Roughstuff

Well, as a libertarian, if critical mass finds that the ONLY way their legitimate concerns about safety and dignity on the roadway for cyclists will be listened to is a thumb in the eye approach, all the more power to them. The political process-like processed foods-- can be quite bland anyway, and its nice to have a little bit of Tabasco sauce mixed in from time to time.

I for one like the idea of money being spent adding shoulders to roads and making intersections more pedestrian/bike friendly. Much more productive than bike paths.


roughstuff

--have owned a car for a total of 3 years in the last 30.

aturley

I agree. I like the idea of lots of cyclists taking to the street to create a "critical mass" of cyclists, but they need to follow the rules. By breaking laws, they give their opponents an easy way to attack the legitimacy of their goals. If they follow the laws, opponents are forced to confront the activity of cycling itself, and most of their weapons (in terms of rhetoric) become useless.

Unlawful protest does have it's place, but I don't think that current cycling laws and attitudes call for it. Lawful demonstrations will do far more for the cause of cycling acceptance.

andy

velocipedio

What to do about CM?

The problem with the CM demos is that they do tend to alienate non-cyclists, and we have to come to terms with the fact that cyclists of any sort are a tiny minority in American society. Unless cyclists are planning to take control of the government by force, it's generally not a good idea to alienate the majority in a democracy.

Traditional lobbying is unlikely to have any success for many of the same reasons. Lobbies require money, and they need to have the resources to arrange deals with legislators. [Yes, I also think that well-funded lobbies are a perversion of democracy, let's not get into a discussion about that.] In order for a cycling lobby to have more impact than the car lobby, it needs to have more money and employ more people than the car lobby. That isn't likely to happen.

What I think does work is something that's less a lobby and more of an advocacy group. The idea is not to directly influence legislators or pursue a strategy of direct action, but to cultivate a grass-roots cycling culture. It works like this... if you provide resources for cyclists, then you attract more people to the sport/means of transportation, then you can raise the profile of cycling and organize orderly public events, which encourages legislators to consider the benefits... etc., etc. Of course, this kind of thing only works on a regional level.

This is what happened in Montreal. Back in the late-70s and early-80s, an organization/newspaper called le Monde a Bicyclette began providing support and information for cyclists in the Plateau Mont-Royal district. There were a number of theatrical demonstrations, but they were always well-organized and organizers were careful not to disrupt too many people's lives.

A group called Velo Quebec emerged, founded by some of le Monde's fellow travellers, with a slicker and better organized organization. They opened a kind of Velo Cafe in the Plateau and started organizing an annual even called Le Tour de L'Ille in 1984, which is the largest mass ride in the world. They got corporate sponsorship and used the events to get people cycling. Since this dovetailed nicely with the federal and provincial governments' health policies and with the Montreal municipal government's tourism plans.

In the last fifteen years or so, all levels of government have seen the health, environmental and financial benefits of cycling. The Tour de l'Ile now attracts 30,000 participants every year, at least a third from out of town and anchors a week-long bike fest that includes a number of other events as well as a women's World Cup race, that brings millions of tourist dollars into the city every year. The city has developed useable bike lanes and paths on the European model, opened many of the bridges [Montreal is an island] to bicycle traffic with dedicated lanes [at least one bridge is entirely dedicated to bicycle traffic] and all this has, a recent study found, helped to reduce traffic congestion and road wear.

The province has developed La Route Verte, a network of bike paths, lanes and hiking trails that cover many thousands of kms through Quebec -- I could hop on my bike and ride on a safe, bike-only thoroughfare from Montreal to Quebec City [about 265 km]. The federal government is doing something similar with the Trans Canada Trail, and linking provincial systems together.

Montreal is one of the most bike-friendly cities in the world; Quebecers in general and Montrealers in particular, have the highest rate of bicycle ownership in North America and spend twice as much, per capita, on bikes, components and accessories, as Americans. 85% of bikes manufactured in Canada [not just XMart bikes, aslo high-end stuff from Marinoni, Guru, Argon 18 and Devinci] are made in Quebec.

Most of this is due to a slow, careful cultivation of bike culture that began a quarter century ago. Bikes are mainstream here, and they're mainstream because the bicycle community worked cohesively and carefully to make it that way. [I think the Euro-mentality of Quebec probably helped, too... but that's another thing.

Not surprisingly, there is no CM organization worth mentionning in Montreal and, though I remember a couple of demonstrations a couple of years ago, they were generally poorly attended and never really took off.

I think the way to change things for the better is to work locally and cultivate the culture. Admittedly, some cities will be harder to cultivate than others and it does take a long time, but I think it's a more practical and constructive approach in the long run.

martin

Fortunately, the US is not a democracy. It is a republic. A democracy is essentially rule by the majority with no protection of minority viewpoints. In essence, a democracy is a mobocracy. I won't argue this point at all because if you view the listed websites it provides an excellent primer on the US form of government. I point you to these websites:

https://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/Am...ts/demrep.html

https://www.indixie.com/indixie/Articles/Republic.htm


Given the US form of government there are a variety of options available to CM to get their ideas adopted.

velocipedio

Oh god! Not this old saw again!

Look, I'd love to talk about democracies and republics and all of that, but not on this thread and not in this forum. I see this degenerating into a history lecture [that's what I do] or a rancourous argument over 18th century constitutional arcana. If you want to talk politics, let's take it to the lounge.

martin

Velocipedio,
Thanks, but I will pass on the history lecture by a foreign national on my nation's government. Your opinions and interpretations on my government and country are of no value to me or to many US citizens. Thanks for the offer, though. I consider this matter closed and not open to debate.

Chris L

Some of you may have noticed that I haven't posted for a couple of weeks. This thread typifies the reason. There seems to be less cycling being discussed here than ever before. Even something that started out as a thread on the merits or otherwise of critical mass ended up being a political *****fight.

This thread does not appear to be the only place this is going on. The decline of bikeforums in recent times is nothing short of remarkable.

velocipedio

Agreed.

On the other hand, I think at least part of it is that there are some new-ish members [there always are this time of year] who haven't yet quite got the knack of focusing their posts to the right forum.

We're in the learning curve right now.

orguasch

life at Bikeforum is very progressive, you start a a thread about biking and because you have several thousand member and all theirs thought are not in the same page as you are it will tend to go somewhere else, I think Bikeforums has really grown out of it shells and now really starting to be a progressive website, the moderator or Joe, I think cannot limit the none biking discussion here at bikeforum and act like shotgun riding marshal, but if you will really read some of the thread it deals in serious bike discussion, variety is the spice of life

LittleBigMan

Unfortunately, I've noticed that, too.

Perhaps you've also noticed my post count has exceeded yours.
Is there a connection?

Anastasia

I agree. However, what I term "Sunday cyclists" don't help the cause. I was riding mid-week in the late morning (since I am currently jobless), and I saw a woman (without a helmet) on a bike with one of those child seats on the back. She made a left hand turn without signaling! I caught up with her and told her that for her safety and the safety of her child she should signal when turning, and that she and her child should both have had helmets. She took offense to my suggestions.

I take offense to her giving cyclists a bad reputation by not signaling.

I unfortunatley, do not believe that we will reach a CM here in the States. People are sooooo tied to their cars, and many "Sunday cyclists" don't know the laws.