Critical Mass

If you have never heard of the monthly event called ‘Critical Mass’, you might have seen them passing you by for a fleeting moment in the city - hundreds, sometimes thousands of cyclists riding on the streets on one day of the month.

There are critical mass rides almost everywhere in the world - it is a ‘monthly bicycle ride to celebrate cycling and to assert cyclists’ right to the road’. There are no main organisers nor official representatives, all that is known is a set date and time for the ride to start (usually the last Friday or Sunday of a month).

Opinions on what a CM is or should be about differs and as there is no-one to define it, it is up to each representative city to explain it. For example, Critical Mass Berlin writes: ‘Cyclists ride together around the city whilst following all traffic rules, and through their presence they remind that the road traffic regulations are much more friendly/open to muscular strength than most motorised road users believe.'

Some also say that the CM is also a reclamation of (public) space. There is often the complaint and critique that a CM event blocks and disrupts traffic, however no-one complains about the predominance of cars, lorries and motorcycles that choke and pollute the cities every day without a feeling of guilt or responsibility. Everyone who participates at a CM becomes part of the mass - the more people who participate the earlier the ‘criticality’ is achieved that frees the roads from the sea of motorised vehicles.

The idea started in San Francisco in 1992, when a dozen cyclists rode in the city and called it ‘Commune Clot’. Some of those participants later watched a film documentary on the bicycle culture in the Netherlands and in China. In China, motorists and cyclists negotiated the road space without signals. At intersections, traffic would queue up until it reached enough ‘critical mass’ to move forward. Hence, the name was changed to 'Critical Mass' and it become a monthly event.

Cycling in Berlin is not only often much faster and cheaper than using public transport (where you pay 2.80 euros for a single ticket), it also has a lot of health and physical benefits. Cities know that the promotion of cycling plays an important part in climate protection, noise reduction, air cleanliness and health protection. With a rising population in Berlin, the ownership of bicycles as well as cars has increased. While in 1996, 322 out of 1000 owned a car, in 2012 it was 342. On average, a car is occupied by 1,3 persons. 

I thoroughly recommend attending the next Critical Mass event in your town or city. You will notice how much space there is in this world if cars and lorries didn’t dominate the cityscape. And the more people pick up on cycling in general, the more 'critical mass' it will perhaps create in the long run.

Sources and more to read:

http://www.ziv-zweirad.de/fileadmin/redakteure/Downloads/PDFs/radverkehr-in-zahlen.pdf
http://fahrradstadt-berlin.de/berlin-verkehr-fakten-daten-zahlen/
http://www.critical-mass-berlin.de/infos/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_Mass_%28cycling%29
https://network23.org/criticalmasslondon/who-are-we-what-are-our-aims/
http://critical-mass.info/
http://www.berlin.de/senuvk/verkehr/politik_planung/zahlen_fakten/download/Mobilitaet_dt_komplett.pdf