Something special is happening in Barcelona

Re:Something special is happening in Barcelona by throwawaysea on Saturday October 23, 2021 @04:33PM (#28971977)

Critical mass events are incredibly disruptive and are an offensively aggressive act to those who are just trying to go about their day and use the infrastructure for its funded intent - which is to say, cars and other motorized vehicles that move at higher speeds. It’s one thing to advocate for changes through proper political channels. It’s another thing entirely to hijack infrastructure, clog intersections by circling up, and violently harass drivers (what I’ve seen in SF). That’s not a protest, but a riot, and participants should be arrested and charged.

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Re:Something special is happening in Barcelona by SkeuomorphicBee on Saturday October 23, 2021 @05:25PM (#28972455)

That is a very clueless take. Cars disruptively and offensively aggressively hijack that infrastructure every single day, then cyclists claim back one single road for only two hours a month and you claim they are the disruptive ones? They are not clogging intersections, they are using them.

The intent of the infrastructure is to move people, cars and other motorized vehicles hijacked it and excluded other users.

And to claim that cyclists are violent towards drivers is the pinnacle of absurdity. Drivers using their 2 tonne heavy machinery as a weapon, driving towards people, and then you blame the victims for tapping on the bonnet of the aggressors weapon.

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Re:Something special is happening in Barcelona by jjav on Sunday October 24, 2021 @03:06AM (#28975553)

> Cars disruptively and offensively aggressively hijack that infrastructure every single day

If roads were built for those cars, one can't claim they hijack it when that's what it's for.

We can argue it shouldn't have been built that way, but given that it was (in the US anyway), there's no hijacking involved in using it as designed.

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Re:Something special is happening in Barcelona by frereubu on Saturday October 23, 2021 @05:26PM (#28972466)

I participated in London, and saw mostly the opposite. Most of the ride was well-behaved and didn't hold people up much, and there were drivers constantly behaving in really dangerous ways, like trying to drive into the mass. Like you and someone else who replied to you, I was uncomfortable with the deliberate blocking of intersections, but "participants should be arrested and charged" is way over the top for what used to happen in London - perhaps SF had a different vibe.

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Re:Something special is happening in Barcelona by ardit33 on Saturday October 23, 2021 @05:42PM (#28972622)

Yeah, it started devolving into vandalism / hatred towards cars:

Critical Mass cyclist attacks car with U-lock in San Francisco https://www.kron4.com/news/critical-mass-cyclist-attacks-car...

Minivan's rude introduction to Critical Smash https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/matier-ross/article/Minivan-s...

A Toyota mini van sits in a repair shop in Mountain View with a broken back window and numerous scratches to the body. The van was attacked by critical mass riders last friday. At the time of the attack a woman and five kids were in the car.

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Re:Something special is happening in Barcelona by lostdog on Saturday October 23, 2021 @06:36PM (#28973050)

You found one event from 2007 where the driver didn't exercise control of their vehicle "According to police, Ferrando had allegedly tapped one of the cyclists' tires."

And one from 2015 where the driver endangered the cyclists "then a driver of a Zipcar moves toward the cyclists."

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Re:Something special is happening in Barcelona by pedalpete on Saturday October 23, 2021 @05:01PM (#28972223)

This is why I stopped attending, and I think it harmed the effectiveness of the movement.

In Vancouver, we were having a great ride through the city. We may have been delaying traffic a bit, but that's fine. Then they decided to ride up the Lions Gate Bridge (the main artery in and out of the city) and stop all traffic going in both directions for about 10-15 minutes.

The friends I was with all agreed we wouldn't participate again because of those actions.

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Re:Something special is happening in Barcelona by seattle_spring on Saturday October 23, 2021 @07:22PM (#28973363)

The OP has nothing to do with "critical mass" events, so your comment seems like nothing more than a non sequitur.

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Re:Something special is happening in Barcelona by carapace on Saturday October 23, 2021 @05:21PM (#28972408)

You're being little hyperbolic (in re: SF Critical Mass) but not by much. I live in SF, don't drive, and I used to commute by bike, but IMO the advocacy here can get a little, um, intense.

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