Critical Mass bike movement at 20 years COMMUTING

Thousands of bike riders gather at Justin Herman Plaza in preperation for the 10th anniversary of Critical Mass. Thousands of bike riders gather at Justin Herman Plaza in preperation for the 10th anniversary of Critical Mass. Photo: Mike Kepka, SFC Photo: Mike Kepka, SFC Image 1 of / 12 Caption Close Critical Mass bike movement at 20 years 1 / 12 Back to Gallery

The bicycle party known as Critical Mass turns 20 on Friday. Hundreds, possibly thousands, of riders in all manner of dress and - if recent history holds true, no dress at all - will band together for a commemorative, congestion-causing cruise through downtown San Francisco.

The event comes at a time of enormous growth in the number of people who are engaging in what 20 years ago was still considered rebellious behavior - commuting by bicycle.

Chris Carlsson, the Critical Mass spokesman, said he expects 5,000 to 10,000 riders on Friday, more than 10 times the number of riders who routinely participate.

"It's going to be a gigantic mess, but it is going to be fun," Carlsson said.

The ride, which starts at 6 p.m. at Justin Herman Plaza, is expected to include a contingent of children and a large number of women - an apparent attempt to shed the group's anarchist reputation. The idea behind the protest is still the same, though, Carlsson said: to challenge America's reliance on gas, oil, the automobile and the internal combustion engine.

"This is still an utterly car-centric city and an utterly car-centric state," Carlsson said. "The goal is to create some open space for us. We're saying we want to ... smell the city differently and taste the city differently and when we're all on bikes, that happens."

The anniversary ride will celebrate a movement that burst onto the urban scene in September 1992 with pedal-pushing hordes running stoplights and bringing the afternoon commute to a standstill.

There were several clashes, including one in which angry bicyclists smashed the rear window of a family's minivan, but the animosity appears to have mostly subsided. The presence of San Francisco police, including escorts, has helped.

The monthly pedal fest has, for the most part, become a part of city life, just as cycling is now part of the daily commute. The city's 2012 State of Cycling Report said there has been a 71 percent increase in the number of bicycle riders in the city compared with five years ago, when the city first began logging bicycle trips.

Credit where it's due

David Chiu, president of the Board of Supervisors and an avid cyclist, said it was responsible citizen cyclists who stepped up and improved the situation, not Critical Mass.

"I understand what Critical Mass was trying to do 20 years ago, but today it is only a minor part of the broad bicycling community," Chiu said.

San Francisco is now third in the nation in ridership behind Portland, Ore., and Seattle. About 3.5 percent of all commute trips in San Francisco are by bicycle, compared with 2.1 percent five years ago, according to the report.

Market Street alone saw a 43 percent increase in the number of people cycling between 2010 and 2011, the largest jump in the number of pedalers in any single year.

"When I started biking in the city 18 years ago, it felt pretty lonely. Now when I ride, I'm surrounded by bikers," said Leah Shahum, the executive director of the 12,000-member San Francisco Bicycle Coalition. "We're really seeing the change in more families riding together, more kids, and more professional people riding in with their briefcases and their computers."

Shahum said recent infrastructure improvements had a lot to do with it. The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency has put in new bikeways and bicycle lanes on Market Street, JFK Drive, Cargo Way and Cesar Chavez Street. More than 25 miles of bike lanes have been added over the past five years, bringing the citywide total to 65 miles.

More parking, more trips

Two years ago, the supervisors adopted a goal, proposed by Chiu, of making 20 percent of all commute trips in San Francisco bicycle trips by 2020. Legislation was passed last year encouraging construction of bicycle parking in downtown buildings.

The effort, done in collaboration with the bike coalition, has included public outreach and bicycle education programs, which many believe have decreased the number of cyclists who ride on sidewalks, run red lights and ride recklessly through traffic.

"Our goal is to make our roads safe for 8-year-olds and 80-year-olds and for all residents to see bicycling as an attractive alternative to walking, driving and taking transit," Chiu said.

Lenore McDonald, 59, of San Francisco said the effort is beginning to pay off. McDonald, the director of an Oakland nonprofit who decided three years ago to get rid of her car and commute down Market Street to BART on her bicycle, said what began as an extremely dangerous commute from the Panhandle has improved steadily.

"When the bike lanes went in, the comfort level and the safety really increased," she said. "As more and more bike lanes go down and the city becomes more recognized as a bike-friendly place, it will be easier."

Critical Mass shrinks

There is, everyone agrees, a great deal more that needs to be done to make San Francisco truly bicycle friendly, but the number of cyclists who believe the streets need to be taken over to prove the point seems to be decreasing. The Critical Mass anniversary comes at a time when attendance at the mass bike ride has ebbed. An average of about 500 riders have been showing up for the past six months, Carlsson said.

However many people show up Friday, Chiu said, he will continue to push for bicycling infrastructure improvements so that one day San Francisco can match internationally known bike-friendly havens like Amsterdam, Paris and Copenhagen.

"We know when the economy comes back, we will see enormous congestion in our downtown as well as our freeways, and we need to find alternative solutions," he said. "Bicycling has to be one of the solutions."