Comments on: Around Town This Week: Roads, Slides and Trails

By: Will Merydith

Will Merydith — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 20:11:36 +0000

This is a perfect opportunity to illustrate what I was talking about in my post about Social Media and Tags. Go to http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/criticalmass (notice how I stuck the tag "criticalmass" on the end). And there you will find what is essentially a collaborative (photo) blog on the topic of Critical Mass. Critical Mass is an event held round the world in major cities. Basically tons of people on bikes (mostly made of bike messengers at the core) converge at a time and place and fill the streets. They follow a designated route and essentially take over the roads for awhile. Some are HUGE. They'll take over all four lanes of a city street for several blocks. Basically in Seattle the police now provide escort and it ends up being a compromise between chaos and control - shutting down traffic in a relatively organized fashion. It's pretty awesome to watch of bike in.

By: yermama

yermama — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 18:31:49 +0000

Sundar, I agree. I'm always looking for the road least traveled for biking. I hope to heck that the Burlington bike lanes may hopefully slow down traffic on that thoroughfare, but I have my doubts.

For those of us not familiar with the NW, can you or Will explain Critical Mass, post some video, report results? Google helps, but it'd be cool to hear it from those who lived there.

From what I'm reading about the 230 rides in North America, I think it'd be very cool to have a Critical Mass event in FF once a month.

By: Sundar Raman

Sundar Raman — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 15:04:08 +0000

I'd say the best source of information on Critical Mass is the wikipedia article on the topic. It's essentially a way to subvert the car-centric world by taking over a main street during one of the busiest commute hours of the month. Usually that's the last Friday afternoon of the month. But to alleviate the stress, CM is often themed – the cyclists dress up and it becomes sort of an activist parade in costume.

There are a couple of CM rides in Iowa: http://criticalmass.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_rides…. />
I wish I had taken pics of CM in Albuquerque or Chicago when I lived there, but never did But there are a *lot* of pictures on flickr and google images on the topic.

By: Will Merydith

Will Merydith — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 12:49:38 +0000

I do miss Critical Mass in Seattle. I know it annoyed thousands of car commuters but I loved it.

By: Sundar Raman

Sundar Raman — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 05:48:42 +0000

I've been thinking about the bike lanes on Burlington for a while. I'm curious about how the decision was made to add bike lanes to this road vs. making one of the side roads (say Jefferson and Stone) bike priority (meaning double bike lanes with cars having lower priority when bikes are present). Not that I object to the bike lanes on Burlington at all.
I'm somewhat ambivalent about the dual-purposing of a main thoroughfare primarily for bad-weather and late-night reasons. I never feel safe on a bicycle with higher-speed traffic. And I dislike being sloshed on by passing vehicles in bad weather (rain, snow).
Then again perhaps this is the best way to make people less car-centric. Maybe we should start up Critical Mass in Fairfield!

By: Will Merydith

Will Merydith — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 22:12:46 +0000

Everybody's lost only one space in the re-design? Impressive. Did anyone win the contest to design a new lot? #fairfieldia