What caused the "chaos" of the most recent Critical Mass ride? Willie Brown and his inflammatory remarks are what made this ride different from all previous rides. For five years monthly Critical Mass rides have been peaceful. Even as the size of rides grew, the traffic disruptions were far less than that caused by a vehicle stalled on the Bay Bridge at rush hour.
In the weeks before this past ride, Brown's grandstanding about traffic disruptions have been purposeful attempts to focus attention on bicyclist traffic tie-ups and away from his own recent role in disrupting traffic. His Conference of Mayors last month caused traffic jams throughout the city. And his veto of the CalTrain extension torpedoed one of the most sincere attempts to deal with the serious traffic jams that plague downtown **every** evening rush hour. People should realize that most traffic jams are caused by cars.
Brown set up a situation where he could claim that Critical Mass had violated an "agreement". He publicized a negotiation with several bicyclists over the Critical Mass route, knowing full well that they could not represent a group that had always used participatory democracy to make decisions over routes at the beginning of every ride. Calling these individuals "representatives" of Critical Mass is like calling Ward Connerly a "representative" of African Americans on affirmative action.
By whipping up sentiment against traffic disruptions, Brown was able to justify the mass arrest of 200 non-disruptive bicyclists as stand-ins for those who had caused trouble.
Howard Besser, 7/26/97
(one of those caught in the mass arrest)
Adjunct Associate Professor
School of Information Management & Systems
UC Berkeley
howard@sims.berkeley.edu
http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/~howard/