Critical Mass: "Anti-Car Bicycle Lunatics"
A correspondent writes:
It's amazing that the anti-car bicycle lunatics are still permited to stage a monthly obstructionist bicycle circus on our city streets. The cops should arrest them for mayhem! CM is organized and promoted by the socialist SF Bicycle Coalition, along with their violent anarchist friends. Don't give them money or participate in their anti-car nonsense. The SFBC is a nutty bicycle organization dedicated to the idea of eventually banning cars in SF. It doesn't represent reasonable or responsible SF bicyclists. It's a extremist group of bicycle Marxists intent on punishing the motoring public for driving cars. They want $10 a gallon gas, $100 to $200 parking meter tickets, street closures & shrinking of streets, endless Berkeley style traffic calming controls, GG Park closed off to cars entirely, a London style (Orwellian!) congestion pricing scheme enforced with thousands of ticket cameras that would charge motorists $20 or more daily to drive downtown, photo ticket cameras at all city intersections, a 15 MPH speed limit on city streets, and a $1000 minimum yearly vehicle registration fee. Their mean spirited anti-car agenda is to punish motorists for the crime of driving. Don't give them any money or support!
Labels: Critical Mass
posted by Rob Anderson @ 10:23 AM
2 comments
2 Comments:
This "corespondent" is not much of a thinker.
The SF Bike coalition is hardly "socialist". It's one the most loved, most effective organizations to improve this city.
As for critical mass, I agree, it's annoying and attracts a lot of anarchists (not socialists). That's the problem with it. I used to ride in it, now I'm totally turned off except for halloween.
The correct way to deal with CM is to give it a police escort that keeps it moving and stops it when necessary.
Still, you have to recognize that the reasons behind CM make perfect sense. This city is NOT a car city. And the bike and pedestrian infrastructure is terrible, everyone agrees with this, yet too little is done about it. There's no question that better bike infrastructure will make the city better for everyone, and until changes are made, CM will ride on justifiably (even if some of them are bloody annoying)
The SF Bicycle Coalition is "one the most loved, most effective organizations to improve this city"? Hah! My observation has been that the more people see the SFBC in action and/or learn what they are up to the less people like it. And it would be helpful if the SFBC stopped listing Critical Mass on its website calendar, but it's evidently too effective as an organizing tool for them to give it up.
Some examples of how the SFBC has alienated people: in Japantown, they wanted to take away street parking on Post St. for a bicycle lane, but the neighborhood consistently rejected the idea. Even so the SFBC kept pushing, much to the annoyance of the Japantown Task Force. The traffic circles on Page St. were a complete fiasco and rejected by that neighborhood. Taking away the street parking for a bike lane on Market St. between Van Ness and Octavia made the city and the SFBC a lot of enemies in that area. And the no-right-turn onto the new freeway ramp across from Octavia on Market St.---Supervisor Gonzalez introduced a resolution to make that happen---makes the SFBC and the city new enemies every day it's in force. This is in fact "a car city," SFBC fantasies notwithstanding. There are 452,813 motorized vehicles in San Francisco according to the DMV, including 373,115 cars. The problem with the SFBC is that they are actually more anti-car than they are pro-bike; their purpose seems to be to make it as difficult and expensive to drive in the city as possible.
Critical Mass does nothing but annoy people trying to get home after a long week of work. It's a monthly orgy of self-indulgence by a bunch of politically immature elitists.
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