[BCM] tonight's ride

Mon Nov 3 13:04:23 EST 2008

I just joined this list last night, so did I miss how many people got
stopped by the cops and what happened?

I was up front as we went by and I saw the cop check one way then the other
and it looked like he took someone out and when I looked back it looked like
there was a small pile up of fallen bikes.  I agree that we should show
solidarity, but I'm not sure how much we could accomplish by all stopping
and yelling at the cops aside from getting a riot squad called on us.
Certainly I'd have followed the Mass to go bail people out if they were
arrested and if money is needed for legal fees I'll be happy to contribute,
but at the scene I don't think there was much we could do.

Also, I appologise as I think I lead us the wrong way down a one way at one
point, but it was only because I was lost.  I tried to make a U turn around
an island to get out of the front and instead everyone followed me around
the bend =S  Quite a night of CM overall, the most memorable I've ridden
since I started last spring, for better or for worse.  Stairs were a bit of
a bottleneck but, like the alley in the north end some months ago, good
stupid fun in my opinion.

In regards to a more formal demonstration I would suggest flyering at a
critical mass for it at a later date.  I'm sure many would be happy to show
up, but probably not in lieu of the Mass itself.  Plus, who's still going to
be in the State House at 6 o'clock on a friday night to demonstrate in front
of anyway?

On Mon, Nov 3, 2008 at 1:46 AM, Hiroyuki Yamada <hyamada at mit.edu> wrote:

> Hooray for meaningful contributions to the discussion.
>
> I'm not sure where the other e-mail about the bike action on the common
> went, so I will respond here. I would be in favor of either teaming up with
> another bike advocacy group (does the BRA/Boston Bikes have any one on this
> list we can talk to? MassBike? I know we are kind of "having a tiff" with
> MassBike, but fundamentally we all want the same thing) or just doing our
> own thing. Either on a separate day, and either on the common or the steps
> of gov't center or wherever else, just making a big ol' scene. Maybe co-opt
> a CM day and utilize the energy of the 300+ cyclists -- announce it at the
> beginning so that those who want to just ride CM for the sake of riding
> bikes can do so, and anyone who supports our cause can come along with us to
> ___ (be it state house or the common or wherever). The only problem with
> co-opting a CM is that then we are at night, but I think it might be an
> interesting thing to try, and would almost definitely get a lot of numbers.
>
> Also, as per the comment about "pontificating" versus "acting" -- sometimes
> it's not quite that simple. In the case of CM, just riding at the front
> doesn't guarantee that the ride will go where you want it to go -- as I'm
> sure you all know the ride can kind of make decisions on its own without any
> one person making that decision. That, and, even in the event of a sensible
> group of people at the front making these so-called "decisions" and taking
> "action," it only takes one or two other cyclists to go down a one-way
> street or onto an on-ramp or whatnot before 2 more follow, and now five and
> ten and suddenly half the ride is 100 yards down the road and it is too
> late, too cumbersome, or just plain hard to shout to everyone to stop and
> turn around -- see the staircase example this last friday. And, as with all
> things CM, it is safer to act en masse, and splitting the ride into a few
> people who want to avoid a certain road and the remainder all plowing onward
> is counter productive to the safety-in-numbers CM enjoys.
>
> --Yuki
>
> jb fentner wrote:
>
> frankly i didn't know the cop had actually stopped the riders.. it looked
> more like one of them fell or something. meh
>
> anyway, when else do you get to ride on storrow? i've done memorial a few
> times but that's way less of a death zone even during rush hour. frankly, i
> was so effing wasted by that point that i was under the impression that we
> were going outbound on memorial until we pulled off by BU.. ;D
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > From: dave at st.germa.in
> > To: list at bostoncriticalmass.org
> > Date: Fri, 31 Oct 2008 23:33:53 -0400
> > Subject: Re: [*BCM*] tonight's ride
> >
> > Riding on Storrow Drive at night was a bozo move. Frankly, I'm
> > surprised the cops didn't do more than stop a few folks. What kind of
> > solidarity would you have liked? Should the entire mass have stopped
> > in the middle of Storrow and yelled at the cop? We're not talking
> > about a human rights march here -- the idiots at the front of the mass
> > decided to risk endangering the rest of the riders, and if they get
> > tickets as a consequence, too bad.
> >
> > Dave
> >
> >
> > On Oct 31, 2008, at 22:59 , jennifer thomson wrote:
> >
> > > hey all,
> > >
> > > just wanted to say that tonight's ride was awesome. especially
> > > riding on storrow!
> > >
> > > however, it wasn't ok that the ride abandoned the people who got
> > > stopped by the cop on storrow. we need a lot more solidarity in
> > > situations like these.
> > >
> > > jennifer
> > > _______________________________________________
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> >
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