From elastic!lethe!geac!herboid!whome!infoshare!ott.istar!istar.net!van.istar!west.istar!newsfeed.direct.ca!portc01.blue.aol.com!newsxfer2.itd.umich.edu!newsfeed.internetmci.com!torn!sq!justin Wed Sep 4 07:23:39 1996 Xref: elastic ont.bicycle:918 ont.events:2225 ont.general:53328 tor.events:987 tor.general:54604 Newsgroups: eye.general,ont.bicycle,ont.general,ont.events,tor.general,tor.events Path: elastic!lethe!geac!herboid!whome!infoshare!ott.istar!istar.net!van.istar!west.istar!newsfeed.direct.ca!portc01.blue.aol.com!newsxfer2.itd.umich.edu!newsfeed.internetmci.com!torn!sq!justin From: justin@sq.com (justin wells) Subject: Critical Mass Tommorow Message-ID: <1996Aug29.154313.11892@sq.com> Organization: SoftQuad Inc., Toronto, Canada Date: Thu, 29 Aug 1996 15:43:13 GMT Lines: 83 [news posting] CRITICAL MASS RIDE TOMMOROW: Bring Your Bike In case you missed the mention in EYE, Critical Mass is tommorow. The actual start time is probably _not_ 5pm, as was written in Eye. It's more likely to be between 5:30 and 6pm -- but you can show up at 5pm if you like: Standby Cafe, Yonge & Temperence (between Richmond & Adelaide, west side), around 5:30. (When, coincidentally, couriers get off work.) What is Critical Mass? I don't know. There are no official organizers. There are only a couple of sponsors (like you? -- people who independently make posters and fliers) and many more people (like you?) who randomly show up. There are usually a couple hundred cyclists. We ride around downtown Toronto -- there's enough of us to cause traffic problems, especially since we tend to block intersections as we pass through. All I can say to explain that is that it must be some kind of protest against the road system, traffic laws, and the way many things are biased against cyclists. "Take back the streets" would be apt. "We're not blocking traffic, we are traffic" is a sort of slogan. I should probably warn you that last month there was a confrontation between two officers and one (kind of idiotic) cyclist that erupted into a huge shouting match between many police and many cyclists, although eventually cooler heads prevailed. Actually it was just two officers acting stupid running into a cyclist acting stupid, literally. A police car tried to break up the pack by turning on a siren and driving through the group rapidly. Most people got out of the way, and shouted at others to get out of the way, but one idiot didn't. The police ran right into him, knocking him off his bike. He got back on and tried to ride away, but they arrested him for obstructing police business or whatever (and whatever emergency they had never emerged, because they never went. I suspect they saw a bunch of cyclists blocking a lane on Yonge and decided to clear us out, or just wanted to get through faster by turning on a siren). This was instantly transformed into a huge, tense confrontation between the officers and the rest of the cyclists. In the worst possible job of crowd management I've ever seen, the police decided the appropriate thing to do would be to shout at everyone and threaten to arrest people for standing on the road shouting back at them. It didn't work. Pretty soon there was a major event blocking all of Yonge for 20 minutes or so, with reporters, TV crews, hundreds of people shouting, people lifting their bikes above their head in a show of solidarity, and eventually the arrival of more intelligent police. The more intelligent police that showed up realized what they were dealing with -- a cycling protest two days after cyclist Erin Krauser was crushed by a truck -- and did the right thing: offered to drive ahead of us, blocking the intersections to let us through, and tried to talk to us to find out what they could do to make things go more smoothly in the future. So the resolution was pretty good, but a couple of braindead cops and a braindead cyclist made for a pretty tense situation. I have no idea how things will go tommorow. Like last month a cyclist has just been killed (this is getting all too frequent), and like last month people are going to be pissed off about it. Whether the police will view us as a protest or an obstruction I don't know. There's one major difference of opinion between CM and the police: they want us to organize officially and apply for a parade permit, then follow a well defined route. But we don't want to have to organize to ride, and we definately don't want to ask permission to be on the street. We're not blocking traffic, we ARE traffic. Justin -- Justin Wells, SoftQuad Inc./Smart Alert Development, 416 544-1400 (x2231) From elastic!lethe!geac!herboid!whome!infoshare!ott.istar!istar.net!tor.istar!east.istar!news.nstn.ca!hookup!torn!sq!justin Wed Sep 4 07:25:12 1996 Xref: elastic ont.bicycle:928 ont.events:2229 ont.general:53499 tor.events:995 tor.general:54728 Newsgroups: eye.general,ont.bicycle,ont.general,ont.events,tor.general,tor.events Path: elastic!lethe!geac!herboid!whome!infoshare!ott.istar!istar.net!tor.istar!east.istar!news.nstn.ca!hookup!torn!sq!justin From: justin@sq.com (justin wells) Subject: Report on Critical Mass Message-ID: <1996Aug31.035502.2693@sq.com> Organization: SoftQuad Inc., Toronto, Canada References: <1996Aug29.154313.11892@sq.com> Date: Sat, 31 Aug 1996 03:55:02 GMT Lines: 70 In article <1996Aug29.154313.11892@sq.com>, justin wells wrote: >I have no idea how things will go tommorow. Like last month a cyclist has >just been killed (this is getting all too frequent), and like last month >people are going to be pissed off about it. Whether the police will view us >as a protest or an obstruction I don't know. I'm happy to report one of the most successful Critical Mass rides in Toronto took place today: but I also feel compelled to note that it was also one of the saddest. A few days ago a cyclist was killed. Today we rode to the spot on the road where he died and marked it with a moment of silence. As we rode off many of us were ringing the bells on our bikes, and I thought about how pathetic that sound is compared to the tons of metal speeding past us at 100km/hour. As for the good news, two things set this ride off from previous rides: First, the addition of some very important riders: three uniformed Metro police officers on bicycles rode with us (cycle cops) to ensure that there was as little tension and confrontation as possible. I have to say they were really excellent, I'm really impressed. They blended in well with the ride, and yet they tried to be polite and reassuring to motorists too. They kept the traffic behind us calm and under control, they helped create a refreshing sense of peacefulness, and they made every effort to do this in a way that didn't violate the spirit of our ride. Significantly, we continued to proceed through red lights, blockading traffic. Only now it wasn't technically illegal, nor was it dangerous: the usual Critical Mass method of blockading an intersection is for the whole pack to stop for a red light, and start moving through it only when it's green -- but the light will change while we're still crossing and we simply continue to cross in a mass so dense that the cross-traffic is completely blocked off. This is technically illegal because we don't have a parade license, and we're not a funeral procession (although today I guess we were close). What the officers did was quite brilliant: they let us continue as we always have, except that they directed the cross-traffic to stop so that we didn't have to blockade it, and so that our actions were no longer technically illegal (now we're actually obeying an officer directing traffic.) I have to say again that I'm really impressed by all of this -- it seems like a very sensible solution that lets the police participate to keep things under control (it's not an illegal activity!) while allowing us to ride in the same spirit that Critical Mass has always had -- no defined route, blockade traffic, ride around to demonstrate our right to the road. Anyway. Enough bubbling over. The second thing that was good about this ride was the growing involvement of everyday cyclists -- historically the Critical Mass banner has been carried mostly by couriers, and it's good to see the movement broaden out into the general population of people who don't cycle for a living (like me.) I think maybe a third of the people riding just randomly joined us as we rode past, saw us last month, or heard about it and came down. Critical Mass happens once a month. Come and ride with us next time: we start around 5:30 or 6pm on the last Friday of each month. Show up at the Standby Cafe (Yonge & Tempereance, West side of Yonge between Richmond and Adelaide) and bring your bike. There's no official viewpoint -- if you think it should be safer to cycle, if you think more people should ride bikes, or you're just proud that you do, whatever you're reason, come out and ride in the critical mass. See http://www.semiotek.com/cm for more details. We're not blocking traffic, WE ARE TRAFFIC. Justin