Response to Boston CM Critics by Adam Kessel

by Adam Kessel, former Chicago Masser

(Posted to the CCM Listserv, April 9, 2000)

I'm not going to try to define objectively Critical Mass nor suggest
how it should function or what its 'aims' are. I will relate how I experience
it and what I view as some of its positive effects.

There is, in my view, a widespread misunderstanding that a Critical Mass
ride is trying to 'demonstrate' something to someone or convince people
to change their minds about things. I don't believe this is how social
change--or collective determination of uses of public space--occurs. In
fact, a highly respected professor of urban planning at UC Berkeley recently
published an article in which he said that the prospects of achieving
bicycling advancements in the US are specifically tied to the ability
of grassroots political pressure brought on by such groups/movements as
Critical Mass (Martin Wuchs, Transportation Quarterly, "Discussion
of 'Bicycling Boom in Germany: A Revival Engineered by Public Policy'
by John Pucher", Fall 1997).

The ride event itself has an overall neutral effect on the state of infrastructure,
education, and enforcement favorable to bicyclists. There are numerous
positive effects: people see a lot of bicyclists having fun, perhaps they
hand out informative flyers that change people's minds, etc.. There are
also, of course, some negative effects, which have been detailed in recent
postings to this list. In my view, these balance each other out.

The main difference that CM makes, I believe, is in the time between
rides, when otherwise depoliticized cyclists start to take action; to
write letters to their representatives and city councillors; to argue
with their neighbors, families, and friends; to become increasingly aware
of the primary role that the private automobile plays in determining foreign
and domestic policy, in separating out rich from poor and black from white,
in causing more deaths, injuries, and illnesses than all of the leading
'public health' villains.

I challenge you to contact the 'mainstream' bike advocacy organizations
in Chicago and San Francisco (with which I am the most familiar) to learn
about the roll Critical Mass and pushing the envelope has played in making
huge progress in these cities. I would be happy to provide you with contact
info for the Executive Directors of both organizations. You may argue
that the political climate is different in San Francisco, but I don't
believe that's so true for Chicago. Critical Mass has been indispensible
to energizing and activating bicyclists in these and other cities, and
has made -- I believe -- a tremendous difference in infrastructure, education,
and enforcement. These masses are anarchic, leaderless, and powerful.
Sometimes they follow the 'rules of the road', sometimes they don't.

The history of social progress (again, in my view) is punctuated by small
groups of concerned, determined people who had to 'bend the rules' a little
to achieve their goals. The very principle of direct action involves 'enacting'
laws that don't yet exist. When African-Americans first entered into Woolworth's
lunch counters during segregation, they were acting as if the world were
the way they wanted it to be. Clearly it wasn't, and they were (especially
initially) arrested, abused, and generally mistreated.

At the time, moderates claimed that it would be more effective to play
by the rules, using officially sanctioned methods to accomplish social
change: litigation, legislation, media work and policy advocacy to shift
'public opinion.' Earlier, abolitionists were accused of being too radical,
angering the entrenched power structure--and, in fact, of 'setting the
cause back'. Moderates (today generally referred to as 'liberals') play
an important role in implementing change. I perceive the Massachusetts
Bicycle Coalition to be just such an organization. And it is indispensable,
but not sufficient.

Progress that has been made--whether in civil rights, environmental protection,
economic justice, etc.,--has never occurred without a group that pushes
harder, that reframes the questions and recenters the debate, that occasionally
acts 'as if' what they wanted to be true were true. For me, this
is the role Critical Mass can play. I do not ride with Critical Mass (necessarily)
to make a good impression on people, to convince drivers of anything in
particular, to 'advocate'. I ride because I find the mass creates a temporary
autonomous zone (to borrow a slogan); a place where bicycles do have the
right of way--and not just on paper; an ephermal non-imaginary safe, quiet,
clean, and fun use of the public good, the streets which we all pay for
and the air which we all breath; a place where the rules are designed
for bicycles, not cars. To quote Chris Carlsson, one of the early instigators
of San Francisco's Critical Mass: "We conceived Critical Mass to be a
new kind of political space, not about PROTESTING, but about CELEBRATING
our vision of preferable alternatives, most obviously in this case bicycling
over car culture."

Day after day, I attend meetings of the Boston Redevelopment Authority,
the Municipal Harbour Plan Advisory Committee, the City Council, the Metropolitan
Planning Organization, and other bureaucracies too numerous to name. Decisions
in Boston are clearly made behind closed doors--more than any other city
I'm aware of. In Chicago, I worked as a researcher for a transportation
and land use citizen's advocacy group (http://www.cnt.org) and we were
constantly complaining about access to the bureaucracy there--but it pales
in comparison to Boston. It appears to be impossible to get a BRA agenda
without actually going to the meeting; nor to know the future schedule
more than a few weeks in advance. Citizen input is routinely ignored,
and since the meetings are during the day almost everyone representing
"citizen interests" is paid to be there. This is a closed process.

It is absolutely clear to me that these organizations do not make their
decisions based on reasonable arguments, on trying to do the right thing
'for the people of Boston', whether environmentally, socially, or economically.
Zoning, development, traffic planning--all are politically driven. And
I can assure you that bicycles as a mode of transportation are totally
off the radar (at the very best--a token afterthought). Until bicyclists
are organized--and I believe Critical Mass is a powerful tool for organizing
and politicizing otherwise disenfranchised bicyclists--there will be no
sea of change. We will celebrate excruciatingly small victories. But we
can do much better.

You are welcome to disagree. If you are interested in shifting the direction
of Critical Mass in a 'positive' sense, bring more of the type of people
you'd like to have riding, the last Friday of every month at 5:30pm at
Copley Square. Design your own flyers to hand out over the month or at
the ride. Or create an entirely separate ride to demonstrate effective
cycling techniques. As I understand, the Charles River Wheelmen, the Granite
State Wheelmen, the North Shore Cyclists, the Seven Hills Wheelmen, and
numerous other groups frequently have group rides that are not protests,
direct action, or parties and adhere strictly to the written law. These
are also options.