Critical Mass: When Bikes Take Over the City of San Francisco!
I often wonder what tourists think when they come here. It is next to impossible to escape from the fact that San Francisco should not be part of, nor does it resemble any other forty-nine square miles of, the United States. Every other traffic sign in town has some political statement pasted to it. The best is the “BUSH” sticker slapped right below the “S-T-O-P.” Every other telephone poll has a flyer stapled on it with information on how to join The International Socialist Organization or where to convene for the next anti-war action or what your rights are during encounters with the police. This city must have more bookstores selling the titles of “radical” left wing authors than any other, even Berkeley. On a stretch of Valencia spanning a mere three blocks or so, there are at least four such outlets I can name off of the top of my head. Even the McDonalds’ advertisement on the bus stop at 18th and Guerrero is not immune; right below the out-of-scale picture of a Big Mac is the word “shit” written in black Sharpie. I love this place more than words can express.
Tourists are either scared to death or dying to move here after a visit, I would assume. If you are searching for a snapshot though, the uniqueness – and contagiousness – of San Francisco is portrayed perfectly on the final Friday of every month. Tourists and others not in the know seem surprised as they witness the city’s five o’ clock rush hour on these twelve days a year. Market Street – downtown’s main artery – is a constant double file stream of bicycles passing the oddly outnumbered cars; the bikes are headed to their monthly meeting place, a six-p.m. appointment at Justin Herman Plaza at the Embarcadero. Critical Mass, San Francisco’s thirteen-year old grass roots social movement turned worldwide phenomenon, is assembling.Ã?¯Ã?¿Ã?½
Critical Mass has been written about a lot, yet none of the writing seems to do the event justice. It is often simplistically defined as a bunch of radical cyclists blocking traffic in an insane, and counterproductive, search for rights on the auto-dominated roads. Critical Mass, the brainchild of a guy named Chris Carlsson, started in September of 1992 as “Commute Clot.” Carlsson and a few friends were irritated by San Francisco motorists’ often careless, reckless, and downright dangerous attitudes towards cyclists, so they decided to exercise their right to the road by riding en masse through the city’s rush hour on a Friday evening. To make a long story short, the idea caught on like wildfire. Critical Mass is now celebrated monthly in over three hundred cities around the world. Hundreds, often even thousands participate in the rides from Seattle to Milan and Vancouver to Stockholm. But, there is nothing like San Francisco’s Critical Mass, which often garners national (and certainly local) media attention for its record turnouts. For the tenth anniversary of Critical Mass in 2002, an estimated ten thousand cyclists flooded the streets in collective merriment. And in March of 2002, around five thousand turned up for a Critical Mass that took on an anti-war mood. Only in San Francisco.
So, what is Critical Mass all about? Well, again, it is often simplistically defined. All too often the monthly rides are cast off as nothing more than the needless antagonizing of drivers in cities around the world. Here in San Francisco, and abroad, many call Critical Mass counter-productive, but if one actually partakes in the event or sits down with Chris Carlsson for a chat, one quickly realizes that there is much more than mindless rabblerousing to Critical Mass. Carlsson, who does not like to be called the “founder” or “creator” of Critical Mass (Carlsson says Critical Mass came to be and grew thanks to the collective actions of himself and numerous others), claims that those who narrowly cast Critical Mass as merely a form of advocacy with specific goals and points to prove have it all wrong. While the event did start as a way to garner what was, and in many cases still is, non-existent respect for cyclists, it has morphed into much more over the years. Carlsson says, “bikes are curiously incidental.” Critical Mass, he says, is “about the demise of public of spaceâÂ?¦[and] the breakdown of human communication and community.” The polar opposite of what the unfamiliar expect a Critical Mass participant to be, Carlsson says “every individual brings something of their own to the ride.” The middle-aged, gray-haired, even-keeled, and incredibly mild-mannered Carlsson calls Critical Mass a form of “self-expression,” and in his eyes, by participating in the monthly rides and utilizing the bicycle as his main mode of transport, he is showcasing what he thinks is “a better life in Urban America.”Ã?¯Ã?¿Ã?½
As I spoke to Carlsson, I could not help but say “right on” to myself over and over again. He also made me realize – without even trying – that while I will always complain, rant, rave, advocate, harass, and gripe that just basking in my own happiness and satisfaction with my own way of living is of paramount importance regardless of whether others choose to recognize, agree with, or shift to my way of doing things. In this mindset, I find it easier to answer the burning question: so, what is Critical Mass all about?
Critical Mass is about everything and nothing all at the same time. Like a great city, Critical Mass is a complex organism, comprised of many different yet interrelated parts. Bicycles are just one of the many facets of Critical Mass. Certainly, Critical Mass has had an enormous affect on cycling as transportation in San Francisco, and its effects are only beginning to be felt here and in other places around North America and the world. For every one angry, gridlocked driver encountered at a Critical Mass celebration, there are large numbers of fellow motorists, bus riders, and pedestrians cheering on the passing throng of bikes. For every one citizen appalled by Critical Mass, there are those curious souls, who reluctantly show up one month only to be overjoyed by the experience. As I once did, they leave in a state of permanent euphoria and many trade in four wheels for two making the bicycle their primary mode of transportation from that point forward. Critical Mass shows people that there is a different way to live, a different way to get around, as Carlsson says it “changes the limits of your imagination [and makes you] think of life in a different way.”
How can you speak so philosophically, even emotionally, about a bike ride, you ask. I guess that, like many other things in life, you cannot make a judgment about Critical Mass until you have either done it, or spoken directly and in person with large numbers of folks who do it consistently, or a combination of both. For me, Critical Mass is a monthly proclamation to myself and anyone who is watching that I believe in certain things that are not part of the American Capitalistic model. It is a political statement. It is an environmental statement. It is a social statement. It is a civic statement. It is the monthly summation of the life that I have chosen to lead. It is my way of realizing that I am not alone in my lifestyle, one that is foreign to most of mainstream, car-dependent and Bushian America. It is my way of actively reclaiming a public realm that has been forced to take a backseat to the movements, and space requirements of, the automobile. At Critical Mass, it is a relief to know that I am not the only who thinks a certain way, who believes in certain things, or takes a world and life view that is far outside of the confines of the American Dream. It is comforting to have my system of beliefs, thoughts, ideals, and feelings reinforced by the mere presence of hundreds, sometimes even thousands, of likeminded others. Those who ride certainly do not agree on every issue under the sun, but there is an unspoken camaraderie and a common theoretical wavelength that exists between participants. Moreover, Critical Mass has a strange way of bringing people over to a side they never thought they would see nor acknowledge. The most amazing thing about Critical Mass is that there really are no leaders, and as it is often called, it is a “spontaneous coincidence.” Cyclists show up at a certain time, on a certain day, at a certain place, and they exercise their rights to occupy the streets – it is that simple, or that complex. Sometimes the most basic concepts are the most difficult ones to explain, and at the same time, the most controversial.
Many Critical Massers will agree with my expressive summation of the monthly rides, others will fall somewhere else on the spectrum, but we all agree that the rides are just plain fun. There are a myriad of messages being sent via Critical Mass, and wide-ranging responses to them, but it is too easy an exercise to just discount the experience as juvenile, unnecessary, or counterproductive. Critical Mass must be seen to be believed. Critical Mass must be personally experienced – on a bike – in order for one to even begin to truly understand it.
**Footnote: There is an amazing amount of information available on the World Wide Web regarding Critical Mass. I urge you to investigate for numerous reasons, but mainly because it probably happens in your city. Odds are it will not be as big as San Francisco’s Critical Mass, but any Critical Mass is better than none. Much of what is written about Critical Mass is not very good. I am in the process of thinking of a way to accurately describe Critical Mass – abstractly and in its pure demonstrative execution – and it put it into words, but who knows if that will ever happen. At the very least, the Web will offer you different insights in Critical Mass and quite possibly turn you on to how to get involved.
