Critical Mass costs SF taxpayers $10,000 a month
This is the last Friday of the month, and that means it's time for Critical Mass, which costs city taxpayers $10,000 a month for an SFPD escort to protect the punks on bikes from irate motorists and motorists from the punks on bikes.
Labels: Critical Mass, Punks on Bikes
posted by Rob Anderson @ 12:17 PM
19 comments
19 Comments:
I don't see where you get your $10K number from that article. Are you saying it's "costing" the city by bikers not getting porta-potties or putting down cleaning deposits? Your anti-bike propaganda should be a bit better justified.
Are all you bike people remedial readers? From the Channel 5 piece: "And then there's police protection. For 20 officers, it's more than $112,000 a year, and another $13,000 for two sergeants."
As a person who has been on but chooses not to partake in Critical Mass any longer, I have to agree that, yes, Critical Mass ain't helping the advocacy movement. Quite the opposite I'd say. The writer of the article comes from the same perspective, having been in Mass.
Imagine how much it would cost if they tried to shut the whole thing down every month.
Think the cops have to work overtime right now?
Make sure to factor in the court costs and cost of possible incarceration, too.
The city's decision to begrudgingly protect rather than bust Critical Mass isn't a statement of support; it's an acceptance of the fact that it's tough to stop a leaderless, anarchistic demonstration. SF tried to kill CM during the Willie Brown years and failed.
Your comment begs the main question about Critical Mass: why does it happen in the first place? What does the fact that it does happen tell us about the leadership of your movement? I've never advocated siccing the cops on Critical Mass. What should happen first: the SF Bicycle Coalition should stop listing it on their calendar, while hypocritically denying responsibility with that weasly disclaimer. Then they should actively discourage their membership from taking part by making public statements to that effect. Progressive politicians like Ross Mirkarimi should also diassociate themselves from Critical Mass. By explicitly and tacitly supporting Critical Mass, the city's progressive leadership is doing the city a disservice, for which they will eventually pay a political price, since even you must know that this kind of behavior will never be accepted by a majority of city voters.
perhaps a fund raising needs to be started to pay for a lawsuit requiring the Mayor and Police to start enforcing the traffic laws. Let's have a vote on "critical mass," even though it is a very clear violation of many laws.
It is odd that once a month so many bicyclists show up at the same place and at the same time and decide to go for a bike ride together. Maybe they enjoy riding with other cyclists after a long month of being terrorized by reckless car drivers during their daily commutes. Maybe they like to look at all of the cute people and do something different than what usually happens on the streets of sf at 6pm on a Friday evening.
Or raise enough money to get the issue on the ballot to allow city voters a chance to have a say. It would be much harder for the city to ignore the will of the people.
"Maybe they like to look at all of the cute people and do something different than what usually happens on the streets of sf at 6pm on a Friday evening."
Or maybe they're just a bunch of elitist assholes who enjoy screwing up traffic for working people trying to get home after working hard all week.
"Your comment begs the main question about Critical Mass: why does it happen in the first place?"
It happened because cyclists wanted to ride without being intimidated by motor traffic.
You'll notice that critical mass did not catch on in cities that had good bike networks.
You have cost the city way more than critical mass ever will, Rob.
So that justifies cyclists intimidating everyone else and the $10,000 per month cost to city taxpayers? What Critical Mass really represents: a bunch of crackpot elitists indulging themselves by bullying those of us---that is, the overwhelming majority---who don't share their goofball hobby.
Saying that critical mass is a unorganized, leaderless event is a joke. If its organized to the point where everyone in the city know when it is and the city provides police escort....its obviously a well organized event that should be paid for by the participants.
As Rob already pointed out, we the taxpayers, are already shelling out tens of thousands of dollars for bicycle "education".
In all of the times I've attended critical mass, I've never seen an elitist -- except the ragers in bmw's flipping the cyclist off and fuming impotently.
are you kids really freaking out about critical mass? its just a bunch of people ridding bikes. they do it for different reasons but i feel the underlining motive is simply to have fun with other cyclist.
the "bike punks" i know think cm is a hippy fest and have nothing to do with it. they just go around at night and slash tires of any car that looks expensive.
you should be happy critical mass exists as a mostly peaceful outlet for bike users.
I dunno. The city loses lots of money on cars. It seems like the city would save money with every person who traveled by bike instead of by car, and critical mass galvanizes bike use.
One Friday night, I was sitting on a bench at Starbucks on 18th near Castro about 8 PM. This one of the busiest times for pedestrians in the Castro, which has some of the highest pedestrian counts in the City in the evenings.
Critical mass riders come along. There are about 200 of them. Of those 200, about 40 are riding up the sidewalk, hitting or almost hitting dozens of pedestrians.
This should not be happening!
By contrast, the city doesn't spend a time policing auto traffic.
I don't think I've ever witnessed a driver trying to drive down the sidewalk and almost hitting or actually hitting pedestrians. I've witnessed bicyclists doing it all the time.
OFF THE SIDEWALKS, BICYCLISTS! TODAY!
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