolling roadblock once a month. And having lots of cyclists out there every day is predicated on having bicycle-friendly roads and infrastructure. And who at CM is working on that?

Regards,
- Christian"

"I don't call CM a party, I call it civil disobedience.

And in my view, civil disobedience is what is needed to break the automobile's stranglehold on New York City streets. While we cyclists are legally entitled to share the roadways, the de facto practice of many motorists is to intimidate us by threatening physical harm, if not death, if we dare to exercise it. They do this by driving recklessly around us, passing too closely at high speed, cutting us off, even deliberately aiming at us to make us jump out of the way. Oh yeah, and there are also the inattentive cell-phone blabbers and other messengers of inadvertent manslaughter.

As for CM's capacity to make participants feel good, why Christian, you write as if that's a bad thing! However, while your opinion is presumably based on your own experience, it doesn't reflect mine. For me, Critical Masses are exhilarating and empowering, but just as frequently terrifying. Stuff happens, and you never know how people are going to react.

Yes, some motorists get ""upset"" when delayed by a passing Mass, succumbing to the hair-trigger road rage that is an unfortunate byproduct of auto-dependency. (As a refugee of Southern California, I know this condition all too well.) But in many instances, their reactions would be no different if it were an elderly blind lady crossing the street, or a garbage truck or any other obstacle blocking their passage. My response to this is, please excuse me for disturbing your life--I'm just exercising political speech. And this is New York City--you shouldn't be driving here anyways, unless you're disabled or moving furniture.

Additionally, on the Masses I've attended, the public's reaction to our passage has been overwhelmingly supportive, amused, or at least tolerant--even among drivers.

As far as building infrastructure goes, yes it is indeed necessary to facilitate the movement of cyclists and pedestrians. But it is also the movement of cyclists and pedestrians that generates the need for infrastructure. And it is the latter momentum that CMs help to produce.

In terms of physical accomplishments, you are right to point to TA's success in improving bridge access; that has been one of their main projects in the last few years, and it's paid off. When TA sets its mind to accomplish a project, it can do it. (As far as taking credit for the Greenways goes, TA doesn't deserve as much as it's taken, though I don't have ready evidence.)

However, to a large extent, TA's priorities have been formed by an unhealthy dose of realpolitik: what they think can get done is what they try to do. (Witness that stupid car alarm project.) I am informed of this hypertrophy by many people who know much more about NYC transportation politics than I do.

I have also, in the course of researching an article, run across public statements describing former director John Kaehny's belief that bike lanes would never go anywhere in New York City, and that it was essentially a waste of time to try to build them. (The ridiculous patchwork of Manhattan lanes makes this lack of priority all too clear.)

The sad fact is that TA has seen itself as a ""professional"" as opposed to grassroots organization, a kind of activism-by-proxy. Members sign an annual check, maybe marshal the TA century once a year, and get to ""feel good"" about supporting a mainstream (respectable, oft-quoted) transportation advocacy group. TA's brass decides what's in your interest, and you can just sit back and let them do the work. At their own leisurely pace, of course.

However, as a former nonprofit activist in another field, I know that such organizations are most effective when they ORGANIZE. That is, when they leverage their scant resources by serving as a kind of clearinghouse that encourages members to take action themselves. Any organization must have its priorities, but those priorities should be made clear, unlike TA which i"