But, the Critical Mass folks are rather rude in presuming that their desire to make a point trumps the desires of everyone else on the road (even if everyone else on the road is mean). Besides, there is a certain amount of irony in trying to convince people to share the road by hogging it yourself.When I first started riding my bike for transportation, I agreed with you. I guess I still mostly agree with you. But it has become abundantly clear to me that being polite is not very effective. Polite cyclists get ignored. Polite dead cyclists get blamed for being doored or right hooked or whatever. Drivers routinely do things that endanger cyclists, and many of those things aren't even illegal. It's not illegal to open your door right into the bike lane without looking. It's illegal to double-park in a bike lane, but it happens all the time, and I've never seen anyone get ticketed for it.
In the summer of 2008, The Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) removed three marked crosswalks along Nickerson Street. These crosswalks were removed because they no longer met national guidelines for unsignalized marked crosswalks. When the crosswalks were removed, SDOT made a commitment to the community that we would evaluate other pedestrian improvements along the corridor – including a possible rechannelization or ‘road diet.’The same was true on Stone Way. In Seattle, road diets have primarily been about restoring crosswalks without adding additional signals and reducing stop-and-go traffic flow by creating the center turn lane. If they'd have just added planters in the leftover roadway or something instead of bike lanes people could complain about the stupid, entitled trees or whatever.
And I honestly don't get the thinking behind the idea that some traffic laws are "optional".If you jaywalk, you think that some traffic laws are optional. That's hard to realize in New York, because it's so completely accepted. But spend some time in Germany, and you'll get used to the idea that a "don't walk" sign means that you don't walk, even if there's nothing coming.
Mass is traditionally held on the last Friday of every month in every city where it is held. It is usually held around rush hour, but there is no set time and there is no set route. The Mass moves as a demonstration of consensual anarchy, where certain individuals who are regulars in the scene can tend to steer the mass in one direction or another. Folks peel off if they want to ride somewhere else. Others might join as the mass intersects with them.all the same, I think that your choice of equating cycling advocacy to gay rights is still an imperfect one. Though, I must confess that my familiarity with gay rights is probably as incomplete as yours is about cycling advocacy. Still, from my impression, part of the reasons for sit-ins, demonstrations and civil disobedience is that it is because it was one of the few options open for a community that had little if no legal representation or advocacy within society. No politician at the time would have wanted to be associated with the movement because they didn't want to be accused of being a homosexual themselves. Cycling is different in that it is possible for the community to recruit full fledged advocates for themselves within civic or state government, and while, demonstrations like Critical Mass can be useful for maintaining community cohesion and energy, it can also be very counterproductive to the efforts of legitimate advocates.
Thus short of opting to leave work late or early it is impossible to plan your commute to purposefully avoid Mass, especially if you aren't a regular cyclist and are just peripherally aware of the phenomenon. You can go for months without it impacting you, and then one Friday, you're in the thick of it.
Eventhough I ride, I goddamn hate it when I cross paths with Mass because, like other commuters I'm just trying to get where I want to go, and they will hold up my intersection as they cross perpendicularly and when I ask them to make way or wait for the red, they give me some crap about not being a joiner.
fwiw, my idea of a bear is that it is a creature that will leave you well enough alone under most circumstances. What you left out in your response to me was the fact that I used an example where individuals performed actions that were specifically provocative. I think that two men who've had some drinks in them in a bar have a non-zero chance of getting into a fight if one of them does something disrespectful to the other (like unprovoked aggressive physical contact). If one of them happens to be gay, that doesn't automatically flip the fight into queerbashingExcept that's not what you said. Let's look at the replay:
The Pride equivalent of Critical Mass would be an army of drag queens barhopping through the local sports bars near your stadium of choice and forcibly switching every big screen TV to karaoke for one song before moving on to the next bar, slapping the various ya-doods on the ass on the way out.That's not about two people in a bar, one of whom happens to be gay, having a fight. That's specifically about drag queens singing karaoke and touching straight men's bottoms, and it's about the jocks (the bears, somewhat ironically) then jumping the stragglers from the group of drag queens and beating them up because they are drag queens who have been singing karaoke and touching straight men's bottoms (or possibly physically attacking latecomers to the bar for the actions of their friends - that part is unclear). That's a bit of a fantasy situation - it usually doesn't take that much to inspire homosexual panic - but other than that it's pretty textbook. It's OK not to remember what you've written, but - really - it's right there. But no problem - feel free to substitute "violent act against gay men who have been provocatively gay".
Kinda awesome, but probably likely to elicit similar reactions if news emerges that some stragglers from the barhopping got jumped by jocks (as in: seriously terrible that it happened, nothing excuse violence, but WTF, man?) There's sharing nature with bears and then there's poking those bears with a stick and saying, "see! share! share! RESPECT ME ASSHOLE!"
>That violence should never be encouraged or justified or approved, but it's possibility must be acknowledged and weighed against the point that you're trying to make.1 I think this may be confirmation bias, but I haven't done a count.
I think what most of us (or at least I)1 would point out is that the point that Critical Mass tries to make is generally not worth the resentment that it provokes and by extension not worth the risk of violence that is attached to it.
>You've built up your own little strawman that gay pride marches are just like critical mass gatherings.You appear not to have noticed that I had already responded to bl1nk's correction - which you favourited, remember?
>DNye -- inaccurate metaphor. Pride is a permitted demonstration/march that is coordinated with the city and includes logistical support from the police to ensure that traffic is diverted and that the march wraps up in an orderly fashion.by saying
>That's very trueI guess that you were possibly too upset to have noticed that - judging from your tone, this is a very emotional issue for you, what with all those thundering metaphors about horses and men and being afraid in the dark - ooh, scary! - but no harm done. Maybe we can all learn something about how sometimes the straw man is in our own eye, eh?
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I... I just can't top that quote for unintentionally-introspective witty responses to this incident.
Fact: Cyclists and drivers simply can't share the streets peacefully for one fundamental reason: They can't (or at least, don't), go fast enough. Even in a 25 zone, you rarely see cyclists keeping up with traffic (Well, until you come to a light, which they then run with gleeful abandon amidst a symphony of horns - But that goes into whole different category of lesser reasons why they can't share the road).
And don't get me wrong, I'd rather see cars banned from the road than bikes. But both should not coexist.
posted by pla at 7:03 PM on February 28, 2011 [3 favorites]