MATT CRYPTO
bark at about 40 cyclists over a loudspeaker,
ticket a young man for running a stop sign and
ride into the throng of bikes on his motorcycle.
“It was no longer comforting to see the
police,” Gunderson wrote by email. “Was the
officer ordered to harass cyclists and why? …
World Naked Bike Day 2006 in York, England
I’ve never witnessed police action like this and
was told by others that it is not unusual. Why do
Eugene citizens tolerate police state tactics?”
E
ugene police maintain that safety is their
main concern with Critical Mass. “We’re
all for them having the ride,” said EPD
spokesman Rich Stronach. “It’s just when we
start getting calls and they’re blocking traffic
that we have to do something about it.”
According to Stronach, EPD showed up for
E
ugene’s ride is just one spoke in a global
bicycle revolution. Since beginning in San
Francisco in 1992, Critical Mass has
spread to 417 cities across the globe.
MICHAEL W. PARENTEAU
CAROLINE STAUB
EPD officer Schultz tickets
Masser Dinae Horne.
woman’s heart go into a state of upset because
we can’t get across the roadway,” he said.
Thomas views Critical Mass as an act of civil
disobedience that is controversial by nature and
likely to exacerbate the very problems that he’s
trying to fix. “As a trial lawyer, I have to get the
jury past their irritation at Critical Massers,” he
said. “It’s difficult to maintain a positive rela-
tionship with car drivers when you’re holding
them up on a Friday night. It’s not really a neces-
sity; it’s a political statement.”
The same argument can be applied to other
progressive social change movements. In forest
activism, for example, there are the embedded
organizations, like Sierra Club, that use legal
avenues such as lobbying and outreach to make
change. Then there are tree-sitters and
EarthFirst!ers who get in people’s faces and
break the law for their cause. The legal
approach may be more palatable to more of the
public, but it’s the civil disobedience that
makes the news.
eight of the 12 Critical Mass rides from July
2005 to June 2006 — five times in response to
citizen complaints and three times as “planned
proactive responses.” City taxpayers spent
about $9,000 on those cop appearances,
according to figures provided by Stronach.
About $7,000 of that went to overtime pay for
the pre-planned responses to the March, April
and May rides (see chart).
It’s hard to argue that the city of Eugene is
anti-bike. Public Works staff promoted biking
and walking with the month-long July-in-
Motion and until recently encouraged bicycle
work commutes with the People Powered
Fridays program. Our little city has 119 miles
of bike paths and lanes and a thriving bike man-
ufacturing industry (see sidebar). And if that’s
not confirmation enough, Eugene makes a reg-
ular appearance on Bicycling magazine’s list of
the best cities for cycling.
The city brought Portland attorney Ray
Thomas, a bike rights advocate, to the Eugene
Library on July 12. His bottom line is safety for
both bikers and motorists, but his sympathy is
clearly with bikers.
Although he has represented Critical Mass
participants in court, Thomas isn’t a fan of the
-Ray Thomas, bike attorney
In San Francisco, 2,000 to 5,000 bikers gen-
erally show up for the monthly Mass rides —
yet SFPD Captain Al Casciato estimated that
police have arrested no more than four Massers
over the past year. In Eugene, where rides sel-
CAROLINE STAUB
Helmets and Seatbelts
Last year, about 500 people died in car crashes in Oregon alone — a figure
close to the number of annual bike fatalities for the entire country.
According to data provided by city bike coordinator Lee Shoemaker, there were
334 reported accidents involving bikers and motorists in Eugene between 2001
and 2005. Most resulted in injury, and five were fatal.
Bicycles account for less than 1 percent of all trips nationwide, but cycling
fatalities made up 1.5 percent of all traffic deaths in the Oregon in 2002. Although
these figures imply a greater danger for cyclists than motorists, bikes may consti-
tute a higher percentage of trips in Oregon thanks to our bike-friendly cities.
In terms of motorist safety, residents of denser communities drive less and are
at a lower risk of death from car crashes than residents of sprawling places, as
reported in Sightline Institute’s Cascadia Scorecard 2006 . The same report says
that only 12 percent of Lane County’s residents live in compact communities,
compared with a quarter of Portland’s and two-thirds of Vancouver, B.C.’s resi-
dents.
Meanwhile, a fifth of our state’s population is obese, likely related to low levels
of physical activity. Obesity-related ailments claim 1,500 lives in Oregon a year —
many more than the lives lost to bicycle or automobile accidents. — Sarah Mazze
• Critical Mass info: www.critical-mass.org
• Eugene Critical Mass’ MySpace page
www.myspace.com/eugenecriticalmass
• We Are Traffic , documentary on Critical Mass
history, available at Center for Appropriate
Transport (CAT): 455 West 1st Avenue,
344-1197 www.catoregon.org
• Critical Mass history:
www.scorcher.org/cmhistory
• Return of the Scorcher , bike culture
documentary by Ted White
• “How to Not Get Hit by Cars,”
www.bicyclesafe.com
• “Why go by bicycle? 15 good reasons,”
www.gobybicycle.com
• Oregon’s bike laws: www.oregon.gov/ODOT/
HWY/BIKEPED/docs/bike-ped_statutes.pdf
• Pedal Power: A legal guide for Oregon
Bicyclists , by Ray Thomas: www.stc-
law.com/pdf/PedalPower_4th-ed.pdf
• Bicycle Friendly Communities:
www.bicyclefriendlycommunities.org
dom have more than 50 cyclists, police have
charged 16 Massers with criminal misde-
meanors (mostly disorderly conduct) since
June 2005 in addition to an untracked number
of traffic violations, Stronach said.
Critical Mass in San Francisco, April 2005
‘It’s difficult to maintain a positive relationship with car
drivers when you’re holding them up on a Friday night.’
ride. He recalled a time when he was driving
his mother-in-law to a Portland hospital to see
her dying son, and Critical Massers blocked
them in. “So here I am, a bike advocate, and my
brothers and sisters of the road are making this
Bike Resources
The difference is in the policy. The SFPD
treats the Mass as one large vehicle, which
means that if cyclists at the front of the ride
enter an intersection on a green light, the rest of
the Mass may proceed even if the light
changes. Volunteers from local bike advocacy
groups wear orange vests and block the side
roads so that motorists won’t enter the Mass.
That cooperative approach makes the ride safer,
more peaceful and easier on the police,
Casciato said.
The San Francisco rides weren’t always so
smooth. There have been mass arrests, angry
mayors, angrier bikers. But the SFPD eventual-
ly got the point: The system wasn’t working.
The new approach, with less police presence
and more volunteer monitoring, has dramatical-
ly cut both the numbers of arrests and motorist
complaints. “Now, I can do Critical Mass with
my eyes closed,” Casciato said. “Normally at
the end of the night we say, ‘The ride is over,’
and we all clap.”
Portland police haven’t had as much luck.
First they monitored the cyclists heavily and
got complaints that they were being overbear-
ing; then they left the rides alone and got com-
plaints of vandalism and assault. “Our presence
has ebbed and flowed with the tenor of the
ride,” said Portland Police Bureau spokesman
Sgt. Brian Shmautz. “It’s morphed and gotten
much calmer over the last year or so.”
Now the Portland police generally hand out
fliers at the beginning of Mass rides to inform
AUGUST 10, 2006 13