Which if either would you like to see hit the streets of jacksonville?

Critical Mass: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_Mass
The idea started in San Francisco in September 1992 and quickly spread to cities all over the world. This site attempts to be the most complete guide to all Critical Mass rides around the globe.

Critical Mass has a different flavor from city to city -- there's a big variety in size, respect of traffic laws (or lack thereof), interaction with motorists, and intervention by police. So if you want to know more about Critical Mass, you'll really need to find out what your local ride is like. For those who must know more right now, here's a link to Chicago CM, which I suppose is a "typical" CM ride, if there is such a thing.

Critical Mass has no leaders, and no central organization licenses rides. In every city that has a CM ride, some locals simply picked a date, time, and location for the ride and publicized it, and thus the ride was born.

CM is an idea and an event, not an organization. You can't write to "Critical Mass".

CM is intended to be a celebration, not an opportunity to cause trouble. Those who want to try to tie up traffic as much as possible and be confrontational with motorists are missing the point. We can assert our right to the road without being rude about it. Focus on the ride, not on the cars that also happen to be on the road.

Critical Manners:
In San Francisco, an event known as "Critical Manners" was created as a response to Critical Mass. Critical Manners rides through the city on the second Friday of the month, with riders encouraged to obey all traffic laws such as stopping at red lights. Tucson, Arizona holds the Tuesday Night Community Bike Ride as their alternative to Critical Mass. The weekly ride encourages bicycle commuting and motor vehicle awareness in a peaceful and friendly way.

Having done a critical mass before, I think jax needs a critical manners. I know bike night made a statement, who knows what a critical manners would do

I never really understood Critical Mass as a strategy; I don't think it is an effective way of changing public attitudes about biking.

I personally wish I lived closer to downtown or there was a Mass/Manners on the southside. I just don't have time during the week to make it downtown and I really hate driving somewhere to bike.

I live in the Southside area too and plan to attend any Critical Manners/Mass by riding my bike to it. You are free to accompany me to it when this event happens. Downtown is a 14 mile ride from the Southside and AC Skinner intersection and it is mostly very pleasant.

9a is my backyard wrote:I never really understood Critical Mass as a strategy; I don't think it is an effective way of changing public attitudes about biking.

I personally wish I lived closer to downtown or there was a Mass/Manners on the southside. I just don't have time during the week to make it downtown and I really hate driving somewhere to bike.

9a that is something to think about. I wonder how feasible or practicable it would be to not just holding Downtown Masses but to also have them start and end in different parts of the city?

It's the suburbs that need the most help. And CM on those congested streets would surly have the most impact.

I've seen and participated in critical mass events in other cities and I have to say I don't support them. While in theory the idea is great, like any theory it simply doesn't work in real life.

From what I've seen all it does is piss off people and leave a very negative image of cycling in both the regular population and local law enforcement. The events I went to had a mix of bikers who followed all the rules and were very respectful of traffic laws (these people tended to be older biker commuters or people into long distance bicycle racing) and then had your local nyc bike messenger wanabe's. Like it said it the article all it takes is a few people to cast a bad light on a event, and these people never failed to do that. They would purposely fill all lanes and not allow cars to pass, they would flick off drivers who they felt were not getting out of their way, and generally acted like a bunch of punk kids in a bicycle gang. It didn't help that these kids usually were heavily tattooed so that they fit the stereotype of what people expect troublemakers to look like. As a young and tattooed bicycle commuter I definitely felt ashamed to be seen next to people like this that were hurting bikers image.

I've never heard of critical manners till now but it seems like a great idea and a good way to promote cycling in a good image. Just as there are good drivers and bad drivers, there are good bicyclists and bad bicyclists, not only do we need to inform motorists of bicycle laws, but also inform are fellow bicyclists so that we can all present cycling in a better image.

I favor Critical Mass. I'll address the perceived problems, and then give my reason why its so important.

When people complain about this ride its usually regarding two main things already mentioned:
Failure to stop at red lights/disobeying major traffic rules
and
Aggressive behavior by the bikers themselves

First off, the stopping at red lights? I disagree with it as it has the potential to severely weaken the point of the ride. For example, lets say you are riding as a part of the mass and a light turns yellow after part of the group goes through. Bikers who choose to stop break up the mass and cause it to be a stop-go clusterfuck with constant shouts of wait up for everyone else. Wheras, should the yellow light come and the group is riding in a nice pack, the mass stays together and bystanders witness the strength of numbers. And it becomes a kind of parade, a citizen parade hooray.

Two, I wholeheartedly agree bikers can be assholes, and I am the first to hate on agro-behavior. However, this is something that individuals need to work on themselves. Educate others on unnecessary behavior, examplify what positive ride manners can do. Show what friendly waves can do instead of middle fingers. It is a horrible mistake to blame the game because of some rowdy players.

Now, to why Critical Mass is of utmost importance. The United States has become a country of citizens scared to death of protesting. We think sending letters to representatives are going to change something, I'm sorry but its not. This city will never be a better bike city until people get out in the streets and show that its necessary. Letters just prove theres a half hearted attempt, some wishful thinking, but when you've got a couple critical masses throughout the city and bikers up and down every block. Well, then you start getting visible, people start talking and numbers grow. When numbers grow, the media comes. And once the media gets involved, shit you've got your name on the map and not just among the few political insiders.

Critical Mass is important because it shows there is a need. It proves that bikes exist, and not just as the couple you see in isolated pockets of the city, but as a bloc. Do some research, the cities rated the most bike friendly have critical masses and (many other) bike rides (and events).

Leaving it to the individuals to be polite in a critical mass is more optimistic than I can see normal. It does not take much motivation to go that extra step when we are already running red lights. I am afraid that this will gain instant attention from JSO, and not in a good way.

I would like to reference the Night Ride in October 2008. It was a planned route through Downtown and the attendance was phenomenal. Bikejax was overwhelmed by the response. It did turn out to be a mini Critical Mass of sorts: running red lights and taking up more than one lane of traffic. We had immediate attention from a Police Officer in an unmarked SUV. Even though the group broke up into smaller groups due to stopping at the red lights, we still managed to create a 'Wow' factor to pedestrians and motorists along the route. There were enough cyclists to keep a steady flow in any group. Might I add that not all groups were on even the same route in the last 30% of the ride.

Abhishek wrote:I live in the Southside area too and plan to attend any Critical Manners/Mass by riding my bike to it. You are free to accompany me to it when this event happens. Downtown is a 14 mile ride from the Southside and AC Skinner intersection and it is mostly very pleasant.

Thanks for the invite Abhishek! I've biked downtown once and it was much easier than I thought. My only issue with riding to downtown for mass is I'm worried about being too tired at 2,3,4 in the morning to bike home after biking to and then all around downtown. But it would surely help to be doing it with someone else. What route do you take downtown? I've only gone straight down Beach then over the Main St Bridge.

Bikejax wrote:9a that is something to think about. I wonder how feasible or practicable it would be to not just holding Downtown Masses but to also have them start and end in different parts of the city?

It's the suburbs that need the most help. And CM on those congested streets would surly have the most impact.

I've always wondered about doing CM in the 'burbs but I think it would be less appealing to most of the people who would normally ride CM. There's less to look at and going through residential neighborhoods late at night can look a little suspicious and be unwelcome. I agree it would have more impact in the suburbs, I just don't know if it would have the same appeal.

I have been giving this much thought and here is my take.

Critical mass says it all. It has been a few years since I participated in the bike to work day which was a bit of a critical mass in which the police were involed, and some even rode escort if I remember right. People rode into Hemming Plaza from all over town and we took over to socialize, learn and show our numbers. This was a peaceful ride that even had some swag too.

I think that if a critical mass ride was organized that could also serve to acclimate motorists to the bicycle laws, then we could have something. Maybe go through a sponsorship route, involve FBA, LBS' and JSO. Ride legal, yet tight enough to be like one vehicle (broad interpretation of going through a light, ie. it was green when we started through...), taking what is legally ours (substandard width lanes), maybe shirts with laws printed on them to give the motorists something to read while waiting.

Then again, the flip side to travelling in one mass group is to create a wider spread of cyclists by allowing the lights to break up the mass so as to become interspersed amongst motor vehicles, while still following the laws that nearly no motorist knows.

Oh and the only times this should ever be done is during rush hour, not at night after the cars have left downtown, it is meant to be a bit of a cluster fuck that shows that bikes can get around as easily as cars can when the playing field is leaveled.