Critical Mass lives to ride another day

by: Renata Sancken

Cyclists in defiance of ban on "illegal" protests in London's Parliament Square (28 October 2005).
PHOTO: Peace News , editorial@peacenews.info

Worldwide: In a recent months, environmentally friendly Critical Mass bike rides in New York City and London have attracted large numbers of cyclists and have successfully fought off police interference with the events.

New York

New York’s Critical Mass, a loosely organised worldwide movement of cyclists who ride together, usually monthly, in an attempt to outnumber the car traffic in the city, existed peacefully for more than 10 years until August 2004, when city police began cracking down on the event as a precursor to the Republican National Convention. Since then, dozens of cyclists have been arrested each month up until October 2005, when thousands of cyclists participated with zero arrests. The successful Critical Mass event can be at least partially attributed to the letter-writing campaign initiated by the World Carfree Network (WCN), a Czech-based international organization and resource centre. WCN also sent a number of international observers to keep an eye on police activity.

London

Despite police threats in September, London’s October Critical Mass ride met with similar success, an estimated 1000+ riders taking part and with no arrests. Although Critical Mass has no formal structure, organisation or official “leaders”, the Metropolitan Police had handed out letters to cyclists during September’s ride, demanding to know the official route of the ride and had threatened to arrest riders if the ride was not officially planned. While there appears to be safety in numbers, London CM’ers remain concerned that the police might retry their authoritarian approach if fewer people participate next month.

Budapest

Earlier this year, the Critical Mass movement saw another great success when, on 22 September, an estimated 24,000 to 30,000 people took part in Budapest’s ride. This made it not only the biggest Critical Mass in Hungary, but also one of the biggest to take place in the world. Hopefully, these are all signs of a positive long-term trend for Critical Mass.

Find a CM ride near you

London: rides meet at 6pm on the last Friday of every month beneath Waterloo Bridge on the South Bank.
Elsewhere in the UK: http://www.criticalmass.org.uk/list.html Check out this list
Worldwide: http://www.critical-mass.org/ Here’s a global CM directory

Further reading on this story

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/ (current front-page feature)