Critical Mass Panic

Friday's "!st fR!deay" was immensely successful! Thank you to all who came out and made the streets a little more fun and kind. A few auto-automatons called riders harmless names, while a few used their motor-boxes to threaten fellow road users in a not-so-harmless way. Other than this, the reception on the streets from the car-free street-users was warm and friendly, especially thanks to the radio transmitter that kept the funky tunes flowing from several radios that riders strapped on to their bikes. "Tune your radio to 106.3!" became the ride's rallying cry. !st fR!deay did, however, experience a bit of token police harassment. While traveling with traffic eastward through the Chelsea district, riders were joined by a lone NYPD Interceptor vehicle. At ninth avenue, the group stopped at a red light. The physically-separated bicycle lane running down the avenue creates a marked bike-box beyond the pedestrian crosswalk. Most of the riders stopp...

If you are reading this blog, you probably have already been made aware of the recent judicial ruling regarding the parade regulation created by the NYPD in their attempts to control Critical Mass in New York City since 2004. The plaintiffs of the case also attempt to call foul on the police's alleged profiling and selective enforcement activities against suspected Critical Mass participants. Here is a round-up of some of the media coverage. Be sure to check out the numerous and contentious comments which accompany these: 5BBC , Streetsblog , Gothamist , NY Times , Bike Snob NYC , Bike Blog NYC Here's a taste of some of the testimony given by police officers at the Federal Courthouse last May, through the eyes of a court-room sketch-artist: "Chief Tuller believes that cyclists must ride about 3 feet from parked cars, but can't recall why he believes that!" "Deputy Inspector DeQuatro believes the NYPD is protecting the free speech of cyclists and keeping ped...